What trees grow in your neck of the woods?

[Brian Brown]

Yesterday my grandmother (88) brought me a few pieces of walnut from Kansas where she was visiting her brother. Having spent little time in the Mid West, I didn't even know walnut grew there. In my area, Southeast Idaho, it is a desert. Very little hardwood grows around here. It's discouraging when I see everyone talking about the truckloads of free wood they bring home from just down the street. Because of my work, and my desire to travel, I get to a lot of areas around the country. My question is: What kind of trees commonly grow in your area, and how well do these woods turn?

In southeast Idaho, the common woods are:

Sagebrush; lots of it, too small to turn, and I hate ticks.

Juniper, Never turned it but I have seen a little. This is scrub juniper, and very hard to harvest (grows in nasty lava flows) Also hard to find large trunks.

Lodgepole pine; makes good telephone poles, and log cabins. otherwise soft, pitchy and boring.

Ponderosa pine; pretty, but soft and pitchy.

Aspen; haven't turned it yet, but I hear it's hard to work with.

Cottonwood; Soft and hard to turn. Unstable

Russian olive; Hard and fiberous. Cracks easily, but looks good finished.

Some domesticated stuff from peoples yards, but usually not very big.

As you can see, not much selection in this area. So what grows where where you are?

Brian

[Jeff Bower]

Brain where in KS did the walnut come from. I'm originally from NE KS and there is loads of walnut, oak, cottonwood, elm, locust and many more in that area. My dad brings me some each time he is in IA. In IA we have much the same as KS. Good luck in getting more desireable wood up in Idaho. I think I saw a post saying Ken Fitzgerald is on vacation, but I know he lives in Idaho and might have some good sources for you.

[TYLER WOOD]

Well I feel your pain. Living in the area of west Texas I do. I have to travel over an hour to find good mesquite. Nothing is really growing here naturally except some elm. The mesquite would if the farmers/rancers wouldn't root it up. Now in town we do have a pretty good selection and I have had good luck with the trimmers areound here helping me out. But till the majority of what they cut is elm, mulberry, and pecan. The mulberry to me is unappealing in coloration and grain. The elm is nice, but hard to work. The pecan is ok at best. Too subtle grain to really get something nice out of it. The cottonwood I have gotten has been from WAY south of me, but has been really nice to turn.

[Alex Cam]

I'm in West Michigan. Here's what we've got:

Maple (countless varieties): Loads and loads. Turns like butter.

Oak (Black, Red, White, etc.): I was surprise at how nicely black oak turned wet. No experience with the others (or dry for that matter).

Walnut: Again, lots. Turns very nice.

Poplar, Elm, Cherry, Apple, Box Elder, and probably quite a few others
I haven't turned. We have a lot of pine forests, too, but I've never turned any.

[Jim King]

Come on down. We have about 2000 species as we know it today but are continually finding new ones. Last week we found a new genus which is hundreds of times more rare than finding a new species.

[Mike Vickery]

Pheonix AZ area ( most are not native but are commonly found)
African Sumac - softer wood some problems with cracking but a beautiful wood 2nd favorite local wood to turn.
Acacia (several species) - never turned it.
Mesquite (at least three species) - Good turning wood hard and stable 3rd favorite turning wood.
Carob - Prone to cracking but pretty wood.
Ficus - turn nice but very plain looking
Indian Rosewood - #1 favorite local wood. Hard stable and beautiful
Eucalyptus - Never seen a wood that want to crack and move as much as this does. Soft buts dulls tools fairly quickly.
Palo verde - never turned it but I hear it is a softer wood that turns okay.
Pecan - Have roughed but not finish turned any. Medium hardness very stringy.
and many other but these are some of the main ones you see.
Dont let the big list fool you though probably around 80% of the wood I get is mesquite.
http://www.distinctiveturnings.com/wiki/tiki-index.php Here is a more complete list.

[Art Mulder]

Last week we found a new genus which is hundreds of times more rare than finding a new species.

No one can top Jim, but here in Southern Ontario we've got a pretty fair assortment as well.

- I've got a couple sugar(?) maples in my back yard and a red maple in the front.
- I've also got a pair of dwarf apple trees starting out in the back.
- As well a pair of small Paw-Paw trees. They don't grow that fast, but my backyard is on the dry side.

- I've got an oak seedling that I think is dying (bit of an oops with the transplanting I think) and several oaks in the wild section of the park next door.
- there is a Linden (basswood) growing out front in the boulevard.

I have some cherry lumber that my friend harvested from a standing-dead tree that he pulled down from the ravine behind his house, so I know there is black cherry here in the city as well.

