Cultivating Hazel
- Thread starter Big John
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Rooted cuttings work, but so do budding shoots put into damp soil. If you want the nuts to sprout cover them in leaf litter or put them into the compost heap and leave undisturbed over winter.
I dumped a load of chesnuts the boys had gathered for chessies, but had left lying around until I was fed up looking at them, into my compost heap one autumn. Come springtime and when Gavin started to dig out the heap we found 137 chestnut seedlings growing merrily away
I confessed to my sons thieving ways to the local park rangers who were delighted to take the seedlings off my hands....seems they have problems germinating them....Strathclyde park now has them all over the place
A later attempt with acorns and hazelnuts, cherry pips and beechnuts all yielded viable seedlings,
Cheers,
Toddy
I dumped a load of chesnuts the boys had gathered for chessies, but had left lying around until I was fed up looking at them, into my compost heap one autumn. Come springtime and when Gavin started to dig out the heap we found 137 chestnut seedlings growing merrily away
I confessed to my sons thieving ways to the local park rangers who were delighted to take the seedlings off my hands....seems they have problems germinating them....Strathclyde park now has them all over the place
A later attempt with acorns and hazelnuts, cherry pips and beechnuts all yielded viable seedlings,
Cheers,
Toddy
Cultivating hazel - obviously not something one can do in an afternoon. Therefore if experimenting then do all the options and see what works. Options include:-
planting nuts that you kept indoors over winter
planting nuts before the winter (some seeds need to get wet and cold)
cuttings of twigs
cuttings of rooted twigs (from the edge of a clump)
layering ( bending a branch down to root before cutting off the big plant)
I cultivate elderberries. There are softwood cuttings and there are hardwood cuttings taken at different times of the year. I found that some individual plants are easy to root cuttings while others are near impossible.
Rooting hormone might help.
Ever thought of growing truffles with your hazel?
planting nuts that you kept indoors over winter
planting nuts before the winter (some seeds need to get wet and cold)
cuttings of twigs
cuttings of rooted twigs (from the edge of a clump)
layering ( bending a branch down to root before cutting off the big plant)
I cultivate elderberries. There are softwood cuttings and there are hardwood cuttings taken at different times of the year. I found that some individual plants are easy to root cuttings while others are near impossible.
Rooting hormone might help.
Ever thought of growing truffles with your hazel?
Getting chestnuts to germinate is easy.
Get a box, half fill with leaf litter. Put in a layer of chestnuts, and fill with leat litter. Cover, and leave in thedark, and keep moist (but not wet, or you'll get a mushroomy smell). After a while, you'll get nive long shoots reaching up to try to find light, and nice long roots looking for soil and water. Keep the strongest and plant in soil.
This technique should work for hazels, beeches, hornbeams.
Hazel trees easily throw off side shoots, and so you might be able to get some of these to take as cuttings, like you can with (I think) sallow and willow. Dig a trench, about 8" deep and 8" wide, as long as you like, in the shade of a wall, and fill with sand. Stick hazel wands into the sand in late October or early November, and wait for springtime. You might end up with just sticks, but some should have taken root.
Keith.
Get a box, half fill with leaf litter. Put in a layer of chestnuts, and fill with leat litter. Cover, and leave in thedark, and keep moist (but not wet, or you'll get a mushroomy smell). After a while, you'll get nive long shoots reaching up to try to find light, and nice long roots looking for soil and water. Keep the strongest and plant in soil.
This technique should work for hazels, beeches, hornbeams.
Hazel trees easily throw off side shoots, and so you might be able to get some of these to take as cuttings, like you can with (I think) sallow and willow. Dig a trench, about 8" deep and 8" wide, as long as you like, in the shade of a wall, and fill with sand. Stick hazel wands into the sand in late October or early November, and wait for springtime. You might end up with just sticks, but some should have taken root.
Keith.
Where is Jack when you need him ?
I'd bury the nuts and cross my fingers, and Planch/layer a hazel pole into the ground from the side of a hazel stool, leave it over winter to root (you cut a bit of bark off the underside befroe burrying it in the soil) then come back in the spring and cut it free from the main plant.
Cheers
Rich
I'd bury the nuts and cross my fingers, and Planch/layer a hazel pole into the ground from the side of a hazel stool, leave it over winter to root (you cut a bit of bark off the underside befroe burrying it in the soil) then come back in the spring and cut it free from the main plant.
Cheers
Rich
match said:Just a tip - don't use beech leaves to germinate seeds in - they give off chemicals as they decompose that inhibits germination in most seeds except beeches - gives their own seeds a headstart on the forest floor
That's very good information.
I usually use the juciest, biggest and most available (from our garden) leaves for germination; i.e. chestnut.
We have a hornbeam, too. I suppose its leaves would do the same trick as those of the beech?
Keith.
Hi guys.
Rovings idea of plashing will give you good results, planting nuts will of course work but it isn't a quick fix as you will have to wait 18 months for germination.
The squirrel will bury nust but he does more damage than he does good and he is one of the major threats to our ancient woodlands, why? because the squirrel will take every single nut from a coppice, not much harm in that, just the fact that he takes them in August when the hazels aren't ripe so it has a long term affect of making woodland sterile.
Rovings idea of plashing will give you good results, planting nuts will of course work but it isn't a quick fix as you will have to wait 18 months for germination.
The squirrel will bury nust but he does more damage than he does good and he is one of the major threats to our ancient woodlands, why? because the squirrel will take every single nut from a coppice, not much harm in that, just the fact that he takes them in August when the hazels aren't ripe
so it has a long term affect of making woodland sterile.
Jack said:Hi guys.
Rovings idea of plashing will give you good results, planting nuts will of course work but it isn't a quick fix as you will have to wait 18 months for germination.
QUOTE]
D'you mean just hazel? I gathered the ones under the bushes and presumed they were fresh and they germinated fine.....well when I opened up the compost heap in Spring they were shooting out both waysI can empathise with Modo in Pratchett over the compost heaps!
Cheers,
Toddy
Hi Toddy.
That is fine and as you can see, it works. When a hazel falls from a tree it lays on the ground until something or someone buries it. Remember, nature doesn't plough. Once buried it then has to wait for the correct soil temperature, 6c and above to germinate, the shell has to soften and in a sense rot itself away from the seed to allow the cotyledon to push on through.
Nature is amazing, a Foxglove seed can stay dorment in the woodland soil for over an hundred years. We have cut coppice that was last felled during the war and the array of un seen before wild flowers was out of this world. So you never really now what you are walking on, just because you can't see wild flowers doesn't mean that they aren't there!
Best wishes.
Jack
That is fine and as you can see, it works. When a hazel falls from a tree it lays on the ground until something or someone buries it. Remember, nature doesn't plough. Once buried it then has to wait for the correct soil temperature, 6c and above to germinate, the shell has to soften and in a sense rot itself away from the seed to allow the cotyledon to push on through.
Nature is amazing, a Foxglove seed can stay dorment in the woodland soil for over an hundred years. We have cut coppice that was last felled during the war and the array of un seen before wild flowers was out of this world. So you never really now what you are walking on, just because you can't see wild flowers doesn't mean that they aren't there!
Best wishes.
Jack
For an absolutly spot on book recommendation on sustainable woodland management go with 'The Woodland way-a permaculture approach to sustainable woodland management' by Ben Law
Cant recommend it enough
Booosh
Cant recommend it enough
Booosh
