The bright yellow foliage throughout the growing season makes this tree stand out like a shimmering beacon. This oval-shaped tree, to 40′ tall, is widely adapted to heat or cold. It is a black locust with pretty compound leaves, white flowers and thorns on the smaller wood. This is a very fast-growing tree that has many uses – it’s a nitrogen fixer and a good choice to plant with Black walnut or Chestnut in a woodlot. The wood is famously rot resistant, and makes dense, long-burning firewood. Flowers are excellent bee forage.
In a woodlot or as a windbreak, plant trees 10 feet apart. It grows too big (40′ or more) to make a good hedge. Trees can begin to be thinned and harvested for firewood and rot resistant posts in 8 to 12 years. The thorny trees will send up root suckers which also grow into trees (although suckers will be green, not gold), even after a mature tree is cut. This way they replant themselves.
