Great Design Plant: Honey Locust Tree

Great Design Plant: Honey Locust Tree

The honey locust tree is a urban and rural pioneer. While it’s more likely to sprout naturally in country fields, this tree is among the most well-known choices for sidewalks, town parks and parking lots, because it stands up just nice to road salt and compacted dirt, and it is tolerant of dirt that is in very poor shape in general.

We haven’t chosen the honey locust predicated on its own strength alone; it’s a stunning form, supplies wonderful dappled light, sports some beautiful and delicate leaves and contains year-round interest. This tree is fast growing and ought to live to 100 (possibly even 120). I am recommending the thornless version, Gleditisea triacanthos inermis, as the regular honey locust’s thorns are wicked.

The New York Botanical Garden

Botanical name: Gleditisia triacanthos inermis
Shared title: Honey locust (thornless)
USDA zones: 4 to 8 (find your zone)
Water condition: Very little beyond first planting
Light requirement: Full sun
Mature size: 60 to 100 feet tall; 50 feet wide
advantages and tolerances: The honey locust tolerates drought, flooding and warmth. It can thrive in poor soils, including soils that are compacted; it can even stand up to salt. It isn’t tolerant of shade and several pests.
Seasonal interest: Fragrant yellow-green flowers in spring; bright green compound leaves in summer; yellowish fall color; black, furrowed bark to admire in winter
When to plant: Fall

Distinguishing traits. Whilst honey locusts are famous for their wicked thorns, this thornless cultivar is much more user friendly. Honey locusts are famous for their beautiful dappled light. They have deeply furrowed, blackish or dark grey bark. They are fast growing and have straight single trunks, and their silhouettes are oval and quite full.

Note: Honey locusts also have seed pods, which fall. Some people believe them cluttered.

The best way to use it. One of my preferred uses of honey locust trees is located in Paley Park in nyc. The trees soften each the straight modern lines of this beautiful pocket park. Their compound leaves supply filtered light into the park users below. Due to their forms and their tolerance for stressful urban conditions, they’re among the most popular road trees.

Wagner Hodgson

Honey locusts are a popular choice for courtyards and patios too. Because they’re a pioneer species in agricultural fields, they could give a rural feel to a style, such as in this photo. Also, you can grow shade-tolerant plants and grasses under them because of their dappled light.

Honey locusts are generally utilized in windbreaks, and many creatures enjoy munching in their seedpods.

Planting notes:
select a spot that gets full sun and keep in mind that this tree will fall pods, which means you probably don’t wish to plant it over a fountain or pool.Dig a hole that is as deep as the root ball and about two to three times the width of the root ball.Shake out the loose soil from the root ball and place it in the hole. Fill the remainder of the hole with dirt and pack it down. Water thoroughly.

Dick Clark + Associates

Fun facts:
• The pulp of the honey locust can be fermented to some powerful alcohol.
• The honey locust does not really produce any honey it obtained its name from the the sticky residue that forms inside of its seedpods.

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