they are for a friend of mine 
and has got me out and about exploring the neighbourhood. Been here for over 10yrs and I never knew we have gingko trees!
true, cos the spot where it is growing is rather shaded but there are lots of fruits on it.
Really? Would you care to share the recipe? We are having a frost tonight. I wonder if the fruits will be any good now? Thanks
Appleseed, trifoliate orange is not native to N. America. It is native to China and Korea.
Thanks for the correction Hoosier. I think I remembered reading about the colonists using them and I guess I just assumed they must have been native.
As70,
The āliving fenceā as planted here in the USAā¦was Osage Orange, Maclura pomifera, aka hedgeapple, bodock(bois dāarc), monkey balls - a member of the Moraceae, related to mulberries, figs, Che - not trifoliate orange.
Thereās a really nasty oil in the rind of the trifoliate fruits that is a problem when it comes to processing them - but have read of folks using them to make marmaladeā¦ more trouble than Iām likely to go to, though
Iāve seen tongue-in-cheek recipes for trifoliate ālemonadeāā¦ juice of one fruit, 50 lbs sugar, 50 gallons of waterā¦
Yes it does sound like a lot of trouble indeed. having said this, I spoke to a workman this morning who told me he has an orange, Yes orange tree growing in his garden zone 6. Said he got the fruit from an arboretum in KY. Said the fruit is big like an orange, sweet but has lots of seeds. Only good for juicing. He grew it from seed about 3ft now, no fruits yet. This is very interesting! Any ideas what it maybe?
Yeahā¦I familiar with Osage Orange being planted for boundaries. At my families summer cottage there was a very long row planted along the entrance road. The Trifoliate Orange on the other hand would function very well as an exclusionary boundary due to the dense growth and deadly thorns.
I had heard old timers used to place Osage Orange fruits under their cabins to deter spidersā¦I donāt know if there was anything to it or not.
I do know the wood was favored for long bows and I believe is still used for that purpose.
Iāve grown trifoliate orange in zone 5 in the ground next to my pond for two years now. Out of 30 seedlings 2 survived. Like with any fruit if we want to zone stretch we need a large gene pool and some will always be hardier. I will have them acclimated to my climate if it can be done in the next couple of years. I will then take the seeds from those and move them progressively further from water. Growing any type of citrus outside in zone 5 would be welcome.
Is that what they are. Interesting and about the spiders too. If I see the workman, I will let him know. thanks
Lack of space is another challenge for me. As there is little use to be obtained from the trifoliate, I will have to pass on it 
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Osage orange fruits arenāt remotely edible (except maybe the seeds), and theyāre also not any kind of citrus. I think theyāre called āorangeā because the wood is orange colored. As Lucky said, theyāre in the mulberry family.
A large very seedy citrus growing in zone 6 sounds unlikely without protection, and a sweet, good for fresh eating citrus grown in zone 6 without protection sounds completely unbelievable. Look up citrumelo, though. Itās a large, seedy citrus, hardy to about zone 7, maybe the warmest parts of zone 6 in a protected spot. I donāt think anyone would call it sweet, though. Itās a hybrid of trifoliate orange and pommelo. If Iām not mistaken grapefruits are a cross between a pommelo and another citrus ā maybe an orange? ā and the pommelo gives grapefruit some of its size.
My grandfather made longbows from osage orange, hickory, and cedar. And, if Iām not confused, itās a terrific wood for burning -very hot, albeit given to sparks and hard to split and to ignite.
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First Poncirus I ever saw was growing on the campus of the community college across the street from my office, here in z6 KY - about 70 mi. NW of Nashville TN; I have no idea how old it wasā¦possibly planted in the early 1970s. Outdoors, and unprotected - other than being located in an open courtyard, with buildings mostly blocking all 4 compass directions. It was probably 10 ft tall, and fruited heavily every year for the 8-10 years I watched it - there was a veritable ālawnā of frequently-mown seedlings underneath it from all the fruits that fell and rotted every fall. The Easter Big Freeze Disaster of 2007 killed it back to the ground, and I think theyāve dug it out and replaced it with something else now.
I had a seedling of it growing here, from a rotten fruit Iād tossed into the ditch below the pondā¦ was about 6 ft tall, and had produced its first fruits; last winterās -15F took it out.
Yepā¦they grow in the lower elevation town here of Cumberland, MD, but there are absolutely none in the slightly higher town of Frostburg just 8 miles away (both of which are Z6). There were many on the 850 acre farm where our cottage was located, but they were in a river valley.
I just Googled the lumber and some of it can get very deeply colored. Very exotic looking.
Osage orange and mulberry in Kansas grow about as common as anything. We call the Osage orange hedge here because it grows in the fence lines. Itās hard stuff and as mentioned burns very hot. Osage orange is used as rootstock by nurseries to graft Che fruit.
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Beautiful. Looks like tigerās fur
My family just took a walk on a nature trail between our house and town, and my children collected a backpack full of trifoliate fruits from all the trees growing invasively along the nature trail. I shared some fruit with another friend, and again, no one that has tasted the locally grown fruit has thought the juice was bitter or off-flavored, just very sour. I wonder if thereās a different strain here, or if local conditions just lead to fruit without the strong off flavors. Or maybe the people that are so critical of the trifoliate flavor just donāt have any appreciation for the usefulness of a sour fruit. I really think the fruits could be a very usable lemon substitute in the absence of anything larger or anything without seeds displacing almost all the pulp.
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I just tried the ones I got from my foraging. It is sour but not that bitter. I think it can certainly be used in place of lemons. They are rather juicy too for a small fruit!
I never detected any bitterness either in the single one I sampled. Just very sour. I agree with you on the possibilities of itās usefulness. Maybe in the event of a total economic collapse where it could fill in for real citrusā¦lol.
It probably has useful amounts of Vitamin C Iād guess.
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