yes, those “brainfruit” can get pretty annoying, as in the “get caught in a mower’s blades so it explodes in horrible shrapnel” type of way. that’s another reason we just put mulch under the trees; i don’t have to mow in the horrible osage fruit infested lawn bits.
You should see the lawn obsession here in LA. Come on people, vanilla lawn grass isn’t native to the area by a long shot!
Another thing that can kill obsessed-about lawns is thatching. Frequent shallow watering can make the roots stay close to the surface, and everything gets all tangled up and the sod gets packed and airless. So unless Mr. My Lawn Is My Manhood areates it (wow, I have no idea how to spell that at the moment) with a umm thingummy – is it a rototiller? – yeah, he’s pretty much SOL.
Sprinklers, though … OMG, that’s a topic I can rant about for days. My brother was almost killed taking a header on his bike because some anal tongue dart didn’t take two minutes to aim his sprinklers onto the grass instead of the street. What were they trying to do, grow a four lane highway? (Whoever you are, pinkysnot, I hope you’re happy you almost made me an only child!) Where I live now, there’s always grass being watered somewhere, and while having nice soft luscious grass is nice, no-one ever sits on it or plays on it because the sprinkler water is “reclaimed.” So why bother??
My parents’ home though, has a concrete front yard and back yard. It was that way when we moved in, and we haven’t had the cash to get it taken out. So, in high school, I was the only person I knew who had to sweep the lawn and water the house. I keep telling them they need to spraypaint that concrete green and draw flowers on it. 
I know what caltrops are, have been around Osage Oranges (hedge) all my life, have never seen the “caltrops” of which you speak. I have a dozen or so osage oranges (hedge apples) in my house as we speak, they are rumored to keep spiders at bay.
Is it only certain species, I wonder, or is it only at a certain time? I’d love to know, as I have a yard I’d love to plant some in.
BTW, I believe that Osage Orange is technically the hardest native north american hardwood; anyone confirm or refute this?
As for the OP: I just renewed my scrip to Organic Gardening, an excellent source of alternative pest care products. Maybe you should drop a couple old copies off at your neighbors!!!
b.
I used to have many Osage Oranges on my property, and I never say these caltrops either.
I think the flowering Dogwood is harder than the Osage Orange - at least the Kansas varieties work that way, according to my K-State Extention handbook.
Don’t know about the hardest native wood, but here are some characteristics I gleaned from http://hedgeapple.com :
Also, from http://www.gpnc.org/osage.htm :
I grew up around these trees, too; and don’t remember the caltrops, either. The fruits would sure make your shoe stink after punting them across the field, though.
This just in…
I swear I am not making this up. Will try to find a link:
A New Jersey play ground was closed yesterday. The cause?
Weedkiller.
Yes, seems some kids were ill after playing in the playground. The cause was traced back to the selective herbicide (aka broadleaf weed killer) used at a local playground.
It was a TV news story, so I’ll see if they posted it on the web somewhere.
As as a kid, I don’t ever remember avoiding certain playgrounds because of their high weed count.
Ignorance has been successfully fought right here in the Pit.
I’ve seen those damn Osage Orange fruits in random places, especially when I was a kid in New Hampshire. Up until today I had no idea what in the hell they were and they freaked me out. Now, thanks to the links provided here, I know exactly how cool them trees are. Thanks! 
Actually, Huntsville is a mixed system. Lots of groundwater, but you also have two big surface plants on the Tennessee River.
So sez the bored ADEM Drinking Water Branch employee.
Also, in regards to the hardest wood debate currently raging, I’d always heard that Hercules’ Club, AKA Devil’s Walking Stick, AKA Ironwood, was the strongest native wood.
I’m not sure osage orange has the very highest rot resistance, either. Wasn’t live oak used at one point for ships’ hulls because it wouldn’t rot?
And again. I saw one of these fruits this weekend and wondered what the hell it was. Now I know. They must not like to grow so far south (Austin, TX). Or maybe I just never have paid attention, but I don’t think so, as I enjoy hiking and other out door activities.
shrug
That’s correct. I think Huntsville gets almost all of its water from the Tennessee River, but where I live, we are served by the Harvest-Monrovia Water Authority, which uses 5 large wells (or so the yearly water report claims). That’s why we had a drought emergency last summer, but AFAIK the City of Huntsville did not.
jeez- my little typo certaily caused a great deal of chaos.
i meant that the LOCUSTS drop the spike bundles that are like caltrops. terribly sorry.
please don’t hurt me.
I was just about to mention that the locusts (Gleditsia triacanthos) are the ones that have the thorns. The species name means “three thorned” in reference to the fact that the thorns are usuall branched with three prongs. The spines usually grow in bundles along the trunk. Quite a nasty tree to grow (unless you get the variety “Inermis” which is thornless).
Anyway, the best lawn is no lawn in my book ;). I tore out our lawn and replaced it with things like perennials (I do have grasses, but these are ornamental grasses).
Oh yeah, here’s a pic of the trunk with thorns. It’s not a close up, but you can clearly see they grow in bundles:
http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/samuelson/dendrology/images/caesalpiniaceae/hny_locust%20bark1.jpg
I love my wife, but she and I are on opposite sides of a divide. I am from the post- Silent Spring generation, raised to regard DDT, Agent Orange and lawn chemicals as bad things. My wife is from the generation that thinks lawns should be as perfectly flat, green and smooth as a billiard table, and if fertilizer and herbicides will do the trick, so be it. We must have been the only house in our neighborhood to have puddles in our basement in the middle of a dry spell from sprinkling so much. When she absolutely demanded that I treat our lawn, I did a fuck-up job and killed half our lawn with fertilizer burn, and now it’s overgrown with crabgrass.