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Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 18, 2012 18:13:05 GMT -5
I love that book, I'm going to have to go back and read the whole legume tree section. It gets kind of depressing when you read all his cool ideas and realize that they were almost totally ignored. That book is getting close to being a century old.
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Post by circumspice on Nov 18, 2012 20:27:15 GMT -5
One last comment on honey locust - make sure it's the thornless variety. The thorns are lethal. You ought to see the thorns on a mesquite tree. Out in west Texas, I have had to repair the tires of an A-frame road grader that had mesquite thorns pierce through the thickest part of a 4 inch lug. Mesquites are similar to the honey locust in that they are leguminous & they do fix nitrogen in the soil. Ranchers hate them because they are a real threat to scarce water supplies. The tap roots can go down nearly 200 feet to literally tap into the water table. Mesquite beans are sweet & well loved by wildlife, it also makes an exceptionally good honey. There's a lot of positive aspects to the species, it produces a very dense hardwood suitable for many woodworking applications & is a great wood to use for hardwood smoking. But its invasive habit, difficulty of eradication & its competitiveness for water make it undesirable to have in an arid location. I'm very lucky I don't have any on my land. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesquite |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2012 22:30:40 GMT -5
To me, it's interesting, all the things a productive person could find to do. Before researching these trees, I only knew of them as weeds. Anything is potentially very useful.
I started researching mesquite before traveling to the desert, saw gourmet fare and beautiful works of art being made from reclaimed wood. I don't think most people would assume they were in the presence of something valuable.
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Post by synergy on Sept 23, 2014 0:10:50 GMT -5
Looking for honey locust seed in Canada , I am happy to pay for them.
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Post by MikeH on Sept 23, 2014 7:47:58 GMT -5
Looking for honey locust seed in Canada , I am happy to pay for them. I've got a couple of friends with thornless honey locust growing. Really big seed pods. It's just about harvest time so I'll check them out. If I can get some, I'll send them along to you. I've got your Langley address. Payment??? Pay it forward. |
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Post by synergy on Sept 23, 2014 8:02:36 GMT -5
Thank you Mike H, you know I do : ) Did any of your hawthorne germinate ? I find it odd I have none sprouting up from birds along my fence lines, I threw seeds under the fencelines too and nothing , nor even under the hawthorne I collect berries from . I transplanted some other hawthorne a few years ago that someone wanted removed and about 4 survived so those in addition to the established one I sent you seeds from . Anyways I am truly grateful if I can get seeds of the thornless Honey Locust . I have been running my own little experimental nursery here growing things and have been giving away lots of rooted fig cuttings and have had some success with rooting my grapes this year. Next I need to try layering and rooting some oriental kiwi vine because I love eating those and they are good on the vine from the beginning of November till the second week of December when we have little else for fresh fruit (they took 7 years to start fruiting ).
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Post by MikeH on Sept 23, 2014 10:04:39 GMT -5
Did any of your hawthorne germinate ? No. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with our tap water - portageperennials.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/the-garden-path-not-taken/. I usually slightly moistened the vermiculite with water. If our water-softened tap water is not good for seedlings, then perhaps it's not good for seed germination either. I've managed to acquire four different hawthorne varieties - Washington, Downy, 'Homestead' Arnold Hawthorn, and a local wild variety that I've not yet identified. It'll be awhile before they are large enough to yield fruit so any thoughts of using seedlings for rootstock will have to be based on cloning by cuttings. |
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Post by petitvilaincanard on Sept 23, 2014 16:24:38 GMT -5
Thank you Mike H, you know I do : ) Did any of your hawthorne germinate ? I find it odd I have none sprouting up from birds along my fence lines, I threw seeds under the fencelines too and nothing , nor even under the hawthorne I collect berries from . I transplanted some other hawthorne a few years ago that someone wanted removed and about 4 survived so those in addition to the established one I sent you seeds from . Anyways I am truly grateful if I can get seeds of the thornless Honey Locust . I have been running my own little experimental nursery here growing things and have been giving away lots of rooted fig cuttings and have had some success with rooting my grapes this year. Next I need to try layering and rooting some oriental kiwi vine because I love eating those and they are good on the vine from the beginning of November till the second week of December when we have little else for fresh fruit (they took 7 years to start fruiting ). My experience with hawthorn is that seeds need some time of incubation before germinating. One time i tried to sow hawthorne in containers. Nothig coming up. Next year I recycled the potting earth from these containers for other container grown plantstock(mainly buxus).Guess,a hundred hawthornes germinated in between the buxus.That's how I got so many hawthorn mixed in my buxus fence. If you want a fence that is sheep proof you surely want to plant mainly hawthorn it makes a dense branchage,with extremely agressive spines.It's a hell to handle when you prune it though. honey locust has spines but the branchage isn't dense and it grows relatively fast to big trees so for fence it's not so effective as hawnthorne,although the spines can be bad. it reject new trees from the roots,a few meters to tens of meters from the mother tree(Once that tree is big).That's why people who don't like it call it 'invasive'.If you like the usefull properties of it's wood you say that the stuff grows really well. |
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Post by prairiegarden on Jan 23, 2016 10:44:52 GMT -5
If you wanted thorns then you could try the black locust which is a wonderful honey tree and shares most other characteristics of the honey locust, but those thorns are pretty lethal as well...and both honey locust and black locust have the reputation of volunteering sometimes more vigorously than would be wanted.
Synergy, did you ever get any honey locust seed? I am ordering some this spring, I have some but it's several years old and I want a lot, planning on planting them as coppicewood for firewood if nothing else. It's a tad iffy if they are entirely hardy in this climate so planning on planting lots in different areas to maximize survival rates. Anyway, if you didnt' find any seed I could send you some when the fresh batch gets here but it wouldn't be for a couple months, likely. I haven't ordered it yet, still trying to sort out wishes vs budget, but those are on the A list. If you don't want to wait, you can get them from J L Hudson ..I had very good germination from the ones I got from him before.
The ones I am getting are thornless btw, forgot to mention that. And something else I read recently is that they co-exist happily with black walnut but wouldn't warranty that
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