My Honeylocust tree is a mail-order tree from a Pennsylvania nursery, Go Native Tree Farm. When I planted it in November 2014 it was a tiny, thin, 2 feet long stick. During the springs of 2015 and 2016 it grew very vigorously and every single leaf was bipinnate.
In both years I observed the following strange behavior in spring: during the first month or two of growth, almost every single leaflet dropped off almost as soon as it appeared, showering the ground underneath with little bright green leaflets, and leaving bare green stalks. Then, around June, it stopped shedding leaflets and continued to grow. I have no clue why this happened, and found no mention of this phenomenon on the internet.
On May 13th 2017 the Honeylocust was growing vigorously. Unlike the last two years, this year it had a mixture of singly and doubly compound leaves.
By June 11th 2017, the Honeylocust had grown very vigorously, producing a couple of 4ft long side branches in about 2 weeks time! No sign of the prolific leaflet-dropping that afflicted the tree the previous two springs.
Two issues with the Honeylocust in April 2018. First, the guy who mows our lawn accidentally sliced off a huge strip of bark about 10 inches long and a third of the way around the trunk, by a slip of the weed-eater. Even though I had a guard around the base of the trunk, the damage was all above the guard - it will recover from that. Secondly, the tree was again losing most of its leaflets as it grew - just like in 2015 and 2016, they simply dropped to the ground green. This time it was happening despite the leaves being singly compound instead of doubly compound like they were in 2015 and 2016. The fact that this leaf-drop did not occur in 2017 made me think that the tree does not like fertilizer (which I had used in 2015 and 2016 but not in 2017) - however, in 2018 I also did not use fertilizer on this tree and the leaf-drop was worse than ever. I have no clue why it does this!
On May 18th 2019, the Honeylocust was looking very different from previous years - no leaflet drop, and in April it produced several flowers from one of last year's strong new sprouts. These are possibly male flowers.
By June 2019, the stem of this tree had thickened quite considerably. There was also a single seed pod hanging from the tree - seems not to be completely male.
Fresh new sprouts in early April 2020.
Early June 2020, the Honeylocust was growing well and produced a handful of seed pods.
Although I had wanted a truly native Honeylocust, this one has obviously been genetically tampered with in that it has never produced thorns. This is in stark contrast to the Honeylocust seedlings which are growing vigorously from seeds I planted a couple of years ago - see Seedling Patch section.
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Honeylocust (late June 2021)
Honeylocust (early July 2020), on the left of the picture.
Honeylocust (July 2019)
Honeylocust (July 2018)
Honeylocust (July 2017)
Honeylocust (July 2016)
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