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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-152
Osage Orange
Maclura pomifera
Osage Orange is a living fence - rows of this thorny tree fenced the American plains before barbed wire existed, and it still grows into a stock-proof hedge that needs no imported material and regrows itself every time it's cut. It tolerates alkaline soil better than almost any other tree researched in this set, along with heat, drought and flooding alike, and it is the species the Dust Bowl shelterbelts were built from. Cutting the hedge is not maintenance overhead - the tree resprouts vigorously from the stump, especially from winter cuts, turning hedge-laying into a scheduled firewood and biomass harvest. It comes in two forms worth telling apart: thorny seedlings for a true stock-proof barrier, or named thornless male cultivars for shade or posts without the litter or the spines.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate · Wet
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 35–60 ft
- Mature spread
- 35–60 ft
- Plant spacing
- 24–60 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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