Ash grows here also, as does Sycamore and Tulip tree, and ... heck anything that is native to the Carolinian forest. (we're at the northern edge of the Carolinian forest area)

[Mark Pruitt]

We have more poplar than weeds in Central VA. Fair amount of cherry. Not anywhere near as much walnut as I wish.

[Steve Clardy]

Walnut-Black and American
Oak-Red and White
Cherry-Wild and Black
Cedar
Cottonwood
Pine
Mulberry
Hedge
Maples
Sycamore
Poplar-very limited
Persimmon
Kentucky Coffee Bean
Locust-Honey and Black
Elm
Sassafrass
Hackberry
Ash

And some more that escapes my brain for the moment

[Al Wasser]

Brian - don't knock it til ya try it, give aspen a go - both the dead stuff and green. It is fun to turn and some of it has a great deal of color/figure.

[TYLER WOOD]

Aspen is on my list to try. I will be giong to Cloudcroft NM at the end of next month. Plan on getting several logs of the stuff. One thing I was about turning aspen is it's translucent properties. I have seen one guy who made lamp shades out of it. This is one of the main reasons I got into turning. I wanted to turn some lanp shades for a friend. Hopefully they would get me unlimited access to their cabin on the lake and in the mountains!!!!

[Paul Engle]

Brian, I was raised in Mtn Home and can empithise with you... altho the sage represents a challenge it may present a niche market , being so far north now i am discovering other woods not suitable for anything being in the same catagory as those you listed. ie. bull pine burls from tree limbs turn very nice and are gorgeous when done but most people toss in the fire place or the wood stove or burn pile or on the landing slash pile. birch any kind of birch get a fire wood permit and head for the forest.Above Pocatello or down toward Malad or down towards Soda Springs also check the land fills after a storm tons of wood avail there .check w/ the parks and recreation dept in town also for their tree triming schedule for this fall.If you are up by IF, try the Targee NF , ha I even turned a sugar beet one time.... and only one time.:eek: btw cedar is a type of juniper and if you are close to the Nevada border drop down to Juniper Mtn west of Elko and you will not be dissapointed. there is also a scrub mahogony patch below Mud Flatts in the Owhyee's about 30 acres and may still have fw permits for 10$ a cord. stuff runs about 6 to 8 inches dia.

[Bob Hallowell]

We have lots of Maple, Cherry, red oak, then a hodge podge- sasafrass, walnut, beech, ash, poplar, I have a big cucumber tree in the back yard that will be coming done in a few years but from what I hear they sell it as poplar.

we have a pretty good selection

Bob

[Allen Neighbors]

Growing in this area:
Black Locust - Beautiful wood... hard as pecan when cured... I chainsawed one down once that had been dead for about four years; it got dark before I was finished, and the chain threw sparks... fact... couldn't find anything in the tree except wood.
Cottonwood - Soft, easy to get tearout if you don't take light cuts with sharp tools. Beautiful and light when finished.
Mesquite - very stable, except most larger trees prone to pith checks, turns easily... my favorite.
Sycamore... turns easily.. some has beautiful grain.
Elm - native and American... turns easily when green, very stable, hard when dry.
Oak - White, Red, some black... all of it turns like oak. :)
Catalpa - lot of pitch, but turns easily... gunks up your bandsaw and other tools. Nearly always found with good fishing worms.
English Walnut - gorgeous wood... turns very easily
Cedar - (Juniper) Salt and Aromatic Red... the Salt is rather blah, until you look closely at the grain... doesn't get very big.
Pecancrete - 'scuse me - Pecan. Harder than Bois d'Arc when cured.
Bois d'Arc - (Osage Orange) - my second favorite to turn... bright yellow when first cut... turns a beautiful chocolate brown when exposed to UV.. turns like butter. I turned a piece for a man from one of the corner posts his Grandfather put in when he settled here in 1890. Looked like heck on the outside, but still bright yellow on the interior.
Mulberry - often mistaken for Bois d'Arc when they see the yellow wood, but not nearly as nice as Bois d'Arc. Very hard when cured.
Russian Olive along the Red River, North of here... never turned it, but want to try it.
Sweet Gum - Turns very easy when green, turns like steel when dry. Very prone to cracking and wood movement. Makes good bread dough bowls.
There are a few others, but they don't come to my mind just now.

[Bill Grumbine]

Here in PA we probably have the highest quality and largest variety of hardwoods in North America. Maple of all sorts, cherry of several varieties, black walnut, English walnut, black locust, honey locust, mulberry, ash of a number of varieties, osage orange, the list just goes on and on. Oak in white, black, red, chestnut, chestnut oak, sassafrass, linden, poplar. We get stuff like hackberry, yew, yellowwood, coffeetree, ailanthus, elm of a couple of different varieties, even lilac and rhododendron.

