The Versatile Osage-Orange

American Forests, Autumn, 2000 by Jeff Ball

Some places grow osage-orange specifically to produce fence posts. After the post material is harvested, the plants resprout and in five to 10 years produce more fence posts.

Osage-orange would probably even make a wonderful ornamental landscape mulch, although wood that dense would probably be hard on shredders. An osage-orange bush could be pruned every year to produce some mulch for home landscape use. It would probably last longer than any other mulch sold today.

IN THE HEDGEROW

During the 1800s farmers planted thousands of miles of osage-orange hedges to keep their animals in place, more than a quarter-million miles worth by one estimate. In 1850 a bushel of osage-orange seed cost $50--a lot of money in those days. The trees were planted close, woven together, and aggressively pruned to promote a low, bushy, thorny hedge.

A workable fence took only four or five years to grow and was described as "horse high, bull strong, and hog tight." The hedge needed to be tall enough to stop a horse from jumping over it, stout enough to keep a bull from pushing through it, and the branching tight enough to prevent a hog from wending its way through it. Most hedgerows stood about 40 feet tall and 30 to 40 feet across; quite a barrier indeed.

For 20 years, I have advocated what I call the "suburban hedgerow." The osage-orange would be a wonderful component to that concept, providing a dense, thorny barrier--just as the hawthorn did in European hedgerows of the Middle Ages.

As American cities continue to sprawl, causing forests to become more fragmented, perhaps the osage-orange could serve as a means to connect the fragments. My suburban hedgerow concept calls for an 8- to 12-foot-wide hedgerow that would replace a 700-foot fence between two one-acre properties in new developments. Two neighbors would share this new, green "fence." Deliberately planted as a hedgerow, it would be made up of regionally appropriate shade trees, understory trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses. The design is attractive, low-maintenance once established, and serves as a bridge between wooded areas for mammals, birds, insects, and amphibians.

Because osage-orange grows relatively quickly, I would make it a candidate for my suburban homestead plans, but I would insist upon male trees so I could get the thorus. Some people might even want "messy" female trees. The fruits make good outdoor Christmas ornaments or could be used as insect pest repellents in the winter.

Old hedgerows that have survived over the past 100 years and are no longer needed to fence in farm animals now serve as habitat islands for many creatures that otherwise might not be found in the midwestern prairies.

In 1948, Kansas alone still had about 96,000 miles of osage-orange hedgerows. While not particularly attractive as a food source for wildlife, old osage-orange hedgerows offer superior cover and protection for many birds, small mammals, and insects.

There is one exception, though: squirrels. Squirrels will go to great lengths to get at osage-orange seeds, each of which is covered by its own individual shell. After the squirrels have had their treat, piles of shredded hedge apples remain around the base of the tree.