Rich Ard

craig howard wrote: I put in over 100 hazelnut bushes 3, 4 and 5 years ago.
They didn't all survive so I have about 96.
Some do really well, start producing the third year and even better the forth.

One is large and produces many now. It was the first to produce at 3 years.
One is small and produced many the 3rd year.
Most, big or small, don't produce much or anything at all.
Several medium size with medium crop.

Is it possible to move the good ones?
Do they transplant well after they are over 4 years old.

do you have any idea what factors are resulting in only some of them producing any nuts?

Carol Manda wrote:This is the most information about hazelnut trees/shrubs that I have ever seen in one place! I planted one 15" tall sapling in 2015 and now it is about 12' tall. The pollen catkins were strikingly abundant this late winter, but I have yet to see a nut on that bush!  What is most interesting in your article is the information about coppicing. I have pruned my shrubs and small trees and used the prunings for beanpoles, etc. but have only cut shrubs to the ground in an attempt to do away with them! (I am trying to eliminate one viburnum opulus which is vastly overgrown and in a terrible spot. It doesn't want to die, even after I dug around the roots and hacked at them) With coppicing, does the entire shrub need to be cut, and how much stem do I leave above the crown? I only have the one hazel and do like how it looks much of the year until the Japanese beetles have their way with it. Space is at a premium in my small yard! What if I cut a few large branches each year, like on a 3-year renewal cycle?

did you ever find out why it does not produce any nuts?

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.

Tereza Okava wrote:Welcome to Permies, Rich.
I would think an oak is worth keeping, especially if it's old. Are you certain they're going to shade out your garden (have you looked at sun trajectory for the year?)? Also don't forget to consider whether these trees might affect your home cooling needs, if they're providing shade in the summer.
Without seeing what your situation is it's hard to tell, but there are probably good options for how to use your space with just pruning or even to take advantage of shady areas, if you have plants that prefer shade during warmer weather.
I look forward to hearing more about what you've got!

thanks, nice to be here! i have many questions.

the garden is very shady already because the east and south sides are almost entirely lined with large trees. my aim is to feed my family as much as possible, particularly with nuts/fruit, so anything i chop down is going to get replaced by something else over time. the large oak is too big for me to attempt to prune in any way myself (i'd almost certainly kill myself or destroy something in the process) and honestly i'm not in the mood to pay for pros to do it and anyway they probably wouldn't because i think it's protected by law (i have since learned).

Mike Haasl wrote:I am guessing that you would have to totally butcher a mature oak to get enough sun for a garden.  But it depends on the garden spot and a few other variables.  

In my area, decently large trees are quite common so I think I'm more open to cutting one down if it allows me to grow a lot of food for myself.  Otherwise I'm just impacting the environment "somewhere else" and paying to ship that food to me.  So is cutting this tree a better worse situation and importing food?  If you can take it to a sawmill or have a portable sawmill come to you, it could turn into a lot of useful lumber.  None of this comes cheap (cutting and milling) though...

I know someone with a huge oak in the middle of their garden.  They wondered for years why they couldn't grow anything until I pointed out the issue.  They loved the tree so their solution was to buy another house with a big sunny area.  So there's always that option :)

yeah i honestly wouldn't feel bad chopping it down because there are loads of big trees around here. tree cover in general is excellent in Germany, even if a lot of it is monoculture. huge oaks like these ones are not uncommon at all... in fact most roads around here are lined with them on at least one side.

Ben Gorski wrote:IF cutting the tree open up area for you to REplant a Food Forest. I say go for it!

I'm in a similar situation here and I know I want to REplant the Forest with Fruit and Nut Trees and it will feed me, the soil, and critters in due time...instead of looking pretty like those pines, beeches, and birches....which I do love....remember the goal right...we will replant trees!

** plus you can have a HUGE pile of firewood to heat the home and use the ashes to feed the soil...

yes i would love to cut it up for firewood, and actually even better would be for mushrooms which it would definitely be appropriate for. sadly though i think i can't because of legal reason. there are a bunch of other pines which are going to get the chop for sure as i'll be able to climb up them easily myselef with a chainsaw and just hope that nobody reports me:D

Heather Sharpe wrote:You mentioned that there's a big bit of land along with your house. Is it possible there are other areas that you could plant if it turns out that this spot doesn't get enough light? What's to the East and West of the spot in question? Are there plants that could work well with the oak trees? Any edges that could be worked with?

