IRONWOOD

• Lifespan: With proper care, these trees can live for 100-200 years, offering lasting beauty to your landscape.
• Canopy Size and Spread: Reaches a mature spread of 20-30 feet, creating a medium-sized shade canopy.
• Growth Rate: Slow to moderate grower, adding 1-2 feet per year after establishment.
• Canopy Height: Maturity brings a height of 30-40 feet, providing dappled shade suitable for understory planting or smaller landscapes.
• Soil Preference: Adapts to a variety of soils but thrives in well-drained conditions. Tolerates clay and some rocky sites.
• Water Needs: Moderately water-dependent, especially during the first few years after planting and during dry spells. Once established, they are moderately drought tolerant.
• Light Preference: Tolerates full sun to partial shade. Adapts well to understory conditions.
• Hardiness Zone: Eastern Ironwood is hardy in USDA zones 3-9, making it suitable for a wide range of climates.
• Flowers and Fruits: Inconspicuous greenish flowers appear in clusters in early spring, lasting only a short period. These are followed by small, hop-like clusters of fruit that mature in fall but are not particularly showy.

Interesting Facts

• A Champion of Density: The Eastern Ironwood boasts some of the hardest and densest wood of any North American tree species. This density is what earned it the name “Ironwood.”
• Master of Shade: Ironwood tolerates some shade and thrives in understory conditions. This makes it a suitable choice for planting beneath taller trees where other varieties might struggle.
• Also Called Musclewood: The distinctive, rippled texture of the gray bark often resembles flexed muscles, leading to the nickname “Musclewood.”