All the Dirt on Gardening

Osage Orange trees are advertised in plant catalogs as small to mid-sized, meaning they become 30-to-50 feet tall, with a 40-foot wide crown at maturity. It is said that in early American history, these thorny trees were planted along property lines as fences, keeping animals in and strangers out, and making prairie settlement possible. Osage Orange fence posts took root across the prairie and made thickets in ravines and farmsteads. The many names that Maclura pomifera is known by include: Orange wood, bois-d'arc, bodark, bowwood, hedge-apple, mockorange, and live barbed wire. The wood of this mulberry family member is not only strong enough to make hunting bows, it is the only tree that produces orange wood. The Lewis and Clark expedition noted finding it in St. Louis, MO in 1804. Early settlers used the root bark to make a yellow dye. Native to Arkansas, Oklahoma and eastern Texas, Maclura pomifera are now found in zones 4 to 9, from New England to southern Colora...