# Yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea)

> Cascading wisteria-like white flowers in late spring on a smooth, gray-barked tree that few nurseries grow.

Also called Kentucky yellowwood, American yellowwood. Category: Uncommon Yard Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/yellowwood/

![Yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea) hanging clusters of white flowers among the leaves](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/yellowwood-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cladrastis_kentukea_kz02.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Medium tree
- Mature height: 30 to 50 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 4 to 8
- Grows wild in: Rich moist slopes and rocky ground
- Native range: 12 states, north to [Illinois](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IL), south to [Louisiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=LA) and west to [Oklahoma](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OK) ([Alabama](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AL), [Arkansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AR), [Georgia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=GA), [Illinois](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IL), [Indiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IN), [Kentucky](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=KY), [Louisiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=LA), [Mississippi](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MS), [Missouri](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MO), [North Carolina](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NC), [Oklahoma](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OK) and [Tennessee](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TN)). Also recorded, not native, in [Connecticut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=CT), [Iowa](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IA), [Maine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ME), [Massachusetts](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MA), [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH), [Pennsylvania](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=PA), [Rhode Island](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=RI) and [Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VA)
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average
- Growth rate: Medium
- Flowers: May
- Fruit: Pods, August to September
- First crop: 8 to 10 years (first flowers)
- Mature spread: 55 ft
- Traits: Showy flowers, Fall color, Rare, Winter interest, Street tree, Salt tolerant
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

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

## Availability

Saplings ship [bare-root](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) or [in a pot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-sapling-in-a-pot/index.html.md), [usually 12 to 18 inches tall](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md), in the dormant season, and their [height and age](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/reading-a-nursery-listing/index.html.md) are stated with the price, once available. Live plants ship February to May and October to November. Not priced yet: leave an email on the web page for one email when it is priced, with a code for 10% off the plants in that order, not shipping or tax, or write to captain@bluewhaletrees.com.

## Notes

Native to a handful of limestone valleys from Kentucky to Arkansas, yellowwood is hardy far beyond that range and makes one of the best mid-sized shade trees for a yard. Fragrant flower panicles appear in heavy bloom every two or three years once the tree matures, fall color is clear yellow, and the roots tolerate ordinary soil. It also suits a city street, and in winter the gray bark stands out, smooth on young trunks and pebbly on old ones. Perfect as a patio tree or a front-yard specimen, close enough to smell the bloom.

## Size, growth and what to expect

A young yellowwood may not bloom for its first 8 to 10 years, and after that a heavy bloom comes only every 2 or 3 years, with a lighter one between. Yellowwood grows at a medium pace, and our growth estimator models it as a medium tree, roughly a foot and a half a year in its youth on an average site. It reaches 30 to 50 feet with a low, spreading crown 40 to 55 feet wide. Left unpruned, it often falls apart after 30 to 40 years.

In May the tree hangs out fragrant white pea flowers in wisteria-like clusters 8 to 14 inches long, and flat papery pods 2½ to 4 inches long follow, each holding four to six seeds. The smooth gray bark looks like a beech's. The name comes from the yellow heartwood, which yields a yellow dye.

It grows wild in a scattered range centered on Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina, with outlying stands from Indiana and Illinois to Missouri and Arkansas. Its home is rich, well-drained limestone soil in river valleys and on slopes. It is drought tolerant once established.

## How to grow Yellowwood

Yellowwood takes full sun or light shade and ordinary soil that drains, acid or limey. It grows a low, spreading crown as wide as it is tall, so plant it 25 feet from the house and clear of power lines. Set trees 40 feet apart.

Plant a sapling, bare-root or potted, while dormant, in a hole twice the root width and no deeper, root flare at grade, native soil back in, mulch off the trunk, staked only if it flops. Seed has a hard coat: soak it in hot water overnight, chill it damp for three months and sow in spring an inch deep under a mouse screen.

Soak it weekly through the first summer. Rabbits gnaw the smooth bark and deer browse shoots, so guard the trunk and cage the top for three years. Yellowwood forks low and its narrow crotches split in storms, so train one leader early and remove tight-angled branches while small, in midsummer because winter and spring cuts bleed.

