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. 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