If it were me, I would be inclined to observe for quite some time what actually goes on with light and other conditions around the oak trees before making any decisions. Preferably observing throughout all the seasons. It may not be as much a problem as you think. As has been mentioned, the oaks could be an amazing resource for reducing home cooling costs, acorns and certainly the leaves could be useful for mulching gardens or making leaf mold. The oaks probably also provide a lot of habitat for songbirds that could be helpful for insect control, benefits for the soil, etc. Not to mention an amazing, cool spot to hang out in the summer. If it were me, I would leave the tree and change my design to work with it. To me, mature trees, especially oaks, are invaluable and certainly irreplaceable.

I know when I got my space, I had my idea of where the garden "should" be. Since that area was full of invasive plants anyway, I set about making it so. That spot grew lots of food for the first year, but the creatures found the buffet the next year and the area I'd chosen was far too hard to fence in any sensible way. Plus, lots of native plants were spontaneously showing up there all the sudden and it felt wrong to interfere with them. But I had it in my mind that there was no other spot due to shade from various trees and because of my plans for all the areas. I felt stuck. After observing more, I finally realized that the answer was staring me in the face, it just required letting go of my idea of where things "should" be and working with what was there. No tree chopping required. When I started thinking about this new plan that had emerged, it removed so many problems I'd been puzzling over and simplified things. I guess that's a long way of saying taking the time to observe and work with nature can have pretty amazing results.

i hear what you're saying. i think i'm going to have to keep it anyway for legal reasons. it really just does take up SO much of the available light that it hurts. my land is an almost exactly east-west lying strip of about 16x75 meters, and this tree, and almost all the others, are directly along the south facing side. so there's no shortage of shade whatsoever. none of these shade the house, i might add, that's in full view of the sun. yes there are other ones i can cut down myself which will open up other bits of the garden, but this one (and it's pal on the other side of the fence) really do seem to be in the "best" spot. anyway i'm going to start by making some kind of edible hedge on the north facing side, which should still get more than enough light i reckon.

greg mosser wrote:i’m not as familiar with european species, but if the trees are european white oak (Q. robur), those are excellent acorns for processing into food. part of permaculture is fitting the system to the existing situation. the oaks can be a great resource. it sounds to me like a focus on shade-tolerant food plants and acorn products is what the property is asking for.

agreed that cutting back a mature oak enough for ‘regular’ vegetables is huge job and it might as well be the whole tree at that point. though if one tree is on the neighbor’s property even that might not be enough.

as far as i'm aware it's a european oak, as my limited understanding goes. i'll be doing a more thorough inventory of everything when spring starts and i can see the leaves etc.

i think this situation will probably resolve itself in that in Germany it's almost impossible to legally cut down a tree of that size because they're all of course home to birds and whatnot. the smaller trees which are in the way i will probably try to cut down on the sly bit by bit myself, but this one i would never be able to do without professional help, and they would certainly rat me out to the authorities or just not do it without permission first so i think i'm just going to have to live with it.

how does one go about processing acorns into food? i tried it once, having read that it's possible to just boil them up and rinse them repeatedly but i was not able to get it anywhere near something edible. although it did make my kitchen smell fantastic!

well i bought a house with a big bit of land that i'm now planning to turn into a forest garden, and the first thing that i notice is that there are 2 massive oak trees on the southern side (i'm in Europe) which are going to block out most of the sunlight to the best bit of the available space that i have for new plants/trees. one of them, the larger one, is on my land, and the other is just on the other side of the fence. my question is, should i do something about this? prune my one heavily so that i have more light? chop it down entirely? that would seem like a bit of a shame and from what i know the tree is probably doing a lot of good for the soil just being there right? there are also a few pretty large pine trees (not sure which kind exactly yet) on the same side that i would be less hesitant to chop down since they really are just in the way, unless anyone thinks they're worth keeping for some reason?

this is my first garden but i've done a fair bit of reading so far. any thoughts welcome.