Yellowwood carries both male and female parts in each flower, and bees carry the pollen. Small, isolated stands often set few viable seeds, so plant two or more trees from different parents for seed. Seedlings take eight to ten years to flower. Verticillium wilt can kill a limb or a whole tree; cut out any branch that wilts in summer and keep the tree watered. The bark is thin, so avoid mower and trimmer nicks.

## Sources

- [The Morton Arboretum: yellowwood](https://mortonarb.org/plant-and-protect/trees-and-plants/yellowwood/)
- [Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder: Cladrastis kentukea](https://plantfinder.mobot.org/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=a270)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Cladrastis kentukea](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/cladrastis-kentukea/)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Cladrastis chapter, Olson, Barnes and Barbour](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Cladrastis.pdf)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Cladrastis kentukea](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CLKE)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Cladrastis kentukea, Yellow-wood](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.131379/Cladrastis_kentukea)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online: Cladrastis kentukea, Johnson (2021)](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/cladrastis/cladrastis-kentukea/)
- [USDA NRCS PLANTS Database: Cladrastis kentukea](https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/plant-profile/CLKE)
- [University of Kentucky Nursery Crop Extension: Cladrastis kentukea, yellowwood](https://nursery-crop-extension.mgcafe.uky.edu/content/cladrastis-kentukea-dum-coours-rudd-c-lutea-michxf-k-koch-yellowwood)
- [University of Kentucky Department of Horticulture and Kentucky Division of Forestry, Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service: Cladrastis kentukea (Yellowwood)](https://eec.ky.gov/Natural-Resources/Forestry/ky-champion-trees/Documents/Yellowwood.pdf)

## 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)
- [A tree dripping sap, sticky drops or white foam: honeydew, slime flux and bleeding wounds](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-tree-dripping-sap-or-foam/index.html.md)
- [Multistem or single stem? Sometimes the trunk is hiding the answer](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/multistem-or-single-stem/index.html.md)

## Related

- Plants that share its sun and soil: [Sweet Birch (Black Birch)](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/sweet-birch/index.html.md), [Heartleaf Paper Birch](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/heartleaf-paper-birch/index.html.md), [Carolina Silverbell](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/carolina-silverbell/index.html.md) and [Shingle Oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/shingle-oak/index.html.md)
- Under its canopy: [Wild Hydrangea](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/wild-hydrangea/index.html.md), [Alabama Snow-wreath](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/alabama-snow-wreath/index.html.md) and [Roseshell Azalea](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/roseshell-azalea/index.html.md)
- Same size, similar character: [Northern Pin Oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/northern-pin-oak/index.html.md), [Hop Hornbeam](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/hop-hornbeam/index.html.md), [American Holly, select line](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-holly/index.html.md) and [Ohio Buckeye](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/ohio-buckeye/index.html.md)
- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Yellowwood, add ?species=yellowwood with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address; for example, the verdict for zone 4, part sun and average soil as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=yellowwood&zone=4&sun=part&moisture=average
- [Companion species for Yellowwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=yellowwood): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Transplant planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/transplant/index.html.md?species=yellowwood): whether Yellowwood can be moved and what the move takes, the root ball, its weight, who can move it and the months, as Markdown at that address (add caliper= or height=, month= 1 to 12 and soil= sandy, loam or clay)
- [Tree growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate for Yellowwood as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md?species=yellowwood (add height=, years= and site= poor, average or good)
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Yellowwood is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan for it as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md?species=yellowwood (add state= and zone= for your own frost dates, method=fridge for the refrigerator route)
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Yellowwood needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the verdict for 2 of them as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=yellowwood:2
- [Planting-window tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md): when to plant Yellowwood where you live, as a fall and a spring window from the local frost dates; the windows as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md?species=yellowwood&state=MO&zone=6 with your own state and zone in place of those
- [Planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md): how far Yellowwood goes from a house, a septic field, a walk, wires, a property line and the next tree; the distances as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=yellowwood&near=house,septic,pavement,wires,boundary,tree
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Yellowwood flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species; its own row and the gaps of a planting with it as Markdown at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md?plants=yellowwood