If Trees Could Sing: Ketch Secor & Osage Orange
Old Crow Medicine Show Ketch Secor and Old Crow Medicine Show. © By permission of Ketch Secor and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Stories in Tennessee

If Trees Could Sing: Ketch Secor

Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show talks about the benefits of trees like the osage orange.

Ketch Secor is the fiddling, banjo-playing, harmonica-wielding singer of the Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show. Discovered in 2000 by music legend Doc Watson while busking in Boone, North Carolina, Old Crow Medicine Show has become a successful touring and recording outfit, and they are now members of the Grand Ole Opry radio show. Old Crow's 2014 album Remedy won a Grammy for Best Folk Album. Secor is the co-writer (with Bob Dylan) of the popular song “Wagon Wheel.”  In 2017, Secor and his band, Old Crow Medicine released their album called, 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde, a rendition of Bob Dylan's classic album. 

More music artists talk about trees . . . 

Ketch Secor Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show talks about the osage orange in this video for The Nature Conservancy's "If Trees

Osage Orange Facts

  • Scientific name: Maclura pomifera
  • Other names: horse apple, hedge apple, bodock, bodark, mock orange, bowwood
  • Range: originally the Southwest; now also across the Southeast and Great Plains
  • Height: up to 50 feet
  • Fruit: yellow-green, large and round; ripens in the fall
  • Fall Colors: leaves turn bright yellow

You Can Take Care of Trees Like the Osage Orange

  • Plant in late fall or winter when the tree is dormant, unless the ground is frozen. 
  • Allow plenty of room for the tree to mature and grow.
  • Water it regularly in its first three years.
  • Spread mulch around the base of the tree. 

Mighty Cool Tree Fact

Did you know... an acre of trees provides enough oxygen for 18 people to breathe each year?

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