Growing nuts up North (cold resistant)

I thought we could all use a thread on growing nut trees up north.  I am planning on doing a couple hardy almond trees and a bunch of hazelnuts this year.  I also have a spot for a few northern pecans or hicans, but I am not totally sold on them yet and might do chestnuts instead.  Anyone have experience w/them?  The spot is right by a wetland area that gets flooded occasionally in the spring.  I know pecans would be cool w/this, but I haven't looked into chestnuts enough yet to know if they'd handle this. 

not sure how NORTH you are..I'm in zone 4b of Michigan, lower penninsula north central part.

I have planted a lot of nut trees recently, so they are still too young to bear..but have had some varying success with the trees themselves so far.

I planted 3 walnut trees, one black, one carpathian and one butternut, they are all growing very well, I am learning more about their culture so hope to get more growth on them as I'm able to plant nitrogen fixers and dynamic accumulators nearby them.

I planted 6 dwarf hazelnut trees and neighbors planted two hazelnut or filberts..mine are done wonderfully, and I believe they will be a good addition to the garden..I planted them in an arc with 3 mulberries evenly spaced to form a hedgerow.

I planted 2 chinese chestnut trees, and I thought they were dead..but there is new growth that came up late in the summer so the roots are still alive and I'm hoping they'll do well eventually.

I planted two hardy pecans and they died..not sure why but don't feel confident to plant them again.

I planted one Halls Hardy Almond (self fertile)  and it is growing like gangbusters..although it was too young to bloom last year I'm hoping for some blooms this year..i also have some non fruitng flowering almonds

I planted 2 Mammoth Hicory but I belive they might have also passed on, however, I do think that they might be worth trying agian as they are supposed to be hardy here..so I might retry them in the future.

there are also some oaks that have edible nuts worth trying that I haven't done yet, like the bur oaks, I have red oak growing here but they are high tennin.

I also have tried moving in some whimpy beechnut seedlings but didn't have much success with those, they were dug from a woods..and probably didn't have good enough roots with them, but they should grow if you have dry enough soil, ours is pretty wet here.

thanks for the reply brenda.  i am planning on saying more here this weekend when i have some time.

i would like to see a Northern Nut and root exchange thread going so that those that are successfully growing nuts or roots in the north could exchange with those that need them..of course postage being paid.

I have BABY nut trees growing and found out after I put them in that I likely need MORE of them for pollinzation and probably some other varieties than what I have..and if I order from the same place I got mine the varieties will be the same..so I was wondering if there are people that are willing to spare a sprouty  nut or two in the spring for some of us northern nut needers..if so they could send us an instant message or email us and let us know..those little flat rate boxes from the post office are only $4.95 and are a lot cheaper to put a few nuts in those and send them out than to buy from catalogs..I would love to have some nuts that will grow in Michigan zones 4 and 5 (I'm zone 4 in some areas 5 in more protected areas)..I'd like to have just about any kinds of nuts, I have a black walnut, a carpathian walnut and a butternut I'd like to have pollinators for and also I have 2 sweet chestnuts and 6 hazelnuts and a halls hardy almond..

when mine start producing, if they ever do, I would be happy to send nuts to other for their gardens as well

Hello everyone I'm a bit more of a lurker here but I could use some help.

I have a small patch of land in Western Mass and i am trying desperately to get some nut trees on it, Shagbark Hickory's grow naturally, and I've recently planted a couple of Chestnuts.

What I'm looking for is Hazelnut, Black Walnut, Hardy Pecan, and Korean Pine nut. I'm struggling because none of my local (and not so local) nurseries carry any of these. Does anyone know any New England area Nut tree Nurseries?

I have never ordered bareroot trees and I am quite fearful of what  I may be instore for, Is this my only choice? What are the trees chances of survival? It seems the closest of any of these are in Canada, should I order from a foreign country or is it better to order from somewhere as far away as Washington state?
Are there any nuts I should include in my list for zone 5?

Thanks,
-Beau

Beau, you might try St. Lawrence Nursery:  http://www.sln.potsdam.ny.us/ ; ...or Fedco here in Maine:  http://www.fedcoseeds.com/trees/orderingtrees.htm

I like Brenda's idea of a plant material swap by mail though.  Dormant cuttings are easy enough to send.

