A new hedge row starts today

Thank you Missouri. The dept of conservation just delivered 200 Osage Orange trees.  They are bigger than I expected, and thorny as can be.

     "One hedge apple would yield about 300 seeds. One bushel of hedge apples in the fall - about 80 apples - would yield 24,000 seeds the following spring. The seeds were then direct-seeded into a prepared seedbed on the farm or planted at the nursery and sold as seedlings. Planting contractors were available to establish hedge rows for 37.5 cents per rod ($120 dollars per mile).
In the 1860s, the Osage orange market went wild. Prices jumped from $8 a bushel to $50 a bushel. In one year alone, 18,000 bushels of seeds were shipped to the northwest United States - enough seed to plant over 100,000 miles of Osage orange hedge! "Hedge mania," as one newspaper called it, was rampant."
https://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/1995/11/enduring-osage-orange
     "A single row of hedge trees planted a foot apart would yield a fence that was "horse high, bull-strong, and hog-tight" in 4 years. Some farmers would weave the already twisted and intertwined limbs of the young trees tightly together, a technique known as "plashing," for a more impenetrable barrier. Use of the Osage orange tree as hedge was so common throughout most of its introduced range that "hedge" became the tree's common name."

That's amazing to see.  Best of luck . . . and a thick pair of leather gloves.

First 75 planted. I took a couple pictures of part of the row.   They don't show up to well.  I'm shot for the day.

Trace,

Congratulations on the Osage Orange score!  As you found out, those little bushes come with big thorns.  They are mildly toxic—not in that you are going to get sick or die, but the scratches get irritated and sore.

I can’t remember,  were you planting Osage for privacy, livestock or firewood?  It will work great for any of those purposes, but personally I think that they are tops for firewood, burning long, slow and hot.  They are almost like living coal.  And for such a hard wood, they grow fast.

I had an Osage Orange tree/bush near me growing up.  At various times people tried to kill it by cutting to the ground but it kept pushing up from the stump.  I made great firewood for the fireplace.  In fact, it was so hot burning that we were warned to not burn more than one moderate sized (4” diameter) log at a time or it might melt the grate!  It certainly burned hot—though smoldering was maybe a more apt description that burn as there were virtually no (but blue) flames and white-hot coals.

At any rate I look forward to seeing how this project works out.  Please let us know.

Eric

The main purpose is a fence on my front property line, between my property and the road.  It's the only thing I know of thick enough to keep my dogs on my property.  They have lots of room to run, but I don't want them getting to the road.  It will also keep poachers off my land.

These trees will also be the beginning of a large hedgerow of native trees and bushes that I'm planting as wildlife habitat and pollinator plants.  I have a couple hundred more trees for pickup today from my county.  Native plums, , honey locust, redbud, ninebark are being added so far.  I'm expecting the birds to plant lots of other natives to fill in, and it will be undisturbed except for the Osage Orange being made into fence the first few years and further planting of other natives.  Ultimately, the hedgerow will be 30 to 40 feet wide, or whatever I can get done before I die :)  That part of my land is open, so the rest of the plants going in won't be rows, just a lot of trees and bushes put in at random, but thickly planted.   Whatever survives and spreads is okay with me.  I'm excited to watch the progress over the coming years.  

Eric Hanson wrote:

I can’t remember,  were you planting Osage for privacy, livestock or firewood?  It will work great for any of those purposes, but personally I think that they are tops for firewood, burning long, slow and hot.  They are almost like living coal.  And for such a hard wood, they grow fast.

Another purpose, according to the Missouri dep't of conservation: "Osage orange posts set 50 years ago are still standing strong."

A 30’ thick hedge will make quite a natural barrier.  Sounds like quite a project, I like it.

Eric