Is a kentucky coffeetree a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Kentucky Coffeetree can work here, with caveats. An Indiana native and increasingly a deliberate planting choice around Indianapolis for street tree pits, parking lot islands and disturbed subdivision ground, largely as builders and municipalities move off Callery pear and rebuild the canopy lost to emerald ash borer. It stays uncommon in the wild here, so most specimens you will quote on are planted, not volunteer.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Two litter events, neither of which is leaves in the usual sense. Female trees drop 5 to 10 inch leathery pods from midwinter into spring — hard enough for a mower deck to throw, with pulp and seeds containing cytisine that is toxic to dogs and livestock — and in fall the tree sheds stout woody leaf rachises up to a foot and a half long that will not shred, rake or compost like ordinary leaf litter.
Where to keep it away from
Deep and coarse, and unusually forgiving of exactly the ground central Indiana builders leave behind: compacted clay, stripped topsoil, high water table and periodic standing water, plus alkaline pH and road salt. The catch is that it spreads by root suckers, so a stump that is cut and left can throw shoots out into the lawn well beyond where the trunk stood.
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