The trick with bare root is to keep it moist, plant it promptly, and give it good fertility.  I have a dozen fruit trees bought from Fedco in 2002, which just sat there where planted, sulking, until 2006.  They hardly grew at all.  Once I started making better use of a local resource and dumping a 32 gallon trash can full of dead crabs around each one, once a year, the trees took off.  I once had a plum tree next to my duck pen, and would dump their kiddie pool of used bath water on the roots of the tree two or three times a week.  It grew like gangbusters from the original bare root planting.

Dan

Badgersett (www.badgersett.com) has chestnuts and hazelnuts that have been bred in a zone 4 climate (Southeast Minnesota), they're chestnuts are crosses between Chinese, American, European and a couple others I think too. They're hardier than pure Chinese, and they're blight resistant. A good source for those of you in zone 4. I have planted some of Badgersett's trees here in Missouri too, along with chestnuts from several other sources.

Thank you much Huisjen, I'm going to look into those.

-Beau

after posting on here my hubby walked in with a walnut he found stuck to our firewood, don't know if it is viable but it is going to go into the ground as soon as I can get through the snow ..

will check out those sites mentioned thanks.

I cant link from the cell but Grimo nut nursery in Ontario has worked great for me but they are not in a super hardy location.They sell cheap seedling trees from short season cultivars.Also,if you can find a local nut tree or u-pick,you can start nuts fairly easily from seed.

Chestnuts are a major crop in Japan that is a pretty wet temperate climate, over 60 inches a year, including a heavy monsoon season in summer, so I think they will tolerate waterlogged soils at least for a while. 

yukkuri_kame wrote:
Chestnuts are a major crop in Japan that is a pretty wet temperate climate, over 60 inches a year, including a heavy monsoon season in summer, so I think they will tolerate waterlogged soils at least for a while. 

Ya, they sure grow well here on Vancouver Island.

Chestnuts are fine with a real rainy climate, as long as the soil is decently well drained. They don't tolerate poorly drained soils well at all, at least according to everything I've read, I don't have that personal experience as the soil I've planted mine on has good drainage. I have seen a small planting of young chestnuts that were pretty healthy on soil that the person living there called heavy clay, I didn't dig it myself so I can't say truly how heavy it was. However it was also on a hillside, so the drainage was likely adequate even if the same soil on flatter land wouldn't be.

If anyone in Canada  there is a deal on hazelnut bushes this year that are various experimental crosses that the breeders want to follow. You have to sign a no propagation agreement but any nuts you get are yours  to do anything with except sprout. They want people who are going to take at least 25.

Pam wrote:
If anyone in Canada  there is a deal on hazelnut bushes this year that are various experimental crosses that the breeders want to follow. You have to sign a no propagation agreement but any nuts you get are yours  to do anything with except sprout. They want people who are going to take at least 25.

Who is selling them, and how much?  Are they zone 2/3 hardy hazelnuts?  Do you have to make any follow-up reports on the condition of the trees?

Sir Osis wrote:

I have a small patch of land in Western Mass and i am trying desperately to get some nut trees on it, Shagbark Hickory's grow naturally, and I've recently planted a couple of Chestnuts.

What I'm looking for is Hazelnut, Black Walnut, Hardy Pecan, and Korean Pine nut. I'm struggling because none of my local (and not so local) nurseries carry any of these. Does anyone know any New England area Nut tree Nurseries?

Might try connecting with Eric Toensmeier who has a suburban food forest in Holyoke, Massachusetts.  Not a huge plant list, but seeing as he co-authored a book on food forests, he might know where to get things.  He does have hazelnuts and a nice perennial vegetable list. 
http://www.permaculturenursery.com/plantlist.html

A good supplier of cold hearty stock is the Saint Lawrence Nursery. They have a decent selection and are located near the Canadian border in Upstate NY.
http://www.sln.potsdam.ny.us/

good topic...Im hoping to get some info on the possibility of nut trees in a very wet section of the Oregon coast.

I was doing some googling on filberts/hazelnuts and I was somewhat shocked at the apparent volume of chemicals used in hazelnut production as recommended by this page: http://www.oregonhazelnuts.org/handbook.php

I ran this page through a word frequency counter, here are the top 100 word counts.  Note the number of references to chemicals, diseases, pests, and treatments.

