Growing nuts up North (cold resistant)

Great news about your kiwis, Victor!   I ate about 20 little fruits off a vine last year.  The pot I mentioned above some years ago was planted by a west facing wall on a building I built for someone.  I think it has been in the ground 4 years, along with a male in the same location.   I have where I live now a male and no female, so I'm planning to attempt to graft a bit of female onto the male vine.

What kind of soil do you have there? Were in the UP (iron county) and we planted 4 hybrid chestnuts last spring. I thought they were doing fine, but as of now they haven’t even broken bud or leafed out yet. The buds actually dont even look like they’re growing. I read chestnuts do poorly in heavy soil (we have a lot of clay) and didn’t know that before planting. They were fed compost, mulched, planted with comfrey, fenced in and kept watered. I really dont want to lose these trees but am worried it may be too late.

Can heavy soil be amended reasonably for chestnuts to thrive? Or is there a different nut tree (not black walnut!) that does well in cold winters, droughts, heavy soil...? I’m really bumming about these trees. They were supposed to be the oversrory of our food forest and be a food source for generations to come.

I wish there was a better way to describe one's climate other than "up north", etc. When I see "up north", I get excited that somebody might be talking about my region, but I'm always let down. To be fair, there are people more up north than me and I'm sure they are even more frustrated. Using hardiness zones might be better but even those are ambiguous when different countries are involved.  

Michael Helmersson wrote:I wish there was a better way to describe one's climate other than "up north", etc. When I see "up north", I get excited that somebody might be talking about my region, but I'm always let down. To be fair, there are people more up north than me and I'm sure they are even more frustrated. Using hardiness zones might be better but even those are ambiguous when different countries are involved.  

Ha ha yes I'm much further north than you but 6 zones warmer and several heatzones colder..

Can anyone clarify whether Beaked Hazels are self-fertile or not? Our lone, semi-mature bush produced a single nut last year that we only noticed now. I was under the impression that I needed a second bush for pollination, so I'm trying to get seedlings established but they're barely 4-6" tall right now. I've looked on the web and can't find any clear explanation of how we managed to get a nut. One website said that it requires cross-pollination AND that it is self-fertile. Confusing.