thin hazelnut sapling broken/cut

Hello,
I am very new to tree planting/gardening. Last year we decided to plant some trees in a nearby abandoned patch. We planted a few trees, and someone cut one of our hazelnut saplings. It was a thin sapling with tender branches on top, someone cut its thin trunk in half. We don't know who or when, but it was definitely cut because the cut is even and on diagonal, so not broken.  So now it looks like a bare thin about 2-ft stick in the ground. Will it regenerate on its own? Is there anything we could do to help it regenerate?
Thank you in advance!

Welcome to Permies Zorah.  Fortunately, hazelnuts are multi stemmed so should do OK.  Unfortunately these types of people are world wide.  Best wishes for our plantings.
We would love to see some pictures when you get to it.
Cheers

Paul Fookes wrote:Welcome to Permies Zorah.  Fortunately, hazelnuts are multi stemmed so should do OK.  Unfortunately these types of people are world wide.  Best wishes for our plantings.
We would love to see some pictures when you get to it.
Cheers

Thank you for the welcome and the reply. Some other hazelnuts we planted are multi stemmed, but this type is one-stemmed - only one trunk. That's why I am worried it will dry out and die without leaves (the top part with branches and leaves got cut off). Should we graft from another hazelnut (same type)? I don't know how to graft, but I am willing to learn. I just want to do everything I can to save this tree. I can go back and take pictures, but there isn't much to show: it's like a stick sticking from the ground. So sad.

Hi Zorah, welcome to Permies! I'm sorry about you baby tree. I wonder whether it could be rabbit/hare damage? See this recent thread. There are some suggestions for saving the tree there too. Summary - hazels will normally regrow well from the roots.
I'm afraid I don't know about grafting hazels. I suspect it is not easy as it is not normally the way that varieties are propagated. However this does mean that if your hazel is a named cultivar it is likely to come true even from root suckers.

in my experience, a smooth, angled cut on a little sapling is more often from rabbits than people. i agree that grafting it (especially if you don’t have much experience) isn’t likely to be successful. i’m afraid the best option is probably just hoping it grows out again, from either the top or bottom. it probably will!

also, a plant with roots but no leaves isn’t likely to die from drying out, so please don’t try to make up for no leaves with added water if that was a thought. the roots are still pulling in water, but the normal mechanism for getting rid of it again- out through the leaves - isn’t there.

i suspect it’ll come back. you didn’t specify what kind of hazel it is, but even tree hazels have dormant buds on the trunk.

Nancy Reading wrote:Hi Zorah, welcome to Permies! I'm sorry about you baby tree. I wonder whether it could be rabbit/hare damage? See this recent thread. There are some suggestions for saving the tree there too. Summary - hazels will normally regrow well from the roots.
I'm afraid I don't know about grafting hazels. I suspect it is not easy as it is not normally the way that varieties are propagated. However this does mean that if your hazel is a named cultivar it is likely to come true even from root suckers.

Thank you very much for the welcome, Nancy! I thought it was a rabbit at first, too. And I checked out the thread you shared - thank you for that. My only doubt about it having been a rabbit is it's the only sapling damaged. There are some other hazelnuts, as well as all sorts of wild saplings, including maple that critters love. None of them has any damage, not even a piece of stripped bark. Only this particular hazelnut sapling got damaged. Also, it would be rather high for a rabbit. We've got only cottontails here, and even if a cottontail got on its hind legs, it would still be too high. That's why I thought it was a human. Another 'hint' that it was a human was that we left there extra protective mesh wraps (or whatever their technical name is -– the ones you wrap around a tree trunk to protect from critters). We left them at the base of our saplings –– they got moved a few feet a way as if someone kicked them away or something. If a rabbit or deer had been feeding on this sapling, they'd have trampled those meshy things; not to mention, that in the winter they'd be covered in snow, so no animal would have gotten to them. So, putting it all together points to a human hand.
I do really hope that it will regrow from the roots - thank you.

greg mosser wrote:in my experience, a smooth, angled cut on a little sapling is more often from rabbits than people. i agree that grafting it (especially if you don’t have much experience) isn’t likely to be successful. i’m afraid the best option is probably just hoping it grows out again, from either the top or bottom. it probably will!

also, a plant with roots but no leaves isn’t likely to die from drying out, so please don’t try to make up for no leaves with added water if that was a thought. the roots are still pulling in water, but the normal mechanism for getting rid of it again- out through the leaves - isn’t there.

i suspect it’ll come back. you didn’t specify what kind of hazel it is, but even tree hazels have dormant buds on the trunk.

Thank you very much for the water info, Greg! in fact, I was thinking of making up for it by watering it, so grateful you mentioned it! Being completely new to tree planting/gardening, I started googling and not one search result mentioned about not watering. At least I won't make that mistake, thank you!

As for the rabbit, I already shared in my reply to Nancy why I tend to think it's someone human rather than a rabbit. Based on what I've got to read so far, it does look like all I can do is hope it will regrow.

PS As for the kind of hazelnut that is, we got it from one of the local farms who said they had cultivated it by crossing a Canadian hazel with some European hazel, and they gave it their own name, so no "official" botanical name. So, we decided to give it a try and got a couple. We also got some other hazels from a different farm, but they seem to be untouched by anyone (knock on wood).

Well, fingers crossed it survives now.
We may have some threads about protecting young trees from humans....maybe in urban or tips for awkward spots. I seem to remember having lots of shrubs and perennials growing up around them to disguise the trees worked well in some plantings in a park in England, UK. You say it is an abandoned patch... brambles make a good prickly disguise, or raspberries.....maybe there is a need for a new guild design? - nettles are stingy and nutritious, foxgloves are poisonous so might deter nibblers with four feet.