[Shieldsy]

Hi there,

Dug up a number of Hazel/Holly seedlings today from a garden that was offering take what you want on Freecycle. 

Trouble is I had to do this during my lunch break at work so they were left in the car this afternoon. Having rushed home I quickly placed them in pots of water in an unheated greenhouse hoping for the best.

My question now is will they be OK there until the weekend when I get time to plant them up and are there any tried and tested planting techniques for Hazel and/or Holly?

[sunshineband]

Planted 20 hazel saplings in a clearing at the edge of our copse autumn 07 --- dug largish holes, filled with water and put in the rootball once it had drained away. Not really done much else to them and have 19 left.. One got trashed during a football match!!


Have also moved self sown seedlings int he graden with no trouble so I guess they are fairly tough.

Good luck with them.

[Shieldsy]

Thanks for that, here's hoping for a successful transplant 

Do you use the thinner stems to make plant supports etc or used as a hedging or even harvesting nuts if the squirrels don't get them first?

[sunshineband]

I have a 20 year old coppiced hazel, which I cut a third of the poles off the stool every year for bean sticks etc. Never get any nuts as the squirrels beat me too it every year -- could net the tree but I just give in!

[Shieldsy]

Am also looking to get some poles etc from them so whne you say you cut off the stool what is the stool, excuse my ignorance 

How do you coppice your Hazel?

As for those pesky squirrels!!

[Rangerkris]

http://swepstonecoppice.co.uk/coppicing.aspx#ctl00_IWS_WH_CPH_Content_LMTControl4

Take a look here its full of the kind of info you need.  You can make good money from hazel coppice.

[Shieldsy]

Wow, thanks Ranger Kris this should come in very handy provided the seedlings take OK

Cheers,

Shieldsy

[sunshineband]

Wow Rangerkris, this was an awesomely detailed intro to coppicing -- I have to confess I use sharp loppers and a pruning saw and just get to it, not cutting to low to presevre any new shoots buds for the future.

[tam]

Are hazels self fertile or do you need two to get nuts? We'd like to put on in our new short bit of hedge but I don't think there is enough room for two.

[Rangerkris]

Male flowers are in the form of catkins, which are pale yellow in colour and up to 5 cm. long. They open in February, when hazel and its companion deciduous trees are all leafless, so they are one of the first obvious signs of spring in the forest. The female flowers are tiny red tufts, growing out of what look like swollen buds, and are visible on the same branches as the male catkins. Pollination is by wind, and hazel is self-incompatible - successful pollination only occurs between different trees, as a single tree cannot pollinate itself.

Fertilised female flowers grow into nuts which are up to 2 cm. in size and occur in clusters of 1 to 4. Each nut is partially enclosed by a cup-shaped sheath of papery bracts, or modified leaves. The nuts ripen to a brown colour in September and October, with the nut itself enclosed by a tough woody shell. Empty nuts are an occasional occurrence


Tam this may help with you question. 

[tam]

Thanks Kris, I'll have to have a think about that. As far as I know there aren't any hazels near by so we wouldn't get nuts with just one

[sunshineband]

Hazels in a hedge row look brilliant... try to fit in a couple as they will certainly repay you if you can! Even if you clip them along the side with a hedgetrimmer, you still get sprays of catkins hanging out at this time in the year, which are gorgeous yellow. We have had blue tits seemingly pecking at them... they don't eat pollen as well as insects do they? Anyone know as I have never seen them do this before?

[tam]

How small can you realistically keep them? We've got about 3' wide by 5-6' long. Is that too close to put two?

We've got blue tits pecking away at various shrubs in the garden I think they are going for insects rather than pollen.

[sunshineband]

Our hedge alongside the plot is about 3 feet wide, and although it is about fifteen feet long the two hazels are only six feet apart. We also have beech, guelder rose, spindle, pyracantha (Don't know where that came from as I didn't plant it so I guess a bird brought a gift) honeysuckle and hawthorn, with a cypress in the middle to provide some winter shelter. The saplings were planted in a stagger across two feet not in a straight line to the hedge is very dense now. Have kept the base clear of ivy.

Sorry I went on a bit there -- it was the first thing I planted at the site that is kind of permanent about twelve years ago. I keep it about 2- 2.5 m high.

What else are you planting in yours?

[tam]

It sounds lovely! We're thinking pear & cherry (the column style ones so not too big), a blackberry and a couple of raspberries, hazel and a Garrya. Then run a couple of climbers through to fill the gaps. It's down the side of our garden so hoping to cross nice looking with edible too. We've a couple of pyracanthas on the opposite side that the birds love, bit prickly to prune though!