Hazel And Hazelnuts In Your Garden

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

From letters to the editor

In the forest, you can often find overgrown hazel bushes, which are called hazel. His nuts are delicious fresh, while dried ones are even tastier. But after drying, the hazelnut kernel is small, and large hazelnuts are sold in stores, the nuts of which are similar to hazelnuts, but much larger. Are they different plants? Is it possible to grow hazelnuts in more northern regions?

Hazel, which is often called hazel among the people, is a fairly common plant in our country. In nature, there are over twenty of its species, but in our country there are only a few of them - common hazel, tree hazel, Manchurian hazel, less often - variegated and large hazel.

Gardener's guide

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

But the most common is common hazel. It can often be found in mixed and broad-leaved forests, in clearings, on the slopes of ravines in the Central Region. It also grows in more northern regions, including in the North-West of Russia.

Hazel is a tall (up to 7 meters) multi-stem shrub. In the bush, trunks of various thicknesses are thin and flexible (in childhood we cut them into rods) and as thick as an adult's hand. Hazel blooms in spring even before the leaves appear. Her male flowers are in the form of earrings, they are clearly visible against the background of bare stems, and female flowers can be seen only close, if you look closely - they look like buds - a swollen bud, at the end of which a small flower shines like a light bulb with a lilac color.

In the process of pollination of female flowers, the wind plays an important role, which carries the pollen. Bees that wake up after wintering also participate in pollination. For them, hazel pollen is a good and plentiful food, especially in those places where there is a lot of hazel.

After pollination, the fruits of hazel begin to form - nuts. On the bush, they are found both singly and in whole seedlings of 2-5 pieces. Nuts ripen in late summer or early autumn (in different regions the ripening period may be different. Also, ripening depends on weather conditions). The signal that the nuts are ripe and can be harvested is their easy hulling from the nests. If you see the first fallen nuts under the bush, they are ripe on your plant.

Hazel can be seen more and more often in summer cottages and garden plots. With good care, and she loves fertile, well-drained neutral soil, when regulating the density of the bush (usually 10 to 15 main trunks are left), you can get a good harvest of nuts without going to the forest. Especially if you plant more than one plant for better pollination, but several. Experts recommend planting hazel plants at a distance of at least three meters from each other. When choosing a site for planting, it is necessary to exclude areas filled with melt water, and areas with a close location of groundwater. A good option if it is a low slope. If such a need arises, then hazel can be used to strengthen the eroded slopes.

In addition, decorative varieties of hazel have already appeared and are widely used, which are actively used in creating the landscape of country estates. For example, our author Svetlana Seregina told about a beautiful plant of hazel of the Kontorta variety, which she had been looking for for a long time, found, and then planted in her garden. Now hazel has organically blended into the surrounding landscape. Here is how Svetlana Nikolaevna talks about it: “Without a doubt, this is the most exotic species of hazel - shoots, like long strands of a girl, twisted and styled into an amazing hairstyle. This hazel is especially beautiful in winter and in the pre-spring season, when yellow inflorescences (catkins) appear on it in abundance."

More and more often in the gardens you can see another no less exotic type of hazel - this is a red-leaved hazel. This name is not accidental, this hazel has a dark red color of leaves, which turn a little green by autumn. The varieties of red-leaved hazel are less winter-hardy than common hazel. But breeders have also bred more resistant varieties, for example, varieties Pushkin red or Ivanteevsky red. Experts recommend planting red-leaved hazel near common hazel, which will contribute to better pollination of female flowers.

Notice board

Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

In more southern regions, hazelnuts are common. It is his nuts that we can buy in stores. They are larger than hazel and have a larger kernel. Experts say that hazelnuts are a hybrid derived from several varieties of hazelnuts. After which he was brought into culture and is actively cultivated.

Hazelnut is a more thermophilic plant, but breeders have tried to create hybrids that can be grown in the Central region, and even in the Northwest. These are the so-called Ivanteevsky hazelnuts - hybrids obtained in the Moscow region in the Ivanteevsky forest selection experimental demonstration nursery by crossing large-fruited forest hazel with fruitful southern hazelnuts. As a result, these hybrids turned out to be winter-hardy, like common hazel, but also large-fruited and fruitful, almost like southern hazelnuts.

Therefore, if you are interested in these nut-bearing plants, ask them in nurseries, plant them in your garden. And you will not regret it.