Hedge

[haveawoody]

Hedgerow,

I bet they would be difficult to id with hedge looking more like a shrub than a tree.
I bet it would be some serious hardwood though after many years to get that way

Same sort of effect happens to all trees living close to the region they cant, they end up being slow growing shrubs.
Bet the same thing would happen on an orange tree in your area.

Natural bonzi orange LOL

 

[3fordasho]

The map shows it east of me in Wisconsin, west in South Dakota, and a little south in Iowa.. Don't know why it wouldn't work in
Southern MN.... Guess no one has brought it in.

Doesn't look like it. Go here for a USDA range map:

PLANTS Profile for Maclura pomifera (osage orange) | USDA PLANTS

General FYI: I don't think USDA competes with AS sponsors.

 

[mountainmandan]

Seems like my life is a love/hate relationship with the mighty Hedge. When I'm not cutting them for firewood, I'm cutting them out of fencerows, or trying to keep them from taking over a pasture or cutting them for fence posts.

And the THORNS! Good golly Gomer, the thorns. My wife and I laugh at the young guys with thier barb wire tats, I got barb wire and hedge thorn scars all over my arms, the wife says I dont need the tat, I got the real deal. Got a bad hedge thorn stab on a finger last winter, this summer the doc over at the VA hospital took a benign cyst the size of a large garden pea off of it, he said without a doubt a result of the hedge thorn.

I still love the mighty Hedge.

I have found the thorns to have more of a ripping action instead of just sticking you. I still cut it for my own wood supply.

Dan

 

[Hedgerow]

I have found the thorns to have more of a ripping action instead of just sticking you. I still cut it for my own wood supply.

Dan

Yea... They can tear skin...
But at least they aren't like these devils!!!

 

[indiansprings]

+100 on that Hedgerow, I'd rather cut Hedge than Honeylocust anyday. Too many flats, almost need foam filled tires or aircraft tires on any vehichles around the tree. I girdle the honey locust to kill them a year before planning to cut them down, I've found that it causes the tree to drop a bunch of the torns after they die. I hate how the torns have the toxin on them to make any puncture wounds fester up and become sore.

 

[Hedgerow]

+100 on that Hedgerow, I'd rather cut Hedge than Honeylocust anyday. Too many flats, almost need foam filled tires or aircraft tires on any vehichles around the tree. I girdle the honey locust to kill them a year before planning to cut them down, I've found that it causes the tree to drop a bunch of the torns after they die. I hate how the torns have the toxin on them to make any puncture wounds fester up and become sore.

That's pretty much all we got at my favorite deer hunting haunt...
40 acres of thick Honey Locust... Sucks, but it holds a lot of deer once the shooting starts.

 

[haveawoody]

<img src = http://falltoclimb.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/buckthorns.jpg?w=368&h=277>
This is a pretty nasty customer to cut down, common buckthorn.
Looks similar to hedge thorns, wonder if they are related?

I've burnt some of it and i would place it up against anything in btu, coals and wood density.
Only thing i have ever burnt that was just a bit better than rock elm so i bet it's real a contender for #1
I remember when i burnt a bit of osage it was similar to rock elm for heat.

Fun cutting the thorny beasts though and most buckthorns are small trees or even big shrubs.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

It grows here in Colorado - very slowly - but it grows.

I've turned some on my lathe. It's like turning a piece of steel.

17% more dense than hickory. The most dense wood in North America, IIRC.

 

[Hedgerow]

It grows here in Colorado - very slowly - but it grows.

I've turned some on my lathe. It's like turning a piece of steel.

17% more dense than hickory. The most dense wood in North America, IIRC.

Nice tractor... Looks like an R...

 

[Mac88]

17% more dense than hickory. The most dense wood in North America, IIRC.

MIL has a rolling pin made of hedge. She has really big biceps. :msp_biggrin:

 

[haveawoody]

Larry Ashcraft,

Buckthorn i think it's an overlooked serious firewood.
It grows wild here and same for slow slow growth.
Small trees and covered in nasty thorns i think is why it gets little attention.
Like hedge most people are put off by a tree that fights back.

Once it gets beyond about 8" diamater it's not bad to cut as firewood.
Just don't try to save any branch wood and don't drive past it LOL

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

Nice tractor... Looks like an R...

Close. It's an AR, 1950 model. It was my granddad's.

 

[3fordasho]

Larry Ashcraft,

Buckthorn i think it's an overlooked serious firewood.
It grows wild here and same for slow slow growth.
Small trees and covered in nasty thorns i think is why it gets little attention.
Like hedge most people are put off by a tree that fights back.