I heat the house with wood in the winter, so I am a little worried about telling people what I burn from time to time, but suffice to say, it all gets sorted out before it goes into the wood furnace. We don't even bother with stuff like pine, spruce, etc. It is too soft and sappy to be worth the trouble.

Bill

[Jim Becker]

On our property here in SE PA, we have a good representation of species...black walnut, white ash, green ash, American elm, hackberry, dogwood, red oaks, white oaks, tulip poplar, holly, sassafras, Norway maple, other maples, pear, crab-apple, one lone American beech, one hemlock and likely more I have not been able to identify. This is not including ornamentals around the house.

[glenn bradley]

It's discouraging when I see everyone talking about the truckloads of free wood they bring home from just down the street.

I feel your pain. In SoCal boat-loads of variety but, all brought in and usually privatly owned and we have very little woodsy areas that aren't protected. Upside - you can buy almost anything you want. Downside - no one has ever called me because they are about to clear out a stand of maples.

[Gary Herrmann]

In my yard, we have some domestics and some imports.

Siberian Elm
Norway Maple
Silver Maple
White Pine
Bald Cypress
Pin Oak
Northern Red Oak
Japanese Maple
Ginko
Green Ash
Crab Apple
Dogwood
Yellowwood
Sand Cherry
Kwanzan Cherry
Yoshino Cherry
Red Bud

Uh yes, we like Cherry trees...

I know the Yellow Wood is native, as I believe the oaks, maples, pine and ash are.

And we cut down 3 big sweet gums, pretty trees, but man those gumballs are annoying. 'Course this was before I started turning, dangit.

[Art Kelly]

In Central Florida there's lots of mockernut hickory. I have a loft full of rough-turns like this one:

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2008760970095085371bGUBfC?vhost=good-times

Harvest in the winter to ensure the bark will stay on--I used CA anyway.

In Central Florida and Georgia, there's chickasaw plum. It grows wild in thickets. This is from the rootball of a tree in my front yard that was murdered by hurricane Charley:

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2387617220095085371TmuMIh?vhost=good-times

Podocarpus (an ornamental--I think it's a variety of yew--check the chatoyance), but you may need a muffler on your chainsaw:D :

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2559489980095085371WTjNnb?vhost=good-times

Troll around after hurricanes. Also, there are several tree services that are friendly. Near Orlando, try Sunstate or Mr. Tree.

Art

[Roger Bell]

Our situation on the west side of the Cascades is very different.

Our big-enough-for bowls natives include:

Big leaf maple...the most commonly available turning wood.
Pacific dogwood
Pacific yew - excellent
An odd species of cherry
Western red alder
Cottonwood
Oregon White oak
Pacific madrone - excellent but troublesome
Myrtlewood...one of my favs.

Lots of softwoods....western hemlock is sometimes ok. Alaska yellow cedar and Western red are ok as is Port Orford. Spruce. Doug fir and the various high elevation whitewoods don't interest me, nor do most of the the pines, except sometimes when found in very old and very dense snags.

In town and in the orchard country, you can find almost anything.....with walnut, cherry and the fruitwoods the most interesting.

[Andy Hoyt]

We have two varieties up here in the top right corner.

We have the kind that is spinworthy



and



Come to think of it, I guess we have just one kind.

[Bill Turpin]

Mountains of Western North Carolina:

Oaks, pines, cherry, lots of black locust, catalpa, Paulownia, hemlock, apple, Bradford pear, walnut, hickory, other fruit woods, ash, sassafras, sourwood, tulip poplar, persimon, chinese chesnut, red maple, and many others. Within twenty miles the elevation varies from 600 feet above sea level to 4500. Lots of mini climates with varied weather, trees, plants, and animals. We are at 2900, half mile away (1000' lower) they have songbird varities that we NEVER see.

Our county population of 125,000 has been discovered by the housing market. No slump here, there are 7000+ houses scheduled to be built in next three years. If you are in the right place at right time , you can get some amazing timber!!!

Bill

[Curt Fuller]

If you're in SE Idaho I can't be more than a couple hundred miles from you. And I agree with what you say about wishing there were more native woods in our area. But don't believe everything you read about the turning qualities of some of the local woods. Aspen can be incredible wood if you get into the knots and burls and the trees bent over by snow. It gets some wild color when it gets stressed. The Juniper (most people call it cedar) is beautiful wood too. Rather than cutting it live I go to the farm supply store and buy a cedar fence post for the juniper I've turned. And Cottonwood is great but don't mess around with green stuff. There's always a dead cottonwood laying around somewhere. Knots, crotches, and wood at the base of the trunk are usually the best. There's two kinds of cottonwood around here, the black cottonwood with the long narrow leaves isn't as pretty as the fremont cottonwood that has the big round leaves. Then the scrub oak (gambel oak) is pretty wood too and the big tooth maple that grows on the foothills and turns bright red in the fall has some nice hard wood. You can usually get a load of it if you find a site where someone is clearing it to build a house.

