Hazelnut Heaven: My Favorite Shrub
Rugged. Adaptable. Hardy. Resilient. Precocious. Generous. Beautiful. All these adjectives, and many more (I really could ramble on and on!), describe one of the crown jewels of the food forest. I remember well the first time I chanced upon a wild Beaked Hazelnut in my favorite childhood woodland. The strange shape of the husk beckoned my soft, young hand to investigate further, and a moment later the irritating hairs on the husk reprimanded my swift advances! Luckily all other species of Hazelnut lack these hairs, and even those on the Beaked Species are very mild to the adult hand and are easily avoided.
There are a multitude of reasons to plant these useful shrubs. Naturally, high on the list are their delicious, nutritious nuts. High in protein and fat, these are a highly nourishing food. Once dried, they store well in their shells for YEARS! These begin to bear at a very young age as well. In fact, I have harvested many nuts from shrubs that were only 3 years old! Couple that fact with the knowledge that they are a fairly compact shrub and can thus be planted in even small yards, and Hazelnuts start to become a very attractive plant to seek out. Speaking of attractive, I haven’t even mentioned their appearance. Throughout the winter, branches dangle elegant catkins when no other tree or shrub has much ornamentation. These turn gold and lengthen as spring draws near, releasing their pollen to tiny pink flowers that will become the nuts. As the days warm, a raiment of soft green leaves burst forth. As the shrub fills out to a hedge this can become a supreme privacy screen to a height of 10-12 ft, perfect for creating secret nooks in the garden or shielding an ugly roadway or neighboring buildings. It also provides dense cover for MANY species of wildlife. As the end of summer approaches, the nuts near ripening. Many people mistakenly think the husks must turn brown in the autumn before harvesting. This results in a bumper crop for the blue jays and squirrels! I pick mine at the end of summer, usually end of August to the beginning of September in my New England food forest. Once the days cool, the leaves provide one of the most stunning displays of color variation in the forest. It isn’t uncommon to see purple, red, orange, yellow and green all on the same leaf! Not only does it provide a feast of food, but a feast for the eyes as well!
Hazelnuts are also quite easy to establish in the landscape. They are fairly forgiving about soil conditions, so long as it isn’t waterlogged or pure desert sand. Preferably the site should be decent loam in full sun. However they can live perfectly well in the forest understory, though nut yields will lower dramatically. Their natural niche is along the forest edges where sun is abundant, soil is moist and rich from leaf decomposition and they can sucker and spread to their hearts content.
Once mature, the yields can be staggering! In a bumper crop year, the branches will often droop near ground level. Nearly all of it will be easily within reach, again highlighting how generous this plant is. The first patch I planted was dug from an extensive woodland patch I found, the same one that intrigued me all those years ago as a youth with less rugged hands! These spindly, shaded forest shrubs soon burst into growth with amazing vigor once planted in full sun. In just a few years those 5 little shrubs became 10 ft. hedges that I harvested over 1,000 nuts from! Of course not every year will be a bumper crop, but more often than not they will have abundant nuts. This is due to their impressive cold hardiness. The wild native species will even grow into some far reaches of Canada and Alaska where the temperatures are routinely many degrees below zero!
So, why don’t we find more of them around, you might ask? While it is true that American Hazel and Beaked Hazel can be locally abundant in the wild, we typically imagine the larger European Hazels we find in the supermarket when we think of hazelnuts. These comprise a large industry on the West Coast in Oregon and Washington State, yet have a few stumbling blocks here on the East Coast of America. Chief among those is Eastern Filbert Blight (EFB). This fungal disease attacks European Hazelnuts, eventually girdling and usually killing the stems. Many resistant cultivars are starting to appear, but there is much work that needs to be done to resist all the various strains of the disease that pop up. The easiest way around this drawback is to plant Hybrid Hazelnuts. These are crosses of the native hazels with the European species. Disease resistance is conferred by the native types, while a larger nut is offered from the European. So far, this has been my preferred type, and the one we usually offer the most of through our nursery. They are also much cold hardier than pure European types, which has been another limiting factor for them. In a world that is constantly shifting and evolving more rapidly than the plants can, it will become extremely valuable to have that sort of resilience in our plant genetics.
Here we have a plant that is perfect for any garden. Permaculturists, backyard gardeners, commercial orchards, hunters wanting to attract deer and turkey, or just anybody wanting a plant with 4 season beauty and is low maintenance. All I do is remove some of the oldest canes each winter to make room for renewal canes, and the shrub does the rest. Some folks even mow down the entire shrub every decade or so, and the mighty Hazelnut roars back with renewed vigor! If you haven’t yet considered this valuable ally, I hope you seek them out and discover these virtues for yourself. You will be glad you did!