Word Frequency
x 67
tree 33
orchard 30
per 26
control 26
use 24
hazelnut 23
year 23
soil 19
grower 19
boron 18
flail 17
spray 16
appli 16
nut 15
new 14
one 14
leaf 13
harvest 13
result 13
less 11
time 11
moth 11
winter 10
rate 10
lb 10
application 10
aphid 10
three 10
leav 10
manage 9
ear 9
trap 9
bud 9
extension 9
acre 9
larvae 9
blight 9
problem 8
osu 8
efb 8
prun 8
sucker 8
growth 8
nitrogen 8
first 8
inch 7
variety 7
show 7
analysis 7
twig 7
filbert 7
susceptible 7
damage 7
floor 7
lime 7
late 7
two 7
guide 7
moss 7
level 7
material 7
annual 6
lichen 6
crop 6
chemical 6
follow 6
treat 6
available 6
spring 6
app 5
planting 5
copper 5
check 5
terminal 5
number 5
test 5
produce 5
over 5
six 5
operation 5
potassium 5
rat 5
leafroller 5
infestation 5
program 5
herbicide 5
fertilizer 5
fall 5
work 5
enough 5
recommende 5
april 5
week 5
usual 5
four 5
row 5
taken 4
shown 4
foliar 4

When I got  seedlings this spring from the university they didn't seem to think much was required..after all the things grow WILD, although these are crosses between the wild ones and the southern ones. So some of them may not cope with winter here too well, although they are all at least a year old  already. They do like lots of moisture though.

main problem I've heard about was beating the squirrels to the nuts. Main problem I've had so far is the %#@&!!*%&*@!#  slugs!!

After looking at this I had a question or two and a comment. In planting trees from seeds is there some things that help with germination? We have one old peach that has great fruit and I saved and dried some pits. Do they need a dry or cold dorment season or anything to encourage germintation? I keep finding more wild black walnut and apple trees as I explore our overgrown wood lot and assume that some of both are naturally reproducing. A freind gave me a cluster of roots and stocks from a fig tree he has had for years. The fig "bush" that it came from freezes back most years and is a bush rather than a tree. anyone have experience with figs? I also was given some paw paws yesterday and under stand that they will also grow wild here. What does one do with paw paws?
Thanks, Kent

Paw paw are delicious but apparently some people have an allergic reaction to them and the seed are supposed to be poisonous.  I have planted a few but they have yet to produce (only one was large enough to flower this past spring), so the only experience I have was with some I bought at a market, but they made great pancakes.  I've read that Native Americans used to mash the flesh into cakes and dry them to be eaten through the winter.  I'll do some experimenting once I have an abundance.  I do have an abundance of hickory nuts; shag bark, shell bark and pig nut, has anyone ever eaten these? do they require any leaching or roasting?

How about season length and light requirements for nut trees in the north? I'd love to try some in S Central Alaska. Temperatures are probably barely OK for butternut and hazelnut, but we get less than 10 hours of sunlight from early October through late February or so (I haven't checked the actual numbers, that is a guesstimate.) Would eighteen hours or more of sunlight hurt the trees in the summer?

On a related note, I would like to beg, borrow, or BUY a half-pound or so of viable sugar maple seeds and a similar quantity of beech seeds from someone on the northern edge of their natural areas. This is not really for a crop, although that would be wonderful, but because the warming of the last decade has devastated the forests in my region, and I'd like to find something that I can put on my property to maintain a forest on the woodsy part that can take the warmer temperatures.

I have plenty of black walnuts available if someone would like a box of fruit to plant.  The woods also offers up hickory nuts and acorns, though I can't guarantee varieties.  The hickory all has shaggy bark but the leaves vary.  The oak trees have different colored leaves this fall season as well; some red leaves, some golden.

  I once took on the shameful job of clearing all Shagbark Hickory from a forest which the owner wanted to use strictly for the production of Maple. This is the densest wood that grows in Canada (logs sink in water)and is excellent for tool handles and for structural purposes. Hickory is also favored by wildlife.

    This land was along a river in an environment dominated by cornfields so we effectively removed one of the most important trees in the wildlife corridor. All of it was chopped up for firewood. One of the stupidest things I've ever participated in. I won't do anything like that on my own land.

