Hazels in Bloom: Nuts, Fuel, Beauty. A Sustainable Alternative to Almonds for Home or Farm 

I put about 400 in the ground (American filbert, a native species here in Kentucky USA). We got a whole lot of little bitty nuts from them this year. Ours grow to little bush size, and make a wonderful understory layer to the Chinese chestnuts we put in with them.

How old is your hazel? Curious because I planted my first hazel this past fall. I see buds and I am excited to see it grow.

Literally just cut a small branch off and accidentally leave it touching the ground. It'll root, whether you want it to or not 🙄

Did they sprout?

since a squirrel planted it, it is WAY too close to the fence. It makes it difficult to prune the backside of it and branches end up touching the fence. The stool of the coppice itself is about 2 ftx 2.5 ft.

Thanks! That's really helpful information. It did look a bit close. If you were planting it yourself, how far away from the fence would you choose?@@ParkrosePermaculture

If that is the case, then maybe all hazels growing here (in the entire region) are of the same variety (just wild hazels) and then that's the reason why they don't produce well ...

Hazel's need 2 to produce nuts. If you don't have room for two trees, plant one in a shady location near by and coppice that one tree to a shrub. Very small hazel's will produce flowers if they are established, and that can pollenate the larger tree. Hazel's grow well from nuts.

I heard mushrooms for, like, shiitake or oyster. Not sure though.

Very useful for living hedges, wattle fencing, and bows

Hazel nuts, narrow stakes, thinner poles for wattle or fencing, even thinner to be used for weaving, firewood, kindling. The young suckers out of the stool of a coppiced hazel come in super super straight and grow relatively quickly. If you’re in the right environment you can just stick the cuttings in the ground and they’ll sprout, so you can use them for a living fence, or as an actual historical English style hedge row (one of my plans). Honestly I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t think of any. Just got off work. Brain melted.

Hazel wood and shoots can be used in making baskets, building trellis, in thatched roofs, and hurdles, the movable livestock fences type.

I have wood anemone as ground cover under mine. And black currants, giant Solomon’s seal, lovage and sea kale around mine :)

If you have a lot of space, filberts grow well interplanted with chestnut trees, and both can be managed for coppice, pollard, hedgerow, timber, or nut/fruit production.

@@permiebird937 Absolutely! I added black locust in the mix I have for a nitrogen fixer, and coppice the black locust to keep them from shading out the rest. Black locust makes amazing firewood and rot resistant wood items. It's hard, however, so good sharp tools are essential to work with it.

It is probably the variety. We have well over 100 acres of hazelnuts. We have about 10 different kinds. Some have very large nuts and others are quite small.

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