Like most farming adventure games,Coral Islanduses a leveling system to classify crafting materials. You will begin the game with basic tools that are only able to collect basic materials, but as you progress through the game’s various stages, you will be able to upgrade your tools and collect more advanced items.

Some materials are easy to locate, but others won’t be available to you until you hit a later stage in the game. Hardwood is one such material. Hardwood is a necessary material for upgrading your farmhouse, tools, and farm buildings, but it won’t always be easy to get.

Coral Island: an image of the player inventory, highlighting the item, Hardwood

Updated July 07, 2025 by Eva Csaki:We’ve updated this article to add information on the two new tree types found in the now unlockable Deep Forest region.

How To Get Hardwood

Hardwood won’t just drop from regular trees if you aren’t properly prepared. To collect hardwood, you will need both a special axe and the right resource nodes to mine.

Hardwood isobtained from large logs, Poplars, and Mahogany trees. you’re able to find large logs in the Mid Forest and Hardwood trees in the Deep Forest.

Coral Island: The Player Character Standing In The Mid Forest

The Mid Forest

The Mid Forest is the unlockable forest region due East of your farm. To unlock the Mid Forest, you mustcomplete six offerings at the Lake Temple. Once you’ve completed your six offerings, a cut scene will reveal the opening of the Mid Forest on the path by the Giant Village.

Every day, you can find1-3 large logs in the Mid Forest.Mining these large logs will give you bothregular wood and hardwood, and thelogs replenish after each dayat a rate of one log per day for up to two logs total.

Coral Island: The Player Character Standing In The Deep Forest

In order to break large logs, you willneed an axe of silver quality or above. Silver axes can break all large logs that are not on your farm’s property.

If you want to break the large logs on your property, you willneed a gold or Osmium axe. Larger stumps also require better axes, so it’s best to level your axe like you would any tool.

Coral Island: The player character in between a Poplar and Mahogany tree

Since trees aren’t dependent on the seasons, you canupgrade your axeat any time without missing out on seasonal opportunities like you would with tools tied to farming or foraging. If you know you’re going to prioritize mining or diving for a couple of days, for instance, it would be a good time to upgrade your axe.

Axes share the same upgrade system as all other tools:regular, bronze, silver, gold, and osmium.

coral island: an image of the player character standing over a fallen log

The Deep Forest

The Deep Forest can be reached after you havecompleted fourteen offerings at the Lake Temple,and can be accessed by following a few different entrances.

The possible entrances to the Deep Forest are over the bridge through the Mid Forest, up the stairs in the Mid Forest, to the left of the Monkey Shop and past the Dig Site, and up around the waterfall by the Mine entrance. All of these routes will eventually lead you to the Deep Forest if you keep following their paths East.

Coral Island: an image of the player journal, highlighting the Exceptional Cutter trait

How To Find Hardwood Trees

What makes the Deep Forest so valuable is that it contains several special resource nodes, including insect catch sites, fishing spots, several forageables, and two types of hardwood trees:Poplar and Mahogany.

At the deepest point of the Deep Forest is a grove of hardwood trees that you’re able to cut down to quickly harvest hardwood. Both Poplar Trees (the tall thin trees) and Mahogany trees (the wide-trunked orange bark trees) drop around 15-20 pieces of hardwood when mined. These trees are themost efficient source of hardwood in the game.

Coral Island: an image of the resources necessary to upgrade to house level 4

What’s even more valuable about Mahogany and Poplar trees is that, unlike large logs and stumps, Mahogany and Poplar trees willdrop tree seeds when felled.

Both Mahogany and Poplar seeds can beplanted on your farm to create renewable hardwood grovesfor easy harvests.

The trees in the Deep Foresttake almost a full season to regrow. It is worth investing farm space in a hardwood grove to ensure you have season-round access to hardwood.

Mahogany and Poplar treesdo not drop regular wood, but they do drop sap and seeds to be planted on your farm.

Large Logs and Roadblocks

Roadblocks are obstacles that can only be removed by certain tools. Often, you’ll find large boulders, trash piles, logs, or stumps blocking paths to new areas.

You will gain valuable materials such as hardwood from each obstacle you clear. Even more valuable are the paths that the obstacles block. In some cases, removing a roadblockopens a whole new area.

For example, removing the large log blocking the waterfall path also opens a new entrance to the Dig Site (unlocked after completing theCatch Alter).

There areseveral daily replenished large logs at the Dig Site, making it yet another great place to mine hardwood.

Explore the island and see what roadblocks you’re able to find early on. You might be able to snag useful loot early if you pick out the right paths to open up.

Other Sources

As you level up your skills, you will earnSkill Points. Skill Points can be spent on helpful mastery skills in your player journal.

The foraging skill is tied to foraging seasonal items and cutting down trees. As you forage more items and cut down trees both on your farm and in the forest, your foraging skills will increase.

The Exceptional Cutter skillincreases the chance that regular trees you fell will drop hardwood. The chance is still pretty slim at two percent, but it’s worth it to increase your chances of harvesting valuable hardwood earlier on in the game, especially when you run out of logs to cut down in your farm, forest, and deep forest.

Hardwood Uses

It’s tempting to save some coral coins and leave your axe un-leveled if you aren’t immediately in need of wood, but eventually, you’re going to need hardwood to progress in the game.

For starters, you’re able to’tupgrade your farming toolspast the silver level if you don’t have hardwood. To upgrade your axe, scythe, bug net, fishing pole, pickaxe, or hoe, you will need to have hardwood on hand.

Golden upgrades require five hardwood, which sounds reasonable, but once you upgrade to Osmium, you will need to have20 hardwood pieces per tool upgraded. That being said, it’s best to get a head start on collecting hardwood as early as you can.

You will also need hardwood if you intend to make Insect Houses for your farm. Each insect house requires 15 hardwoodto make.

Your farmhouse will also need hardwood as you upgrade it. The fourthfarmhouse upgraderequires a whopping200 hardwood, which means you will want to stockpile it as soon as you can. The fourth farmhouse upgrade is necessary if you plan on expanding your Coral Island family, so if you have your eye on becoming a parent, verify you plan ahead for this pricey upgrade.