Awe Dale, I can only imagine looking back at that shaking your head.
Like others I will be embarking on planting more nut trees in 2012 on bare pasture on  a small  4 acres that is intensely used in multipurpose ways  .    Excavating a pond lately i was delighted with our soil so that is a plus.   
I have planted northern pecan whip size trees twice in the past and they did not survive our west coast climate but it may have been neglect . 
I have had much better success planting hazelnut in deep fall/ winter here since  our ground is rarely frozen. 
Our walnuts spring up everywhere  so I have planted more.
I have ordered from Rhoras in eastern Canada for 2012 japanese and chinese chestnut, russian almond, heartnuts, yellowhorn and 2  pine nut species.  So I am just starting out .
My biggest challenge is keeping deer and livestock off the immature trees to give them a good start  and I will be employing salvaged pallets and salvaged  sections of wire fence . 

Brenda,

Here is a link to a Nursery located in S.W. MI. They seem to try to use as many native MI plants as possible in their plant development. They also seem to be very permaculturly minded, if that's a word. Their was an article about them at mother earth news a little while back.

http://oikostreecrops.com/store/home.asp?cookiecheck=yes&;

I'm also a little curious as to where you are located? I went to school at CMU, and did one of my student teaching placements in Clare. Aside from my house I am working on developing a food / forage forest at my friends’ property in zone 3/4, Barton City. It would be great to be able to share some plants / cuttings / seeds with a fellow Michigander.

Hello - I did not see a reply to the question about light and location requirements for Hazelnuts. I'm trying to decide where, in my yard in Milwaukee, to plant the two cultivars, American and Beaked. If they, as I suspect, reside naturally in the woods under the canopy of the larger trees, I can plant them in the mostly-shadow of the neighbor's 6-foot fence, leaving the sunnier areas for those who really need light and heat. Also, how do I figure out whether they are trees or bushes, or does it even matter? The American hazelnut has a rather tall primary branch and a bunch of much-shorter soil-level branches, while the Beaked has numerous branches of about the same size. I know what I suspect, but I'd love to hear from someone who has familiarity and experience. Now, I have at least a year to to start thinking about setting up something more alluring to distract the squirrels' appetites.

Great thread!

Up in Canada, there is a place called hardy fruit trees, that sells a few nut trees that are really good quality and specially acclimatized to extremely cold zones. I planted some from them in zone 3b.

http://www.hardyfruittrees.ca/


They also recommend the St. Lawrence Nursery (someone posted before but I will just stick it in there again) for all you americans: http://www.sln.potsdam.ny.us/

I really want almonds but not sure they'll grow in my climate so I'm going with Russian Almond shrub. Should be interesting!

Dale Hodgins wrote:  I once took on the shameful job of clearing all Shagbark Hickory from a forest which the owner wanted to use strictly for the production of Maple.

I suppose this is the reason it's so important to put our heads to the topic of making permaculture profitable. As long as knowledgeable people have to do stupid stuff to earn a pay-check its like we, as a civilization, don't have a clue.

Cold hardy nuts --

Reviving this thread:

1. St. Lawrence Nurseries is closing. Talking to the guy, he has a young pup who wants to take it over, but will likely not reopen for a year or three.

2. Another source for cold hardy hazelnuts, chestnuts, and hickory/pecan hybrids is Badgersett http://www.badgersett.com/


St. Lawrence is nominally in zone 4b, but there is some zone 3 just south of Potsdam N.Y. Big patch of Adirondacks there. If anyone is in the region, there may be possibilities of cold hardy nuts of various sorts.

There are Northern Great Plains hardy walnuts (good in Manitoba, with winters down to -50 C). Jeffries Nurseries in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, carries a variety that is native as far north as central Minnesota and does well in Manitoba. There is also a similar nut called Butternut, which is listed as hardy to Zone 2 and 3. Here's a link to Jeffries Nurseries:

http://www.jeffriesnurseries.com

When you are planning for nut trees be sure to know the conditions the trees will thrive in, it will save you money and heart ache in the long run.

Pecans, even the Hican (hickory/ pecan cross) do not like wet feet, require a minimum of 3 foot depth of well draining soil and a pH of 6-7, full sun for at least 8 hours a day in order for them to thrive and produce good quality nuts.
If you are above the Northern Tennessee Border, you will have some problems with growing Pecans because of the cold and lack of hot humid summers, both are issues that can cause lack of nut production and death of the tree(s).

Walnuts particularly the Black Walnut have the same requirements as Pecan trees, they are in the same family. In most cases, north of the above Tennessee Border you will do best with grafted trees but the cold and lack of hot and humid may still be a stumbling block.

Most State Universities have a Division of Agriculture that will provide you with growing guides for that state. The USDA has the NRCS Plant Fact Sheets, both are great resources for picking and choosing what will grow best in your area.

