Holy hedge!

Hedge is about as good as it gets, I will load the stove up with it only on the real cold nights then turn the stove down all the way great heat and seems to last forever. Hedge and locust are my two personal favorites. Keep it only for the real cold nights. If you do this it seems to last forever, plus if you can get ahold of more definitely take advantage of that. Those two woods are the only ones that I seem to go out of my way to get ahold of, and you can see why.

That works to just get all you can. The real hard to split stuff if not able to do by hand see if you can borrow a splitter, or it gives you a reason to go and purchase one if not into the hand splitting way. Regardless it is a great wood take advantage of the opportunity to get what you can. The stuff doesn't rot either so you don't have to process all of it immediately. You could take larger lengths for easier removal, then process at your leisure. Hope it works out its a great find.

That will make it a lot easier. Should be a great score let us know how much you get many will be jealous. Myself included get some pictures.

Love that hedge! I make sure to clean up all the little sticks when ever I get the chance and score some Osage orange.

I'm the same way those locust trees I got from work a couple months ago my coworkers were making fun of me saying you don't want to leave any behind, while I was grabbing the little branches. Then when we dropped the trailer load off they again made fun once they saw the piles of locust. I just said that's why I have so many piles of it I don't leave any behind.

Never have seen it up here. I'll have to go on a road trip! Stay warm tonight

I stuff all I can into the stuff on the really cold nights. I heat my entire 4,000 sf house with nothing more than my stove/fireplace in the living room. That means it has to work pretty hard on the cold nights. And if I don't stuff it with Hedge then I have to get up more than once to stuff it with something else.

Last night I went to bed with the thermostat showing 72 with a good bed of coal in the stove (but too many to be able to load it before bed), woke up just after midnight (stat showing 70), stuffed it full of Hedge and woke up at 7:20 with the stat showing 74...

IMHO, I'm not concerned with hedge getting things too hot. I have a ZC fireplace so I can't get a true stove-top reading but I can get glass temp readings. I've had glass temp of ~950 before...and that's with primary air completely closed. Stove has never showed any signs of being over-fired...

Hedge is great. Burns long and hot. Split it as soon as you can. The longer it sets, the harder it is to split.

you guys have pics of your hedge? i'm curious if we're thinking the same thing. i have some laurel hedge adjacent to our property that needs serious manicuring. just curious if it's good or garbage.

also, countryboy, i'm curious about your assertion that you're never worried about overfiring your ZC FP. i have a ZC as well and as i enter my second year of woodburning next winter, and will have a ton of big cedar splits that should burn hot, i'm worried about an overfire situation. what do you base your assertion on?

Hedge also goes by osage orange.
The most distinctive characteristic to identify the tree itself is the hedge apples that are typically 3 to 4 inches in diameter and are found in the fall around stands of hedge. This is a picture of a hedge apple I found on-line .

yeah, i guess i have something different. looks like this:

but our neighbors have neglected them, so there are actual tree trunks growing (probably 10" diameter for the bigger ones). supposedly, this is the plant where if you leave a some leaves in someone's room, they'll die from cyanide poisoning. i know when we chopped up a ton of them, they definitely had that nice sweet almond/cherry smell (i.e. cyanide!)

iron said:

also, countryboy, i'm curious about your assertion that you're never worried about overfiring your ZC FP. i have a ZC as well and as i enter my second year of woodburning next winter, and will have a ton of big cedar splits that should burn hot, i'm worried about an overfire situation. what do you base your assertion on?

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I watch for actual signs... having worked in the metal working industry for a long time I know what to watch for when pushing the limits of metals.

Nice piles looks cold there stay warm.

All great woods for heat. You won't be disappointed with the hedge. Pile on.

I LOVE HEDGE!

Oldman47 said:

Hedge also goes by osage orange.
The most distinctive characteristic to identify the tree itself is the hedge apples that are typically 3 to 4 inches in diameter and are found in the fall around stands of hedge. This is a picture of a hedge apple I found on-line .
View attachment 174797

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I was also wanting to confirm that when people talk about hedge for burning that they are talking about a horse apple tree, lol. That is what we call them. I don't know if a horse will eat them but that is what we always called them. I have seen squirrels eat something in them. I would find piles of filaments left, maybe they eat seeds from the middle of the fruit. Down here, I only see the trees growing in the alluvial Red River Valley, not outside that in the uplands soils. I wonder if it's the same way everywhere.

Actually, as often as we called them a horse apple tree, we called them a bo-dark (bois d'arc).

Bois d'arc comes from the early use of the wood to make bows. Literally translation is "wood of the bow". Even today people who are bow enthusiasts prefer hedge to any other wood when they get a custom wooden bow made. Up further north like I am, it manages to grow in uplands as well as low areas. Some of the biggest ones near me are shade trees along a jogging trail in the local park. They run a couple of feet dbh and 30 to 40 feet tall. It is an old hedge row that runs from the top to the bottom of a hill.

iron said:

yeah, i guess i have something different. looks like this:

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Looks like a type of laurel - English laurel is one of the most common plants used for hedges, but it's not what folks around hearth.com and I guess parts of the midwest are talking about when they say hedge.

iamlucky13 said:

Looks like a type of laurel - English laurel is one of the most common plants used for hedges, but it's not what folks around hearth.com and I guess parts of the midwest are talking about when they say hedge.

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Yeah, it's just called hedge because it is commonly used in hedgerows around here. Sometimes, Osage orange and honey locust both get lumped under the name hedge.