Once it gets beyond about 8" diamater it's not bad to cut as firewood.
Just don't try to save any branch wood and don't drive past it LOL

I agree that buckthorn came make some good firewood. Problem is around here you seldom see it bigger than 6-8" with 2-4" being the normal - just not worth it at those sizes. And yea, the wood hauler looks like someone took a scouring pad up and down the sides thanks to Buckthorn. It also makes pretty good turning wood:
<a href="http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/?action=view&amp;current=DSC00330.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/DSC00330.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

 

[haveawoody]

3fordasho,

It looks like a mahogony cup, bet it turned just like it.

Same here for the sizes usually 2"-6".
Easy to miss them in the woods though since they look so much like black cherry when they finally become a tree.
I've cut them thinking it was black cherry just to discover a thorny nightmare usualy without gloves on LOL

Like you say though lots of work on the small beasts but at 8" and beyond well worth it.
I never would have guessed that buckthorn BTU is near identical to coal at 35mbtu.
I bet you know what happens if you burn coal in a woodstove LOL

 

[3fordasho]

3fordasho,

Like you say though lots of work on the small beasts but at 8" and beyond well worth it.
I never would have guessed that buckthorn BTU is near identical to coal at 35mbtu.
I bet you know what happens if you burn coal in a woodstove LOL

Holy crap I didn't know it was rated that high, that would make it by far the best firewood around here (no osage orange)
The lots I've been working are absolutely infested with it but 90% is the small stuff. I have huge brush piles of it. I do keep the 4" and up stuff, guess I'll have to stop including it with the firepit wood I sell and keep it for home heating.

 

[haveawoody]

3fordasho,

I bet you noticed your firepit burn for a long time with it.
Not sure why it doesn't make the btu lists and is diffucult to find a rating for it.
I guess it's just never thought of as firewood so not many have used it.

My nextdoor neighbours field is all black cherry and buckthorn.
He stands firm it's all black cherry and i keep telling him in a couple years nothing will move in your field.

The good part about buckthorn is no splitting involved with most of what you get, the bad thing is getting out alive with that wood. LOL
Great time of year to find the bigger trees, just look for anything that has black cherry fruit on it and look closer.

 

[MattB]

I've only encountered it one time, on a ranch in Mendocino. I cut a big spar off of a tree in a 100 year old orchard. I really wish I had known what I was working with. We bucked up about a dozen bow blanks for firewood. Totally strait, no branches or knots for 8', about 22" diameter before forking. Still bugs me, I'm not sure there are many out there that size. The bulk of the tree is still there. I'll try to get a picture. It must be 40" across at the ground...not dbh.

The cut is sprouting like crazy. We cut the spar about 5 years ago and the sprouts are 15'+ tall and 5" diameter. Now I'm wishing I had pruned and trained the sprouts for bows...sigh...

 

[Idahonative]

In response to Stihly Dan's comment in another thread about never having seen Hedge in New Hampshire:

Here's a small one. "Hedgerow" can probably come up with some pics of a monster-sized one.

Bark:

Grain. It's dense. Around 4800 lbs/cord. I've heard that hedge has the highest BTU rating of any native American tree. 30 MBTU/cord. A couple chunks, mixed in with some lighter stuff, will keep you warm all night.

In response to Stihly Dan's comment in another thread about never having seen Hedge in New Hampshire:

Here's a small one. "Hedgerow" can probably come up with some pics of a monster-sized one.

Bark:

Grain. It's dense. Around 4800 lbs/cord. I've heard that hedge has the highest BTU rating of any native American tree. 30 MBTU/cord. A couple chunks, mixed in with some lighter stuff, will keep you warm all night.

Recently learned that mountain mahogany has 35 MBTU/cord making it the highest BTU rating of any native American tree. 17% higher BTU than hedge:

http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/mountain-mahogany-heaviest-firewood.269274/

 

[rancher2]

We have a 160 acre pasture we bought 10 years ago that the old timer that own it in the 1930's had the WPA guys plant rows and rows of hedge and then no one ever harvested any of them. Between them cedars and locust the whole pasture had gotten taken over. We are slowing getting them in check and getting fence back up and grass growing.There has been a lot of post and firewood cut. In this area it is very spotted to find hedge you get south of us 50 to 100 miles where more pasture and cattle are and more hedge was planted in the 1930's. Makes great firewood but it is a bitch to deal with. I have a Garn boiler and locust and hedge is all I burn in it.

 

[Hedgerow]

We have a 160 acre pasture we bought 10 years ago that the old timer that own it in the 1930's had the WPA guys plant rows and rows of hedge and then no one ever harvested any of them. Between them cedars and locust the whole pasture had gotten taken over. We are slowing getting them in check and getting fence back up and grass growing.There has been a lot of post and firewood cut. In this area it is very spotted to find hedge you get south of us 50 to 100 miles where more pasture and cattle are and more hedge was planted in the 1930's. Makes great firewood but it is a ***** to deal with. I have a Garn boiler and locust and hedge is all I burn in it.

Ole MoJim always told me "Anyone cutting Hedge to sell, is working for short wages"...