Here in 4a MN, I have successfully grown shagbark and hybrid shag/shellback hickory, hardy pecan, hybrid chestnut, and Korean chestnuts from oikos tree crops in Michigan. In addition we have native black walnut that bear nuts very well. I've seen black walnut as far north in MN as Duluth so I'm fairly confident that s one walnut that could be zone 3.
This is an area I am very interested in, I hope someday to have a forest of these type of nut trees.

great topic, I am curious if anyone in Alaska or other areas north of 55 degrees latitude are successfully growing nuts, if so what kind and where?

Corey Schmidt wrote:great topic, I am curious if anyone in Alaska or other areas north of 55 degrees latitude are successfully growing nuts, if so what kind and where?

Badgersett mentions test plantings of their hybrid hazels in Alaska, but I don't remember them mentioning where or having any follow up on how they're doing.

People have planted beaked hazelnuts up here and had them survive the winter, but I'm not sure if anyone has had them produce anything yet.

Several people have planted various kinds of nut producing pines. They seem to survive okay, even in Fairbanks. I don't know if anyone has had them long enough to get nuts from them yet, my understanding is that takes quite a few years. Steve Masterman has a page on pine nuts, but it hasn't been updated in a while. LINK

I also remember hearing that a Manchurian walnut tree produced a nut up in Fairbanks, but I'm not sure if that was because the tree was finally old enough or because that summer was particularly warm.

This is just speculation, but I think that the biggest challenge we might face in much of Alaska is not our cold winters, but our short, cool summers. From what I've read a lot of nut trees seem to need quite a bit of heat in order to produce.

I've got quite a few nut tree and bush seeds stratifying. Hopefully I'll be able to get them to germinate. Here's what I'm trying:

Beaked Hazlenut (Corylus cornuta) - From what I've read this is the hardiest of the native hazelnuts/filberts. A person I know from Oregon says that they are not very productive, but if they can survive without much maintenance they could still be a good bush to plant for personal use.

Manchurian Hazelnut (Corylus sieboldiana mandshurica) - I don't know much about these. I saw them on Sheffields and they were listed as hardy to Zone 3.

Korean Pine (Pinus koraiensis) - The most common commercially grown nut pine. It's supposed to produce the biggest pine nuts. It can grow really tall.

Dwarf Siberian Pine (Pinus pumila) - This one goes by a bunch of names, and has a lot of different minimum hardiness zones listed (anywhere from zone 1 to zone 6). It's supposed to produce relatively small nuts, but they're supposed to be easy to shell. The thing that has me really excited about it is that it naturally stays short (usually less than 10') which would make harvesting way easier. The other thing that has me really excited is that I've read a lot of comparisons to Mugo pine. From what I've seen, I think Mugo has the greatest potential to make a moose-proof living hedge. Something similar to Mugo that produces an edible nut would be awesome. The problem is I'm not sure how tall it will actually get in this climate, and it grows slowly so I'm hesitant to count on it getting tall and thick enough.

Butternut (Juglans cinerea) - The Hardy Fruit Tree nursery website mentioned previously lists Butternut as being hardy to Zone 2 but needing to be Zone 3 or warmer to be productive. I'm in Zone 3, but I'm still not sure if it will produce with my cool summer. I'm planting it anyway, because I think it would be a good timber crop if nothing else. There's also the issue of butternut canker. I don't think anyone has ever planted walnut trees in my town, so I'm hoping there is none of the fungus in the environment around here.

I've also got a bunch of hybrid hazelnut seedlings on order from Badgersett, but with the weather problems they've been having I don't know if I'll get them this year.

I know people grow Dwarf Russian Almond (Prunus tenella) and Flowering Almond/Plum (Prunus Triloba) in Fairbanks. They are normally grown as ornamentals, but some websites list them as edible, but not that tasty. The thing that scares me is that members of the Prunus genus naturally produce cyanide in their seeds, but the amount varies with the species and the stage of development of the seed. The websites that list Prunus tenella and Prunus triloba as edible say not to eat them if they are "too bitter". That scares me because I don't know what too bitter means. Like so bitter I would want to spit it out anyway, or just a little more bitter than a regular almond? I've got a bunch of seeds stratifying for both Prunus tenella and Prunus triloba. I think it could be a fun project to plant a bunch, keep the ones that taste the best and sell the rest as ornamentals. If I pollinate the ones that taste the best with each other, then maybe after a long period of time I'll be able to breed a somewhat tasty one. Obviously I need to do a lot more research so I don't end up killing myself.

