Red Buckeye

Size, growth and what to expect

Red buckeye grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It makes a shrub or small tree of 10 to 25 feet with a crown 10 to 20 feet wide, and wild trees can reach 25 to 30 feet.

Upright clusters of tubular red flowers, 4 to 10 inches long, open in March and April in the South and in May and June farther north. Hummingbirds, bees and butterflies visit them. The smooth, light brown husks ripen in September and October and split to drop one to three glossy seeds. Few animals eat the seeds besides squirrels.

It grows wild from North Carolina to northern Florida and west to central Texas, and up the Mississippi Valley to southern Illinois and southeastern Missouri. Its home is low, rich woods, stream banks and the foot of bluffs. In Ohio and Pennsylvania it grows wild only where it has escaped from planting. Kentucky lists it as threatened.

How to grow Red Buckeye

Red buckeye does best in part shade, or in sun with shade in the afternoon, in a rich, moist soil that drains well. It takes clay, sand and a range of soil pH. Dry soil and hot sun scorch its leaves and hurry their fall. Plant it 15 feet from a wall and set trees 10 feet apart. Keep it 15 feet from overhead wires, since some trees pass 20 feet.

Saplings ship potted. Seedlings grow a taproot, and older plants do not move well, so plant it young and leave it in place. Plant in the dormant season, in a hole wider than the pot and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and mulch a wide ring clear of the trunk. Buckeye seed dies if it dries out, so sow it as soon as the husks split in fall. Set each seed an inch or two deep with the pale scar down. It needs no chilling, and the seedlings come up in spring.

Water weekly through the first two summers and in dry spells after that, which also keeps the leaves on longer. Deer browse it only moderately. Let it grow as a clump, or remove the extra stems early for a single trunk.

Each flower cluster carries male flowers and a few with both male and female parts, and hummingbirds and bees carry the pollen. A lone tree sets seed with its own pollen. In hand pollinations, though, another tree's pollen set about three times as much fruit, so a second tree nearby improves the crop. Seedlings can flower in their second or third year. Leaf blotch and powdery mildew can spot the leaves, and the husks and early leaf fall make some litter.