The Staghorn Sumac, genus Rhus, species typhina, is a northern jungle type palm tree flourishing in the Appalachian Mountains, Eastern Canada, the Northeast, and parts of the Mid-west. It behaves similarly to the various kinds of Palm trees in the South and across the United States. It can handle all day in the sun like Palms in the Carribean or California but will prosper more with one to two rainy days each week. Cultivating the tree in one's backyard in a region that it is not native to is possible, with the right amount of attention and care. A person should be able to maintain the Staghorn Sumac with a regular amount of gardening water from a hose and an oscillating water sprinkler. When the Staghorns' yellow flower buds turn red in the later summer months of the year, the trees flowery red fruit is famous for being used to make pink lemonade. The soft red flowery fruit can also be made into jelly or jam.

 

If you're seriously interested in having a Staghorn Sumac patch of trees in the back or front yard of your house or in the lobby of your office building, our recommendation is to buy two to five baby sumacs from staghornsumac.com. We will deliver the sumacs in one, one and a half, or two-gallon pots with a soil mixture that is half Miracle Gro from Home Depot and half the original clay dirt from the field of our farm in the Vermont Green Mountains. In New England, we will deliver to the driveway or walkway of your house, to the lobby of your office building, or to downtown Bennington, Vermont. If you're able to drive and pull it up the steep hills on the gravel road to our farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont, you can pick up your baby trees and/or plants from our farm in the Vermont Green Mountains. Arrangements for pick-up or delivery will be discussed over the phone at the time of ordering or final purchase.

 

For larger orders of the baby trees and plants being delivered in New England, this is the procedure that takes place after your payment has gone through and been deposited into our checking account. Staghornsumac.com will dig up 2-5 baby sumacs for you out of our field and put them into black disposable pots with some water and soil. Depending on the size of the baby, it might droop in a couple of days, or in a few hours, or in the car, bad weather outside, etc. When and if the baby tree droops, we tie the baby sumac to a stick to hold it up with some string.  These little guys should go into the ground as soon as possible. They can live a few many days in the small pot, but for best results, and to risk the tree not dying, you should put them into an 8 to 12 inch perfectly sized hole in the ground of your yard where you want the trees to grow permanently. You must water the root and the baby tree every day until the baby starts to come up on its own. At the very least, the stem and the root should live, and if for any reason, the baby tree does die, there should be another one right behind it.

 

If you do grow a successful patch of Staghorn Sumacs in the yard of your home, they might germinate and spread some of their seedlings haphazardly across your yard. If this happens, you might consider digging up the babies and following the procedures above to start another patch of Sumacs or add to the one you already have. You could also give the baby trees away to a friend or neighbor. They can be easily cut, having a soft stem, when you run out of room in your yard.

 

If you plan to grow a patch of Staghorns in the lobby of an office building, the Staghorn needs to grow one foot down, and then the roots start to grow across horizontally. The trees need sunshine from the outside through the window, and florescent white daylight grow bulbs for plants, also known as terrarium lighting, around the trees inside. LED Daylight bulbs should work as well. Water the Staghorns once a week to once a month. They enjoy wind, they are wind eating palms, so large office lobby fans would be enjoyed by the Sumacs.