If you are interested in Hollies, There are many with wonderfully sharp edges... Blue prince and blue princess holly will grow nicely as long as they get some shade, full florida sun is tough on them in summer. If you want them to berry, you must buy at least one prince and one princess. Mary nell holly will grow fast and tall. my six inch pots grew to 20 ft in six years! birds love them also! I had these in Ocala FL, so if you are similar in temp and rain, they will grow. Also pampas grass. That stuff will slice you where you need stitches (first hand knowledge!), and florida saw palmetto - I find it ugly, but it does well and has nice prickly leaves...

Luey, ticks are, unfortunately, an unpleasant part of living in the country. While there are areas that have few of them - I think I saw fewer than 5 total in all my years growing up in VT, having no dogs, but outdoors and in woods almost everyday, riding - most outdoor areas will have ticks. Unless your children never go off a mowed lawn - and even then, probably, there will be ticks - ticks will find them. There are ways of limiting tick exposure - try a search of this or other GW forums for "ticks" and see what you find - off the top of my head, I can remember relatively non-toxic suggestions such as beneficial nematodes applied in fall or early spring against the ground-based young, keeping Guinea fowl, using herbal repellents. There are sprays you can have applied to your yard, but they are relatively non-selective and toxic. As suggested above, you simply check yourselves and your children, and clothing, carefully every night. Because ticks crawl upward until they encounter an obstacle or can't climb anymore, when they attach themselves, common sites to find them are heads, armpits and around ears. Because of the toxicity of DEET, I would recommend using it only on clothing and not on skin, esp. for children. There are less-toxic, but also less effective repellents. While my dog, who goes through the underbrush a LOT more than I do, can have many ticks on her (2-15/day in the past, many fewer this year for some reason - new, natural food?), I have had only about 5-8 per year on me in the 8 years I have lived here. Dropping them into a jar of water with a few drops of detergent or alcohol (to break the surface tension of the water) will drown them. Don't just drop them down the john, unless you flush - they float and will crawl out to be on the edge of the seat or lid the next time you come in. Dogs and other outside animals - cats, horses, etc. - should be checked daily as well, although you can use a spot-on treatment for them (my dog gets a skin reaction to the treatments so gets checked daily, sometimes twice). If you want the Osage orange trees gone, do it for other reasons, such as the thorns - you won't have that many fewer ticks on you, your kids or animals because of their presence or their absence. Follow Lucky P's suggestions if you want to get rid of them.

As previously stated, their are two types of locust trees being discussed here. The type known for its fragrant flowers, messy seed pods, broken branches and troublesome roots that have a strong tendency to send out runners wherever they please, are robinia pseudoacacia, while the 'other' type, which includes the previously mentioned 'Sunburst' and 'Shademaster' is gleditsia triacanthos. The gleditsia is much better behaved, lending itself to being a more welcome garden guest, and is also thornless, whereas the robinias can be quite thorny. 'Sunburst' itself is a fruitless variety. Toomnywds, if your tree has been topped, you will need to train a new leader for it, or it will develop several leading shoots, which can, with age, make the tree more susceptible to storm damage due to awkward growing angles. Select a strong growing side shoot near the top of your tree, gently but firmly push it upright, and fasten it into place, If there is a stub left on your tree, you can use this to anchor your new leader to, or if none is left, fasten a straight stick firmly (using twine) to the trunk of your tree, then your 'new' leader can be fastened to this stick, again with twine. You will have to leave this in place for approximately one growing season, then you can remove the twine and supporting stick. Just monitor them, to make sure it is tight enough to provide support, but not so tight as to damage the bark. When your new leader is strong enough to continue growing upright on its own, the supports can be removed. Good luck.

Ya know lucky, (I'm sure you do know!) HL is a fast grower, and as such, probably not all that dense of wood, although I have been surprised on occasion at the tightness of the grain on big old bottom hunks off of trunks. I always wanted to make a bass guitar body out of it for some reason. Never got around to it and now, I finally quit touring and playing, so doesn't really matter anymore, but interesting properties for such a fast grower. Most any I've ever burned was just thrown on an outdoor fire but one brother-in-law reported the blue flame in his wood burner. I dunno. Considering how over-planted that thing is, IMO, any that gets burned can only help matters, lol! +oM