# Red Hickory (Carya ovalis)

> An upland hickory with sweet nuts, leafstalks often tinged red and gray bark that turns slightly shaggy with age.

Also called false shagbark, small pignut, Carya glabra var. odorata. Category: Nut & Fruit Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/red-hickory/

![Red hickory (Carya ovalis) nuts in an open hand: a ripe brown nut, an unripe green one and an empty husk](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/red-hickory-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Tom Nagy, CC BY-SA 3.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARedHickoryNuts.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Large tree
- Mature height: 60 to 100 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 4 to 8
- Grows wild in: Dry uplands, rich moist slopes and the Appalachians
- Native range: 30 states and the District of Columbia, north to Wisconsin, south to Florida and west to Oklahoma (Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia). Also recorded in 1 other state, outside its native range
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average, Dry, Wet
- Growth rate: Slow
- Traits: Edible, Wildlife value, Fall color, Street tree
- Sold as: Saplings, Nuts

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

Red hickory belongs to the pignut group, and it is the form more common in the north. Its rank is disputed. Some floras fold it into pignut hickory, and others keep it as a species of its own. Its husk splits promptly to the base, where pignut's opens late and only partway, and most of its leaves carry seven leaflets rather than five. The two can be told apart with certainty only in November. Red hickory can also line a city street. Plant it as a shade and nut tree for a large yard or a woodlot with oaks.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Red hickory grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It reaches 60 to 100 feet, with a crown 60 to 80 feet wide. Trees of the pignut group bear in quantity at about 30 years, with a good crop every year or two.

It flowers in April and May, and the nuts ripen in September and October. The fruit is 1 to 1½ inches long in a thin husk, and the kernel is usually sweet. In the pignut group, usually less than half the nuts are sound. Squirrels, turkeys and black bears eat the nuts, and the leaves feed luna moth caterpillars. Fall color is golden.

It grows wild from Georgia and Arkansas north to Michigan, New York, southern New England and southeastern Canada. Its home is upland forest and woodland, up to about 6,000 feet in the southern Appalachians. NatureServe counts the trees recorded in Maine as introduced.

## How to grow Red Hickory

Red hickory grows best in full sun and takes part shade. It wants a moist, well-drained soil. It is moderately drought tolerant, and it takes dry sites, wet sites and alkaline soil. It also tolerates the juglone of a nearby black walnut. Set trees 40 feet apart, and keep each one 30 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Its long taproot makes red hickory hard to move, so plant it only in early spring, while it is still dormant. Dig a hole deep enough for the taproot to hang straight. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Sow nuts in fall an inch deep under hardware cloth, or squirrels dig them up. For spring, soak them two to four days, then chill them damp in the refrigerator for 90 to 120 days.

Water every week or two through the first summer when rain is short. Rabbits gnaw young hickory bark, so guard the stem with a tube for three years. Deer browse hickory only now and then. Prune only to keep a single leader, in the dormant season.

Male and female flowers grow on the same tree, and the catkins usually open before the female flowers, so a second hickory nearby improves the crop. The hickory bark beetle, the worst insect enemy of hickories, attacks trees stressed by drought. Pecan weevils, twig girdlers, anthracnose and leaf galls turn up now and then. Fallen husks and nuts make a fall cleanup.

## Sources

- [The Morton Arboretum: Red hickory](https://mortonarb.org/plant-and-protect/trees-and-plants/red-hickory/)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Carya glabra var. odorata](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/carya-glabra-var-odorata/)
- [Virginia Tech Dendrology: red hickory fact sheet](https://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=826)
- [USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: Pignut Hickory, Glendon W. Smalley](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/sweet-pignut-hickory)
- [USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: Shagbark Hickory, David L. Graney](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/shagbark-hickory)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Carya chapter](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Carya.pdf)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 3: Carya glabra](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233500317)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Carya ovalis](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.129717/Carya_ovalis)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Carya ovalis](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CAOV3)
- [McCarthy and Quinn 1990, Reproductive ecology of Carya (Juglandaceae): phenology, pollination, and breeding system of two sympatric tree species, American Journal of Botany 77: 261-273](https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1537-2197.1990.tb13551.x)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online, International Dendrology Society: Carya ovalis, Sutton and Crowley 2020](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/carya/carya-ovalis/)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Six trees not to plant near a house, and what to plant instead](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/trees-not-to-plant-near-a-house/index.html.md)
- [Pruning at the branch collar, and when to make the cut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/pruning-at-the-branch-collar/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for butterflies and moths: host plants first, nectar second](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-butterflies-and-moths/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Red Hickory, add ?species=red-hickory with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=red-hickory&zone=4&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for Red Hickory](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=red-hickory): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=red-hickory
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Red Hickory is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=red-hickory
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Red Hickory needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=red-hickory:2
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Red Hickory flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.