I went to the Brooklyn botanical garden and collected ten American chestnuts for planting(and a few for eating) and am gonna plant them in New York. Watch out for some trees in a couple decades at angle fly preserve. That’s my first stop.
7 Likes
Will you be checking in on them regularly to rub soil on their cankers to prevent trunks from being killed by blight?
1 Like
good idea
1 Like
I haven’t been to that preserve, but in all likelihood they’re already there.
I’d also like to discourage you from planting things on any property that you don’t expressly have permission to do so. Especially on wildlife preserves, you don’t know what sorts of projects you could be messing up.
6 Likes
I think the Brooklyn trees are Chinese/American hybrids.
3 Likes
No it had a sign that said American chestnut
1 Like
They’re not 100% american.
3 Likes
I think these ones are. The tree looks older than the one I saw at the native flora garden(where one was planted)
The sign is meaningless. Anyone can put up a sign saying anything. Chestnut trees are commonly misidentified in botanical gardens because none of the employee can distinguish the different species.
They’re American/Chinese hybrids.
6 Likes
Did you collect them there? Buy them? What about the paw paws? I think they have them there correct?
I need to take a trip to the Botanical Gardens, havent been to either the brooklyn or bronx one since I started growing plants.
They are surely hybrids though as written in that article… Although the article claims there were purebred american chestnuts planted in prospect park with one bearing nuts in 2010- maybe ill hop on the subway and check it out this year.
A few dozen pure American Chestnut trees grow in the ACF planting in Muscle Shoals Alabama. I grabbed a few chestnuts while there harvesting a few months ago. I have 3 sprouts in a 5 gallon container so far. A few more will probably emerge over the next few weeks.
2 Likes
There are 7 “American” chestnuts in the native flora garden and one outside next to other chestnut trees. The one outside is significantly bigger than the ones at the garden so if they planted the ones in the garden all at the same time it would make sense that the one outside is older and therefore not a hybrid. It could be that it just wasn’t shaded by other trees but it produced 100’s of fruits while the tree I saw in the native flora garden is so young only to produce less than 20.
There are efforts to create pure American chestnuts that are blight resistant but have not yet succeeded. I’d recommend you check with experts there where you found them, but I’d be shocked if it actually was a pure, 100% American chestnut.
1 Like
Nothing you have posted makes any of them seem like American. One tree being older than the others does not make it American. One tree being larger than the others does not make it American. Producing 100s of nuts does not make it American either.
1 Like
how could it be a hybrid if they only started planting hybrids after it was planted?
considering NYC was ground zero for chestnut blight, its pretty safe to say youre not going to find any survivors there. how long are the leaves? thatd be an easy telltale.
1 Like
The first one is a hybrid too.
There was no point in planting pure American trees because they would die.