I am wanting to make a dense productive hazelnut hedge in zone 6a.The plants need to mature at 10-12’ and must be suckering to fill in the hedge. There will be about 27 plants total at about a 4’ spacing. I was originally leaning toward the Rutgers varieties but they all seem to mature too tall. I welcome any thoughts or advice you may have.
I would especially like to hear from folks with experience with the following varieties:
FingerLakes Abundant (From Znutty)
Nitka (From Znutty)
NY Hazelnut Seedlings (From Grimmo)
Your going to need cages around them for a few years. Deer LOVE hazelnuts. If you don’t cage them they will destroy every one of them. I would not worry to much about height. The more you cut them, the more they send up more shoots and suckers.
I am growing a bunch but i really like Hazelberts. Last time i talked about them the ‘experts’ say that they dont exist or its some kind of made up word. So i dont talk about them anymore in public forums. Worth growing i think if u are into them.
Like i said before i dont talk about them anymore in public forums due to them not existing and are a made up word. I got mine from Jesse in Maine… he has plenty of pics and is a valuable resource for hazels. He has many great cultivars. He is on this forum and on social media… not sure if he still has a side business of a small nursery.
I am in WV… deer dont bother mine at all… but i have extreme deer pressure and they eat everything else…even multiflora rose here… but dont bother my hazels.
There is only one that i really want to add but its impossible to find here in the US…its called ‘Crimson’ it has red wrappers and leaves in the Fall. Stephan grows it in Canada and he says its his best and favorite one…
Shame we Americans cant get it.
Grimo sells ‘Crimson’. They also sell other hybrid hazelnuts that might serve your needs as a hedge. Look at the Northern Hazelnut Hybrids that they sell.
I planted a hedge of 25 cortland seedlings from Zs and 25 seedlings from ag forest. Both places sent good plants that are doing ok after 3 years. I have them in tubes and the deer and drought has been hard on them but i started spraying rotten egg on them this year which has kept the deer off them. They still didnt grow alot for me, less than 1ft. The other 2 years i blame no rain and just enough water from me to keep them alive. Cages would have helped but i already have hundreds made for other things. Deer and rabbits are a real bastard. I think i have 3 that need to be replaced. I’ll probably order 3 nitka this winter to try and give them cages and mulch and theyll probably catch right up.
You want a multi trunk tree. As your trunks get taller than you want you just cut the whole trunk out near ground and it will replace it with a lot more. As it thickens out it will not get so tall.
I found with my hazel nuts that the blue jays and squirrels of all species clean them out before they are ripe. The blue jays were the worst. It was a steady stream of jays coming and going all day every day until they were all gone. I finally ripped them out and replaced them with lawn that made mowing a lot easier.
I am in New Jersey, kind of on the border between 6A and 6B and am also trying to grow out a haze hedge. It is a mere 9 plants long, not so long as yours. I am hoping it will be 7-10 ft tall.
This was the Oikos hybrid in early summer. The wire on the fence behind it goes to almost 4 ft.
Sadly, I have no experience with any of the varieties that you asked about. My apologies. The two oldest, Okios Hybrid and Ken’s select (also from Oikos) are ~ 10 ft and 8 feet respectively, Dorris, the next oldest is ~ 8 ft. These three all have a base of stems ~ 2-3 ft in diameter. All the others (Somerset, Hunterdon, Raritan, Monmouth, York and a random seedling from Foggy Bottom) are all to young to speculate what might be their steady state height.
Except York, all seem pretty good at suckering. Dorris seems particularly good at that.
The Oikos hybrid in the first pic is beautiful! How old is it? Have you seen any flowers or nuts yet? Thank you for the details and the pictures!
I also have a hedge of OSU varieties planted in 2020. It is 10 trees total. So far no flowers and no nuts. Here is the pic with a 32oz water bottle in the front for comparison:
The Oikos bushes are I think in their 7th year. The site is only in partial sun, not full sun and I only had the first nuts last year although I have had catkins for a couple of years not. Last year was a cicada year so I had to prune back all of the dead branches and lost the entire harvest except for 1 nut, which I keep on my desk.
Most of the Rutgers varieties produced even a few catkins very soon after planting. I was very surprised given the 6ish year wait for the Oikos plants.
Of all the things that have been planted since we moved here I think I like that Oikos bush the most. It just looks nice; it is always leafy and green.
I got some Somerset no taller than 14" with catkins formed. They were picked up in may after spending all winter and spring uder lights, they thought they were done growing for the year. Hahaha. Also clone of Carmela came pollinated!
Following! I just put in the Missouri Native hazelnut, Corylus Americana. Supposedly tasty, attractive and assuming low maintenance as most natives in the right growing conditions. Curious what you ended up going with.
Trying to find some information on Winkler. I have a young one I just planted. Does anybody know if these flower early, mid or late season? And are the catkins early, mid or late pollen shed?
I haven’t been able to find anything on the S alleles which I don’t believe have been tested but if they have and anyone knows what they are let me know. Thanks!
Most of my planting for this hedge is done now. I ended up planting about 5 each of Finger Lakes Abundant Seeding, New York Seedling, and Courtland Seedling. For named varieties I planted about 2 each of Raritan, Somerset, Hunterdon, The Beast, and Grand Traverse. I transplanted some layered Yamhill from my other hedge. Last I have about 4 spots left to fill in. I am waiting to see if I can get some Nikita later this year before I fill in the remaining spots. One lesson learned so far is to not order trees as “plugs”. These are cheaper, but way to small and did not survive the frosts. I reordered some to replace the plugs that died and I have a feeling I will lose a few more before it is all said and done.
