BY JOEL WELLS

The Kentucky Coffeetree is native to Iowa and numerous specimens can be found on the University of Iowa campus. It is an ornamental shade tree that grows best in full sun. It is drought-resistant and grows from 50 to 70 feet tall and can reach 50 feet in spread. It can be grown easily from seed.

The plant pictured below was planted in early November from the seed of a Kentucky Coffeetree located on the University of Iowa campus. (The following link enables users to identify hundreds of different trees on campus: https://maps.facilities.uiowa.edu/trees/. The app is easy to use and especially helpful if you ever wanted to plant a tree and know what it looks like when fully grown.)

Propagate Kentucky Coffeetrees by planting seed collected from the seed pods. The seeds are best harvested when they have turned brown in winter or late spring. Before the seeds germinate, their surface needs to be scraped or scratched (scarified) to remove the protective layers of coating.

1. Remove the seeds from the pods and get rid of the brown-black, sticky, waxy, protective coating adhering to the seed skin. This is done by scraping or filing the seed until it becomes more yellow.
2. Pour boiling water over the seeds, soak them for 24 hours while they cool, then peel off the waxy coating.
3. Plant them about 2 inches deep in a small pot of potting soil.
4. Keep them in a warm, humid, well-lit atmosphere, like in a sunny window. I put my plant in an east-facing window in the basement. I let my house temperature drop to 62 degrees at night until about 5 a.m., when the heat kicks on and the temperature reaches 70 degrees during the day. As you can see in the photos below, the tree grew approximately 6 inches in the two months since planting.
5. The tree can be planted when the weather gets nice; two weeks after the last frost or around Mother’s Day (May 12). The plant can be kept in a pot for about three years before it needs to be planted.