Osage balls

[Bud B.]

I have located a stand of Osage on private property inside the city where I work. Ironically, I remember when these trees were cut down 21 years ago. They have now grown back to meduim sized trees and their fruit is everywhere.

I have gathered several of the balls and wondered how I might get one to germinate? I'm not sure if the ball is one seed or several.

Any thoughts?

[D]

I'm not for sure if the seeds are inside the Hedgeapple but I have been told that the juice inside it is like glue and can make a good mess. lol..I've never been inside one myself just relaying hearsay.  I say cut one open and see what happens

[Bud B.]

I have cut one before. They ARE a sticky mess.

[Eric Krewson]

Each fruit will have hundreds of seeds in it. Put a bunch of the fruit balls in a 5 gallon bucked and leave over the winter in a shady place. The balls will rot down to a mush. In the spring you can separate the seeds and plant them or dig a trench and plant the mush. If you plant the mush in a shallow trench you will have more seedlings then you can imagine.

I planted the mush and transplanted the seedlings as they emerged.

[TNstickn]

Im gonna try that Eric.

[americanhunter7]

They make a great indoor insect (mainly spiders) repellant too!   ....Ah the mighty Osage so many uses, and a SUPER bow maker to boot.

[TREESLEEPER]

I pickedup some balls this weekend. Went online andfound several methods including planting the mush in a trench. Let winter do it's thing on them. I will try to separate and start seeds in pots with a sandy type of soil mix. They sure are sticky!

[Bud B.]

Any idea of the growth span? I'm guessing 10-15 years depending on the growth of each plant, plus how open they are without other cover plants nearby.

[ber643]

To the best of my knowledge, we don't have Osage down here on the coast, Bud, didn't even know we had them anywhere in NC. I wonder if you should try planting some of the seeds down here (like where your wife's folks live) since you are thinking of moving here when you retire. Don't know if anyone's tried before or not but it would be interesting to see if they'd grow here.

[Eric Krewson]

Back when I was growing osage seedlings I would transplant the seedlings into gallon pots, let them grow a year and discard any that were noticeably crooked or doglegged, only kept the very straight ones.