Edible hedge in north Europe - what grows nicely alongside hazelnuts?

so the north side of my land is all free and i thought it might be nice to have a big edible hedge row all along it. i'm interested in nuts in particular, and have a fantasy about having lots of hazelnuts in my garden, so i thought i could make the hedge primarily out of hazelnuts. is there anything that would also play nicely being spliced into this row, like other nuts or fruit, or other plants/bushes which would help them grow for whatever reason? very open to ideas, i'm a complete novice so any thoughts are welcome. and yes from what i know the soil/light/drainage/climate situation should be fine for hazel.

There are lots of suggestions for hazel companions in these threads here:

https://permies.com/t/53610/Companion-Hazelnuts.
https://permies.com/t/16481
https://permies.com/t/53610

For hazel nuts I gather you want the hazels to grow fairly open in structure with lots of branching, so it won't be a tidy hedge. I like the idea of Amelanchier (juneberry and saskatoon). They certainly have tasty berries if you can get them before the brids do! The colour of the spring and autumn foliage is lovely. Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) too is an underated fruit - tasting like a cross between cranberry and apple perhaps? again lovely red autumn foliage. Rosa rugosa has nice big tasty hips, cherry plum can be productive and ornamental, as can damson. Would hops be a good grower where you are? the early sprouts are supposed to be edible.

You might also want to have a look at this thread: https://permies.com/t/153879 which gives suggestions of other nuts that could be tried in a northerly clime. A lot depends on your summer heat as well of course.

I'm thinking more of shrubs, maybe someone has some better suggestions for understories and ground layers

Damsons would work nicely depending how far north you are, Hawthorn and elder are also about the same size as hazel. I put in 20 hazel sticks last year, and then found I have 3 big stools that were regrowing when I bought the house and I didn't notice them, hopefully there will be lots of nuts in my future, I got 5 from the older plants last year, but they have been badly mismanaged.

Bladdernuts, maybe? I believe there's a bush species native to Europe instead of the tree North Americans have.

D Tucholske wrote:Bladdernuts, maybe? I believe there's a bush species native to Europe instead of the tree North Americans have.

I have a bladdernut ( PFAF link ) in my Kleingarten that is producing a few nuts in a fairly shady location.  I've had it a few years.  It's still not as tall as me, would probably be more productive with another nearby, and is a pretty plant.  Downside:  The nuts are small and super hard.  Upside:  The squirrels haven't figured out it's edible.

Which is a thing you'll probably want to think about.  The squirrels are a menace to my hazelnuts, and OP has nice big oak trees so probably also a nice established squirrel population.

Regarding bladdernuts being hard: Me and the partner went to this arboretum last fall, where they had a hybrid bladdernut. I think it was Staphylea pinnata x colchica, but not 100%. Anyway, since I have some S. pinnata seeds stratifying in the fridge, I was interested to see what the seeds of the hybrid tasted like. I picked a "bladder" and opened it. The seeds were tiny, probably less than half of the size of S. pinnata. I thought something like "well, not much seed inside this", assuming the shell was as thick as the ones I'd seen before, but experimentally I bit it anyway. The shell was thin! You could eat them without shelling, the shell just gave some interesting crunch, and the taste was super sweet and nice. Might be worth thinking about.

Also, I read in a Swedish book about forest gardening that you can get around the problem of the shell on S. pinnata by harvesting them unripe, around August. They say that it tastes somewhat like green peas.

Eino Kenttä wrote:Regarding bladdernuts being hard: Me and the partner went to this arboretum last fall, where they had a hybrid bladdernut. I think it was Staphylea pinnata x colchica, but not 100%. Anyway, since I have some S. pinnata seeds stratifying in the fridge, I was interested to see what the seeds of the hybrid tasted like. I picked a "bladder" and opened it. The seeds were tiny, probably less than half of the size of S. pinnata. I thought something like "well, not much seed inside this", assuming the shell was as thick as the ones I'd seen before, but experimentally I bit it anyway. The shell was thin! You could eat them without shelling, the shell just gave some interesting crunch, and the taste was super sweet and nice. Might be worth thinking about.

Also, I read in a Swedish book about forest gardening that you can get around the problem of the shell on S. pinnata by harvesting them unripe, around August. They say that it tastes somewhat like green peas.

Ooh, that hybrid sounds interesting.  I'll have to see if I can find one!

And that's a good idea about harvesting them early - I'll try that this year.  As an aside, do you remember the book's name, and would you recommend it in general?  Many thanks!

The book is called "Skogsträdgården", written by Philipp Weiss and Annevi Sjöberg. I can definitely recommend it! Don't know if it has been translated, though, so if you don't happen to know Swedish it might be tricky.

Also, if you want to check out that specific hybrid bladdenut bush for yourself, and if you happen to pass through Belgium for some reason, it's at Arboretum Robert Lenoir