Honey Locust
Gleditsia triacanthos
Casts wide, high shade once it is up, and asks for very little water — but it will not tolerate anything less than full sun.
Spacing & sowing
- Plant spacing
- 26 ft 3 in
- In-row spacing
- 26 ft 3 in
- Between rows
- 32 ft 10 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
Growing
- Type
- Tree · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Sunlight
- Full sun, without compromise; this is not a tree for a shaded corner.
- Watering
- Rides out dry spells once established; water only while it is settling in.
- Feeding
- All-purpose balanced
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Little pruning needed — take out what has to go in late winter.
Through the year
- Apr–Jun Bud Break
- Jun–Oct Flowering
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Dec–Dec Winter Dormancy
- Jan–Apr Winter Dormancy
Companions
Ornamental grasses, Sedums, Echinacea, Rudbeckia
Pests & problems
Garden allies
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Spider mites
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Spider mites
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Spider mites
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Spider mites
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Predatory mites Phytoseiulus & AmblyseiusHunts Spider mites
Fast orange mites that hunt spider mites egg-by-egg, and cousins that clear thrips and fungus-gnat larvae. Sold as a biological control for greenhouses; outdoors they follow humidity — mist and mulch, don’t dust with sulfur.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Spider mites
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com