# Hedge apple



## fondini (Mar 18, 2012)

I finally found out why people buy those, always thought it was a decorative item!

I will be trying these to see if it works.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

Some more info would be great ... what are HedgeApples?


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

Are you talking about keeping them in the basement to ward off pests? I have tons of them this year, and was thinking about trying that to see if it works.

Hedge Apple = Osage Orange


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

Wikicrapia states:


> The Osage-orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km). The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterwards became an important source of fence posts.
> 
> The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, treenails, fence posts, and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. Straight-grained osage timber (most is knotty and twisted) makes very good bows. In Arkansas, in the early 19th century, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket. Additionally, a yellow-orange dye can be extracted from the wood, which can be used as a substitute for fustic and aniline dyes. When dried, the wood has the highest BTU content of any commonly available North American wood, and burns long and hot.
> 
> The fruit was once used to repel spiders by placing one under the bed. Various studies have found elemol, an extract of Osage orange, to repel several species of mosquitos, cockroaches, crickets, and ticks. One study found elemol to be as effective a mosquito repellant as DEET. A patent was awarded in 2012 for an insect repelling device using Osage orange.


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## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

The wood is beautiful if you have the patience to work it, warps and cracks so easily most wood workers ignore it.

As a teenager, I started with a pile of hedge posts and wound with only a 2ft x 2ft square of finished wood. It took forever, lot of saw blades and endless sharpens to the planer blade to get that far so I gave up and just hung the finished oiled board on the wall.


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## talob (Sep 16, 2009)

I allso have a bumper crop this year, tried the repellent thing one year, still had critters and allso a bunch of rotten stinking hedge apples laying around! The only use I can see for them is if you wanted to bean someone with one they are hard and heavy, allso heard the wood was prized but never messed with it.


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## recoilless_57mm (Oct 15, 2012)

Thanks folks you taught me something new. I never knew that osage-orange & hedge apple trees were the same. I did know that the wood is great for bows & fense posts.


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