Photo: Douglas Goldman, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Sand Hickory

Carya pallida

Also called pale hickory, pallid hickory.

A hickory of dry, sandy woods and ridges, with silvery scales beneath its leaves and small, sweet nuts.

Type: Large tree
Mature height: 40–100 ft
USDA zones: 5–9
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Dry uplands, sandy barrens and rocky ground
Native range: 17 states, north to New Jersey, south to Florida and west to Missouri
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Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia
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Sand hickory is a tree of the southeastern states, named for the sandy, free-draining soils it grows on. Where its range meets black hickory's, in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois, the two blend into each other. Its heavy, hard, tough wood has gone into tool handles. It is an overlooked tree, seldom seen in collections. At the northern edge of its range, Illinois and Indiana list it as endangered. Give it a dry, sandy slope or a woodland edge, and let it become a shade tree with nuts for the wildlife.

Size, growth and what to expect

Sand hickory grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It reaches 40 to 100 feet at maturity, with good nut crops every two to three years. In leaf it casts a heavy shade, though it leafs out late and drops its leaves early.

It flowers in March and April, and the nuts ripen in September and October. The fruit is about 1¼ to 1½ inches long, in a husk that splits only partway and tends to cling to the nut. The kernel is sweet, and squirrels, other rodents and larger birds eat the nuts.

It grows wild from southern New Jersey and Maryland west to southern Illinois and southeastern Missouri, and south to northern Florida and Louisiana. Its home is dry woods, ridges and bluffs on well-drained sandy or rocky soil, and in North Carolina the Sandhills.

How to grow Sand Hickory

Sand hickory wants full sun and a soil that drains well, from sand or gravel to loam or clay. Acid or alkaline ground suits it, dry to average in moisture. 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. Plant a dormant sapling from leaf fall until bud swell, in 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. Plant it where it will stay, since the taproot makes an older tree hard to move. 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 30 to 150 days.

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

Male and female flowers grow on the same tree. Hickories are mostly cross-pollinated, and a tree's own pollen sets fewer and poorer nuts, so plant two or set it near other hickories. Downy leaf spot can mark the leaves, and hickory nut weevils take a share of the crop.

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

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