[Neal Addy]

Here in the Chicken Fried Nation we mostly have Mesquite, but I ain't complaining. Some Cottonwood, Pecan, Crepe Myrtle, etc.

Most of the other veggies in the immediate area (North Central Texas) are low-growing scrub and brush.

[paul ashman]

Panhandle of Florida here, and I can see pine trees and palm trees from every window in my house, and not much else.

[Jude Kingery]

As with Allen and Tyler, we're about 180 miles S. and S/E of you two
gentlemen, but close enough that our woods available here are the same or similar in selecton. West Texas is fairly arid, and not exactly "forrested." We cherish our trees for shade here!

We have lots of cedar, which looks beautiful when finished, but I'm highly allergic to it so never turn it. Even with a respirator and taking care to wash, shower, still breaks out my hands and arms. We also have lots of Elm, Juniper, Mulberry - none of which I like to turn (fibrous or pulpy, those three - Mulberry turns like celery on steriods). Redbud is ok, nice grain, fairly hard. A little to our north, maybe 100 miles, you'll see lots of Osage Orange, very nice to turn and extremely hard, bright yellow in color. With extremely sharp tools, good shear cuts, you almost don't need to sand it, no tear-out at all. Finishes great. Mesquite is plentiful here, fairly decent diameters, from little up to 2', 3' in diameter. It's my favorite to turn. Often trees will hollow or suffer grub damage and die, split. A big enough tree, however, can give you lots of good heartwood or some nice contrast between a dark coffee color with rich grain and blonde pith. Available from friends, neighbors, city park trim crews for free. As mentioned ranchers frequently drag or shred to clear it when it's brush, but wind breaks and fence rows have big Mesquite and hundreds. Brian, if you're ever through here, look us up, we'll give you some good chunks! Jude

[John Timberlake]

In the four acres of woods I own behind my house, we have two varieties of ash (can you say emerald ash borer), red maple, sugar maple, poplar, red oak, a little white oak, elm, smallist cherry, cucumber trees, couple of large walnuts, and witchhazel (too small for anything). Sycamores are also common around here along with locust and osage orange.

[Don Orr]

Here in NY state where the Mohawk and Hudson rivers meet we have all kinds of trees-hardwood and softwood. Maples, oaks, cherrys, elms, hickorys, catalpa, willows, walnut, butternut, beech, birches, poplars, apple, other fruitwoods, hornbeams, and on and on. Softwoods include pines, spruces, larch, hemlock, etc. I wish I had time to turn all the wood I have stashed! We are very lucky up here. I actually have to decline offers of free wood sometimes.:eek: :D

[Dominic Greco]

What trees do we have a lot of around my area? Cherry Burl and lots of it! :D

Serously, like Jim Becker said (since we live about 10 miles form each other) we are blessed with an abundance of hardwoods. While it seems that Maple, Ash, and Red Oaks dominate the landscape, we get a good amount of Walnut, Cherry, Hickory, Osage Orange, Pear, Apple, Dogwood, Sassafras, Sweet Gum, Sycamore, and Beech.

[Martin Braun]

To add to Mike's list - in the Phoenix metro area we get all sorts of stuff that people plant that are not native and some that are. Including:

Palm
Ironwood
Palo Verde
Palo Brea
Olive
Bouganvilla
Eucalptus (all sorts)
Citrus (just about everything)
Mystery wood (stuff people find in bulk trash)

Availability all depends on when you happen upon it being cut down or put out in bulk trash. I'm sure others down here can add to the list.

[Josiah Bartlett]

In the Willamette valley we have lots of nice nut and fruit woods to choose from. I have about 100 board feet of walnut that I harvested from my front yard, along with plenty of maple of various species, some apple and cherry.

I supplementally heat with wood too, and get oak firewood in the winter.

[Jim Becker]

I forgot to mention in my previous post that I have some Dunno Wood growing on the property, too. I suspect that it's the same kind that Dominic has in his backyard, too! :D :D :D

[Bill Wyko]

In Arizona. MESQUITE and lots of it. Pretty much anywhere you look.:D

[jeremy levine]

In Westchester County NY lots of maple , (red back white ) oak , birch and hemlock. I had to cut down ( roots breaking foundation ) a 50 foot oak. I don't think a month goes by when I don't see a tree being taken down ( by a home owner , the highway dept. or a utility). We are just north of New York Ciry but we have a wealth of trees.

I have to say oak is a great wood to work with but hell to live with, the trees drop more crap and pollen then most.