At the moment the Rutgers varieties Somerset, Hunterdon and Monmouth all have flowers and opening catkins as do Dorris and York, the last of these plant’s catkins are only barely starting to open. The hybrids (Oikos and Oikos Ken’s) don’t have much for open flowers male or female. I am hoping that at least some of their catkins will opens soon. They have so many that I will certain that if they open in time they will give a nice bloom of pollen for the others. The pollination seedling that I have at the end of the hedge has no catkins :(.
Looks great. I am doing my Hazel experiment here in Texas. My catkins from the Oikos Precocious tree are starting to elongate and some are giving off pollen, but no flowers yet. Precocious is not a clonal tree so no two are exactly alike, so my other precocious is not yet doing much with catkins yet. I have a wild Corlyus americana from Tennessee that is full on bloom and catkins giving off pollen. See if I will get nuts for the first time this year with that one. The one European Hazel doing well here so far is Yamhill. It is flowering now but the catkins are just starting to release pollen. If I get nuts this year from it and I think I will, this is a good one for hot and sunny Texas. Dorris is growing great in Texas has not put out flowers yet, I don’t know if it is old enough. If this one flowers well and makes nuts I will be thrilled. It grows fine here compared to others, but still waiting on the nuts. Waiting on The Beast to see if it will flower this year along with Grand Traverse. Beast handles the heat better than Grand Traverse. My oldest Jefferson, about 5 years old has yet to put out a catkin or flower. It does not like the heat as much. My Raritans I think are too small to flower. Sommerset and Hunterdon are definitely too young. York hasn’t grown well here still hasn’t flowered after 6 years. Barcelona, my oldest European hazel, should be flowering soon. I have got nuts from it but it is not productive here in Texas. Definitely old enough to bare. Hoping my Polly O flowers for the first time this year. This is another that takes the heat better amongst the European hazels. Oikos Select One works well here which I believe is another non clonal type. This one flowers later. Many others that are probably too young yet, and also a bunch I am planting this years will finish my hazel orchard patch. Once I figure out the varieties that do and do not work here I will switch to those that work. Corylus americana’s are for pollination purposes, although the Select One’s are american hazels that have a nut big enough to be worth collecting at .5 g kernel. For reference for those that don’t know Barcelona comes in at about 1.6g kernel. One of my wild american hazel pollinators makes .2g kernels! Tiny. Keeping my fingers crossed on that Yamhill will produce nuts. Hope to god it is not as hot here this summer. The 110F days last summer were savagely hot.
That is some useful information, made more interesting because it seems a bit different from my experience. For me the two Oikos bushes took several years to flower. The were well taller than me by the time I saw my first catkins. The Rutgers varieties seemed to be trying to push flowers and catkins quite early, in their 1st or 2nd winters. Do your Rutgers bushes tend to bloom earlier in the season? I guess time will tell.
Hopefully we will both be seeing nice crops of nuts.
My Jefferson in Central Alabama has a hard time getting the catkins to survive the winter but the flowers appear to be healthy. I’m grafting in some Eta scions which should provide pollen for both Theta and Jefferson.
NJPete, yeah Texas is a whole different thing. Far from ideal place to grow hazelnuts so don’t take it as typical. But my Raritans are really small, about a foot so wouldn’t expect flowering yet. Jefferson has issues with the heat hear, it does not like it. The Oikos I have are different than yours, I have Precocious and Ecos. Precocious is not a cultivar but a collection of plants selected over time so each is different. One had micronuts, another never made nuts, the other two I have grow well and make nuts. Precocious flowered after about 3 years. Ecos has never flowered here. Anyway I noticed since my last post a few flowers on Dorris. My Barcelona is basically not flowering at all this year. Last summer we had extreme heat all summer up to 110F and I think for some trees it stressed them too much and decided not to flower. Jefferson is having problems with all the heat here. I have a six foot tree and so far no flowers. If it doesn’t flower next year I may replace it. Just got 3 more Yamhills as they handle the heat better, flower well, and the catkins don’t get killed in the heat and wind.
What year did your Jeffersons start flowering? I have a Jefferson that is 6 feet tall and not so much as a single catkin or flower. Catkins are not an issue, I have pollen from others but six feet tall and no flowering, not sure Jefferson will work here. Jefferson really struggles in the Texas heat more so than other types and that may be the issue with it. One more year and if no flowering of any kind I may yank it.
My hazels are all on Jefferson air layers and they have been planted for 3 years. I saw a few flowers in the 3rd year. I can’t speak for other areas but at my location it flowers okay but I want to empathize that it has almost no catkins to pollinate its partner Theta. I’m grafting in Eta this year to help with pollination. Several of my Jefferson has 3-4 varieties grafted onto limbs.
I’ve got 6 hazels in a row by my side fence. they are all leafing out and one or two are blooming. very small plants, the oldest is 4, the youngest was put in last year. I believe the new one is Jefferson? (not sure will have to check variety list)
I have 4 native hazelnuts planted that I bought from Gurney’s Seed probably about 6 or 7 years ago. Three have been producing for about 3 years now. The other one, I think I planted it a little later and it had catkins on it last year, but didn’t produce. I think it might produce this year. I also took suckers, about 4 or 5 and planted them out at the end of winter this year.
