The edges of the orchard are planted with hazelnuts; named EFB resistant varieties.
Other portions not pictured are planted with service berries, cornealian cherry, Chestnuts walnuts, witch hazel and willows in layers from short to tall. The intent is to grow in edible or useful hedgerow which will hopefully be of service to the local wildlife as well as provide some windbreak.
I do this with elderberry, hazelnut, and american plum. The elderberry has turned out to be my favorite fast growing privacy hedge
Doing the same here… i have many areas for predators/prey and pollinators… Clove Currants going in this week as well as some damsons and myrobalan and more black rasps. If you dont mow then Asters and Brown Eyed Susans and Thistles really bring in alot of nature.
I have about 10 hazelnuts… Hazelberts are doing the best for me here.
Glad to hear it works! I do have a section on elderberries and chokecherries as well.
@krismoriah most of my orchard is on the other two sides of the hill not pictured and the whole will is wildflowers. It brings in lots of pollinators sometimes it’s hard to work on the trees without disturbing the bees!
Question for you both; Do you find having a set up like this increase the pressure from wildlife on your trees or keeps them at bay since they have their fill at the edges?
Is this your personal blog? Way cool!
No. Jesse on here talked about hazelberts years ago and i got them going here. He is a good source of things like this and the things you are doing. I have gotten many willows, elders and nuts etc from him along with all kinds of other things…
SLN used to sell them and i bought some from them also… but planting Jesse’s seeds and growing them out was the best deal.
Everything ripens in it’s own window and the thieves will be there to help you pick each. I thought using mulberries, elders, ect. would deter them, but it really had no effect on anything. Just more to steal. You will be real popular in the animal kingdom.
i dont mind feeding birds /wildlife etc if its a native plant especially.
I personally find having “sacrificial” plants helps with rabbit damage, but I dont have deer so its sort of a different situation. Birds clean up my aronia but I hate those berries anyway lol, we’ll see once the cherries start. I can usually get most serviceberry.
I also have rats around but I dont know exactly what theyre eating…
Anyway: i love this idea, Id add in some tall grasses/ goldenrod for winter privacy/wind break to add. Some can grow pretty well in shade and it willgive it some more winter interest. canada wild rye comes to mind along with like indian grass and like most goldenrods. Cutleaf coneflower is one of my fave edibles and grows well in shade/ is quite tall as well. American groundnut might be able to be mixed in as well, it climbs shrubs but doesnt damage it.
Great ideas. I do have some grasses, goldenrod and milkweed in the “understory” of the hedgerows but adding cut leaf coneflowers sounds like a great addition. Between the hedgerow where the orchard meets my small lawn area I have it lined with honey berries (~150ft or so) to help also provide windbreak as well as early spring treat.
I’ve just been exploring hazelnuts for my place in central NH. I’d prefer to have native nuts and not hybrids, but I’m not familiar with their disease susceptibility for our region. I wanted a couple of shrubby ones for the chicken run too to replace the bamboo.
I have a glossy buckthorn problem here and I’d like to cut it all back and replace it with hazelnuts and serviceberry like you have. There’s low bush blueberries that want to grow too, but the buckthorn shades it out.
As for the chestnuts, I have a bunch of dentatas here and the deer will wipe them down to the ground if I don’t fence them up 5-6ft high.
@weatherandtrees
Pure American hazelnuts have great EFB resistance. They tend to grow more bushy and can tolerate shade but they will produce more in full sun. They do produce edible hazelnuts just smaller than the European ones. The reason to have hybrids (Euro/American crosses) is to have larger hazelnuts with thinner shells that are way for cracking and eating but still disease resistant. Pure European or Turkish hazelnuts would not survive in the US for long due to blight.
I have my chestnuts in 6 foot grow tubes. If they don’t make it I’m not as concerned. I mainly grow nuts for the fun and as backup protein source if the world goes to hell and a hand basket.
My orchard is only a few years old but sounds like you’re fairly local to me if you ever want scion or suckers for propagation I assume I will have plenty in the next few years. I have every variety of bush cherry you can get in the US, 20+ honeyberry varieties 4 different serviceberry (bush style so nothing that grows to large), quite a few blackberries and raspberries to name a few. I’m happy to share!
Awesome and thanks for the offerings. I see you have some pawpaws…I have a good 45-50 named cultivars here. I try to keep it mostly North American natives here, hence the dentatas, but it definitely gets discouraging with the disease pressure. I just saw the spreadsheet screenshots you posted in another thread. I may have to hit you up on some currant cuttings someday. Rondom is hard to find and NH is understandably stingy with what they allow because of white pine rust.
I’m in the Lakes Region near 93. I love seeing what you’re doing though.
For sure I’ll let you know when they are big enough to propagate they are in the first year in ground. They were a pain to get especially as we are limited to a few disease resistant varieties here. I live on the base of Mt. Kearsarge so not too far at all.
Yea that screenshot is old too added a bunch more stuff. I’m looking forward to pawpaws. Let me know what grows best for you and maybe we can trade some seeds sometime!
