planting osage orange seeds Osage Orange – Living Soil Tree Farm

planting osage orange seeds Osage Orange – Living Soil Tree FarmOsage Orange (Maclura pomifera) Osage orange is an interesting tree native to the south central United States. There are several attributes of this tree that may be of interest to you. The wood of Osage Orange is highly valued for its color, grain, and resistance to rot. This makes the wood useful for tool handles, fence posts, and decorative work. Osage orange has large thorns especially on the younger trees. These thorns make the tree a potential

Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera)

Osage orange is an interesting tree native to the south central United States. There are several attributes of this tree that may be of interest to you. The wood of Osage Orange is highly valued for its color, grain, and resistance to rot. This makes the wood useful for tool handles, fence posts, and decorative work. Osage orange has large thorns especially on the younger trees. These thorns make the tree a potential candidate for use in living fences (a thick thorny hedge used to deter animals from passing). Before the widespread use of barbed wire Osage Orange was commonly planted in hedges for this reason. Their thorns also help deter deer.

The trees develop softball sized yellow/green fruits in the fall. The fruits are full of a very sticky substance and many small seeds. On the east coast it seems that the fruits largely go unnoticed by wildlife with the exception of squirrels who will occasionally get at the seeds. Other animals may eat the fruits in its native range and horses have been known to consume the fruits from time to time. The seeds are said to be edible although we have never tried. There is a distinct pleasant smell if you cut the fruit open, almost appley.

Getting the seeds out of the fruit is a challenging process and we are still working on refining our methods. Since we are planting the seeds and not eating them it is okay if there is some pulp mixed in with the seeds. Our favorite method is to ferment & then smash the fruit and spread the pulpy mix on the ground in the fall. You can find videos of us processing & planting the seeds on our TikTok and YouTube. Please do your own research before eating any wild foods!

Do note that this tree is found often outside of its native range. Our seed comes from healthy trees in the suburban environment of Hillsborough NC (outside its native range). Use care when planting this tree outside of its native range. We like to grow Osage Orange and feel it has a place here. That said there are many other great tree species native to our region of earth that you should consider as well!