Cc

Southern Shagbark Hickory

Carya carolinae-septentrionalis

Also called Carolina hickory, Carolina shagbark hickory, Carya ovata var. australis.

The shagbark of the southern Piedmont, with sweet nuts, golden fall color and shaggy gray bark.

Type: Large tree
Mature height: 70–125 ft
USDA zones: 5–8
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Average
Grows wild in: Floodplain forests, rocky ground and rich moist slopes
Native range: 8 states, north to Virginia, south to Georgia and west to Mississippi
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Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia
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Southern shagbark hickory is the southern form of shagbark hickory. Several references treat it as a variety of that species, Carya ovata var. australis, and others keep it as a species. Its twigs are slender, smooth and black by fall, and its buds dark, where the northern shagbark's twigs are stout and hairy. Virginia, at the northern edge of its range, ranks it critically imperiled. Grow it as a big, slow shade tree for a Piedmont lawn, a bottomland edge or a limestone slope.

Size, growth and what to expect

Southern shagbark grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. Shagbark hickory averages 70 to 80 feet, and this variety reaches about 125 feet.

It first bears at about 10 years, bears most from 40 to 200 years old, and crops best every three to five years. It flowers from March to May, and the nuts ripen in September and October. The fruit is about 1 to 1¼ inches across in a thick husk that splits to the base, and the kernel is sweet. Even in good years insects leave only about half a shagbark crop sound. Squirrels, raccoons and chipmunks eat the nuts, and the leaves feed hickory horndevil caterpillars.

It grows wild from Kentucky and Virginia south to Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Its home is wet bottomland, rocky hillsides, limestone outcrops and the upland flats of the Piedmont.

How to grow Southern Shagbark Hickory

Southern shagbark grows best in full sun, though young trees take some shade. Give it a deep, moist, well-drained soil. It prefers acid ground, though it also grows wild on limestone. 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. A shagbark's taproot can reach 2 to 3 feet in three years, so plant it young where it will stay. 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 150 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 seldom browse hickory where other food is plentiful. Prune only to keep a single leader, in the dormant season.

Male and female flowers grow on the same tree, and the wind carries the pollen. Shagbarks set nuts with their own pollen, but a tree's catkins and flowers often open at different times, so a second hickory nearby helps. The hickory bark beetle attacks trees stressed by drought, and the hickory shuckworm, pecan weevil and nut curculios spoil nuts. Twig girdlers prune the tips of young trees.

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

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