Two years ago, I planted two seedlings each of Yamhill and Jefferson from Brambleberry Farm. One of each is doing well, the other two keep getting chomped down by rabbits during the winter. This year I am going to have to try to protect them.
Understood. I can live without catkins on Jefferson since I have some Amerian hazels as pollen sources (very reliable, holds catkins in the Texas wind better), Yamhill, some Oikos trees. Just expanded my number of Yamhill’s because they appear to be doing best so far of the OSU varieties in the hot Texas environment but I must caution no nuts yet just flowers, see if I get nuts this summer. Yamhill has also held onto their catkins better than others due to wind. Wind blows the catkins off my Bercelona. That’s why I have a variety of American hazels planted as pollinizers, the just hold their catkins better and produce a fair amount in this hot environment.
OK updating my Texas experiment with hazelnuts now that blooming is over. Not all my trees are big enough to bloom yet and Jefferson in particular is having a hard time with our high heat more than other varieties. I have on Jefferson that is 6 or 7years old and should be producing some female flowers by now but nothing. I am going to be reducing my Jefferson’s in the next year or two. Already pulled one, next year with no flowers will probably pull all. Had four Corylus americana trees flower, two from Oikos called Select One (does well in Texas but nuts are on the small side), Ecos (doing poorly here) and two unrelated wild trees, one of which provides nuts every year but are too small to eat. Yamhill has flowered for its second time with more flowers than last year. Yamhill seems to be doing well here and am expanding their number, just need to see those flowers turn into its first nuts this summer and this one might be a winner here. An Oikos tree called precocious flowered fine as it does each year, produces nuts well here. Dorris flowered for the second time with a few flowers. Hoping this one works here due to large nuts and Jefferson not working. Unlike Jefferson Dorris grows well here so far. Bought a Truxton this winter which flowered in the spring. Theta has started flowering as seems to grow well here. Felix might have put on a flower or two. Felix suffers in the heat. Was hoping Polly O, Grand Traverse and the Beast would flower this year but no go. They should be getting close to flowering age. They also handle the heat here OK too. Barcelona only put out one flower this year when it usually does maybe 30-40 or so. Barcelona grows but not that happily with the heat, but better than Jefferson. Barcelona if fully mature now and I get at best10-15 nuts from the tree. Given we had prolonged 110F weather last summer, that is probably why and may well be why some others did not flower. Got all the Rutger’s varieties planted but too small yet to flower, put in a nice size Tonda di Giffoni this spring. As mentioned before my goal is to plant many varieties, find which work in the high heat here in Texas, then pull the varieties that don’t work and expand those that do. Yamhill looking promising as is Dorris. Theta seems to be doing well and may be another winner here. Granted Yamhill and Theta are not the varieties with the largest nuts but in principle hazelnuts should not work here at all so beggars can’t be choosers lol. It is all a big 10 year experiment. I am retired, not a problem it is my hobby.
@Darby64
It is good to hear how your hazels are doing. It gets hot at my location but not as much as yours. Like you I am retired and my fruit and hazel trees are grown as a hobby/fun. I had plans to hand pollinate some of the flowers this year and I did a few of the Yamhill, Jefferson, York, and Theta. The only hazel that I have that produced a large amount of pollen was a wild american bought from Tractor Supply. I collected and applied a little to the other blooms so I will soon know if it works. The catkins open early and are gone before Theta and Jefferson have flowers but appear to be a reasonable match for my two early to flower varieties Yamhill and York. I grafted in scions of the TS over these two. I think but don’t know that my best route is to mix in several varieties to get a good pollen coverage. On a side note Jefferson was my latest to bloom this year.
I put in yamhill and Jefferson last year. we get the high dry heat here so seeing what works for you is a hint what might work for me. our winter is a whole lot colder and wetter though
I just planted a “crimson” hazelnut from Grimo. It replaces one that was first girdled by rabbits, and then the regrowth was eaten by deer. So this one has a collar of aluminum window screen and a circle of light steel fencing.
I have another small red hazel bush, also from Grimo, that is doing really well and is about to leaf out. I keep hoping it will flower, but it’s in full shade (dappled shade under oaks) so who knows. It’s about 5 years old now.
I confess that I’m mostly growing them as an ornamental hedge between me and the backyard neighbor. But it would be fun to get a few nuts.
I hope this isn’t too far off topic, but i have three hazelnut trees and they are finally producing nuts. My problem is keeping squirrels away so i can actually harvest at least some. Last year they stripped every nut from all three. How do you folks keep the varmints away?
I’m in the Pacific northwest south of Tacoma.
So far I only have 1 year of an appreciable quantity of nuts. I haven’t yet had the squirrel problem. I have so far only two hypothesis as to why not: 1) They haven’t yet figured out that I have all these nuts and they don’t. 2) Our dog like to chase squirrels and keeps them on their toes.
Thankfully, we don’t have very many tree rats in our area. I actually can’t even remember seeing one in the last 11 years that we have lived here. I think it may be because most of my neighbors have dogs.
Well, at my age, a dog is out of the question. I thought maybe a motion activated Raid Bird sprinkler msy help. It sure works on keeping cats out of the flower garden.