I think that some oaks might grow here, and maybe even produce acorns. I'm interested in trying Burgamble oak (a hybrid of Bur oak and Gambel oak). It is supposed to be pretty cold hardy and produce decent acorns at a very early age. It is a fairly short oak. Like butternut, I figure it would be a decent timber crop even if it doesn't produce acorns. I didn't get a chance to order any this year.

I also want to order some Manchurian walnut seed for next year.

Overall I'm the most excited about hazelnuts. I think they have the potential to do the best in the short, cool summers of Southcentral AK. I also they don't think they will be as particular about needing as much sun and great drainage like some other nut species. I need to limit my carbohydrate consumption for health reasons, and nut flour is really expensive. I also think that pressing them for oil and feeding hazelnut meal to chickens has potential. Hopefully the fifteen seedlings I ordered from Badgersett will get here, and if they do well I might end up planting hundreds (or thousands).

Nice write-up Tyler M.! Would you classify your location as coastal temperate rainforest? If you look on p. 36 of the following link, there may be some valuable information regarding northern latitude for hazels and for hazels in general in this document:

http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/B850216.pdf

Thanks, John. Most of the southern coastal areas of Alaska are temperate rainforest. I'm a little bit farther north and inland. We're wetter than most places, but we don't get the amount of rainfall that a true rainforest gets. My understanding is that a rainforest gets at least 1500 mm/60" of rain a year. If I remember correctly we average about 30" of rain during the summer and 140" of snow during the winter (I'm not sure how snow would work into the classification of a rainforest). During the summer we have a lot of misty, drizzling days that don't add up to much in terms of total rainfall.

We definitely get some of the moderating effect of the ocean*, and don't have the extreme temperature variation of the inland part of Alaska. We have a little more temperature variation than the actual coast. Our winters aren't too bad, and while our summers are pleasantly mild they can be a little too chilly and damp for many plants (and people).

*I actually don't know how much of our moderating effect is from the ocean and how much is from the Alaska Range. Where I live is actually a bit more mild and rainy than places a bit further south and closer to the ocean, and I think it has something to do with us being closer to the mountains.

Corey Schmidt is in a part of Alaska that I think would definitely be considered coastal rainforest. Kachemak Bay is a pretty amazing place.

Thanks for the link to that PDF. Even though I don't live in a real temperate rainforest, it still had relevant information. I especially like that it had so many pictures! I never knew that hazelnuts could form a permanent scrub forest, that's really cool! I thought they were more of a pioneer and understory shrub. We have such low sun angles that I think a savannah-like environment could be more productive than a closed canopy forest, and it seems like hazels could be a big part of that. I know they grow Corylus avellana in Oregon, but my understanding is that it doesn't do too well in the rest of the U.S. Partly because most of the rest of the U.S. either gets too hot, too cold and/or too dry, but also because of Eastern Filbert Blight. I think it might be worth trying up here in a sheltered location.

Hi Tyler;

I actually don't know how much of our moderating effect is from the ocean and how much is from the Alaska Range. Where I live is actually a bit more mild and rainy than places a bit further south and closer to the ocean, and I think it has something to do with us being closer to the mountains.

It's both the Ocean and the Mountains. What happens is that the weather coming from the ocean is approaching the mountains, and is forced to climb the mountains. As it climbs, the air gets colder and condenses causing rain.

Even though I live quite far inland, I live in a temperate rainforest (the furthest inland globally), while the other (Eastern) side of the Rockies is considerably drier , as are parts of the province to the west of us (like the Chilcotin Plateau). In the Northwest Coast of B.C., where I grew up it was very typical, even in the coastal rain-forest for a mountain to have one side that was much rainier than the other. After the extensive coast mountain ranges in B.C., there are large areas of arid lands, or at least made up of much drier forest (Chilcoltin, Omineca, and others). It is not until the next large ranges of mountains force the air upwards that rain-forests again begin to develop.

I think that Hazelnuts and various nut pines are our best choices in more northern climes. Beaked Hazels are actually growing wild at this latitude and in my valley, and I think that you should be able to grow them in your location. My intention is to try to get them happening on my land. We have a local white pine with large cones (not sure about the seed size yet), and I'm looking into others.