I am in Canada, in Ontario, and want some Osage Orange seeds or cuttings...I bought seeds from a "company"and had terrible success...planted hundreds of seeds this year, got ZERO to grow! I am not a novice to seed starting, but am deeply disappointed that I got nothing for my money/time/effort! I want to grow Osage for the reason it was grown in the past...to make hedgerows to keep livestock in.

Osage Orange is commonly referred to as hedge, or bois d'arc/bodark (bow wood) around here. I don't know of anyone that sells hedge apples and wasn't aware that it would grow as far north as Canada. Most of the trees in this area are found along the creeks. They grow about a foot per year in our climate. We burn it in the wood stove.

Here, they grow at the edges of fields that haven't been mowed down all the way to the drainage ditches along the roads. Usually we see the chartreuse green fruits laying on the ground. I believe germination is a little tricky (if I remember right) but I don't know the specifics - only that they tended to germinate after going through an ancient creature's digestive tract.

And they are thorny as all get out! In the realm of firewood, hedge has the highest BTU rating of any hardwood in the US. Some archers collect the limbs (bow wood) to make authentic archery bows, just like the indigenous Indians that lived in the mid-west.

It also makes durable fence posts, but I don't know where you could go to buy the tree.

muffin - I read a couple of things that hinted that osage orange needs stratification. Are the seeds still in place where you planted them?

This "how to grow" article seems to indicate the need for stratification: http://www.newsleader.com/stor...

I cold stratified my seed. See also wintersown. Here and on the net.

When I started my trees, I collected fallen fruit from a tree that I spotted in town... took them home and kept them in a bucket over the winter (outside).
Eventually the bucket filled with rain water and the fruit softened.
I mashed everything with a potato masher or something, and dumped the slurry in trenches.

I had so many seedlings come up as to not be believed...
Unfortunately, I got busy with other stuff, and didn't get the trees moved...
they're still growing, and producing their own fruit.

A year or two later, i planted two more balls in another section of the garden.
I got like twenty trees out of one clump.
I moved them where I wanted...
And... Its so dry here... most died.

So much for a fencerow here in the sandhills...
sucks that they only grow in the garden... and the black walnuts too...

Anyway...
not hard to start... if you can find a source of ripe fruit.

No response from the OP.

I grow Osage Orange as a rootstock for grafting Che on. They do need to either be winter sown or put through a cold moist stratification for 3 months before germinating.

I did the cold stratification even, think the seed was just dead seed still looking for fresh seed!

@muffin Out of curiosity, where did you find seed?

I bought from a seed supplier