A Nut to Behold

November 4th, 2014

Maples usually get top billing in the fall-color department, and I can’t disagree after seeing some of the beauties on display these past couple of weeks.

A shagbark hickory in full fall golden glory against a blue-sky backdrop.

But this is the first year I really took notice to another tree that hardly anyone mentions on their top fall-foliage list – our native hickory.

I saw one on the way to church last weekend. There it was at the top of an apartment-complex driveway in Lower Allen Twp., literally glowing rich-gold and framed spectacularly by a deep blue sky.

What a specimen it was – every bit as head-turning as a sugar maple or blackgum and just as big at about 50 feet tall.

It was so impressive that I got out of the car to check it out up close and verify what it was. I believe it was a shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), distinctive for its four-winged nuts and shingle-like or shaggy bark (hence the name).

Despite its fall beauty, native origin, ease of growth and tasty nuts, hardly anyone plants a hickory in their yard – or any nut, for that matter.

The very trait that attracts nut-lovers is the same one that repels your typical homeowner – the falling nuts.

Nut-lovers consider hickories a gift of nature that sell for upwards of $20 a pound – when you can even find them. They’re pricey and not widely available in stores because they’re so hard to get out of their shells.

For a homeowner, though, a hickory is considered “messy, “ something to be avoided anywhere near civilization and patios. Gazillions of nuts in their dark hulls can drop over a few-week period, “defiling” the lawn, attracting squirrels and maybe even plunking folks in the head.

So it goes. What’s a plus to one is a negative to another. I won’t condemn you for either point of view. (I can find plenty of other stuff to condemn you for!)

Consider a hickory if you like nuts, squirrels and fall foliage. Definitely don’t if squirrels and shells on the patio aren’t your thing.

If you take a crack at this nut tree, I did a post last week on my Pennlive Q&A blog about how to get those darned nut pieces out of the hard shells.

If you want to enjoy hickories and other excellent fall-foliage nut trees without growing them in your own yard, check out the new nut grove that Hershey Gardens planted. I wrote about that a few weeks ago on Pennlive.

And for other great fall-foliage trees that don’t drop nuts, here are five of my favorites:

* Blackgum ‘Wildfire’ (Nyssa sylvatica). A 40-foot shade tree with blood-red fall foliage.

The fall foliage of full moon maple ‘Aconitifolium.’

* Most any maple, but especially Japanese maples and the full moon maple ‘Aconitifolium.’ The best ones are fire-engine red to neon orange-red.

* Ginkgo biloba, a 40- to 50-footer with golden fall foliage.

* The Korean and Japanese stewartias, 20- to 25-footers with a blend of orange, red, gold and purple fall leaves and attractive peeling bark.

* Persian parrotia (Parrotia persica), a 25- to 30-footer with late-turning neon-gold leaves and great bark.

There are lots of others, but those are ones that turn my head. At least today.

This seems to have been a pretty good overall fall so far for foliage, by the way.

The decent growing season and gradual cool-down probably combined to give us our good show.