Hi all, I'm a new member and also new to home fruit growing. I am starting to consider trees to plant on our Zone 8b suburban 1/3 acre lot, and hope to find a nut variety that will do well. Have any of you had luck with smaller nut trees in your home orchard? I know nothing about growing nut trees, so please enlighten me! Dwarf Pine Nuts? Bush Chinquapins? I'd love to try almonds but have been discouraged from doing so. Thought about butternuts, read that they don't start producing for something like 20 years. What would your suggestions be? Thank you so much!
Unfortunately I have not had good results with the all-in-one almond trees I purchased from stark bros nurseries last year. I received two on citation root stock. One died and the other is just barely hanging on but no growth this year. I live in zone 9b but I know of someone from Tallahassee florida (zone 8) that also had failures with almonds. I am going to uproot my one remaining almond this winter and replace it with a fuyu persimmon.
Walnuts, butternuts, and chestnuts are all big trees with mature heights of up to 40 ft. The husks on the nuts can be messy too. Walnut husks stain your hands. Chestnut husks have spines that litter the yard and are not good for bare feet
Filbert/hazelnut trees are smaller (15 - 20 ft mature height) and produce at a younger age. They have thin husks that aren't really a disposal issue. I have some trees that produce nuts nearly as big as small walnuts.
One problem you'll encounter with nut trees is getting a crop before squirrels or jays strip the trees. If you live near woods and have a squirrel population you may never harvest a nut regardless of what kind of tree you have.
In my work neighborhood (zone 8b) there are many old nut trees - chestnut, walnut, hazelnut. I am pretty sure it used to be an orchard.
Many of the trees are on land that is now an off-leash dog park. Thanks to the dogs, there are no squirrels there, so it is like a nut buffet to those of us who recognize the trees. Fortunately for me, not many people do 🙂
And yes I do carefully wash all the nuts. But I gather them while still in the husk, so I think there is very little risk of contamination from dogs.
So if there is a dog park in your neighborhood, you might see if you can work out a deal to plant nut trees there.
I never would have thought of checking out the local dog parks, what a good idea! Thanks Davem. Would you mind sharing the name of the dog park you referenced? I promise I won't take ALL the nuts 🙂
Hi Donna,
Welcome to the HOS and the forum. Chinqapins are native to Oregon, but I have only seen large trees in our area. Walnuts, black walnuts and filberts grow extremely well here. Filberts/hazelnuts are native. There are many monkey puzzle trees as well. Chestnuts grow fabulously, particularly the European ones. Pine nut trees grow well except that Pinyon trees need exceptional drainage and most pines will bear nuts 20 years from now. I hope you are younger than I am for that one. I have grown yellowhorn , but it didn't produce nuts. With our newfound climate change, pistachios would probably work in full sun, but you'd need two trees or to graft them together.
JohN S
PDX OR
Thank you, John! I have heard/seen pistachios mentioned a couple of times as s suggestion for the PNW home garden; I will look into them more! I can't say I have excellent drainage for those pinyons, although my lot is on a southern facing slope. Still, our soil is the typical clay. I should be here in 20 years (with kids grown and out... unless we keep having them!), but that still seems like too long to wait! 🙂
I've been reading through other posts on this forum and am so excited to have found you all. I stopped by my local Extension Office several weeks ago and met two wonderful ladies who spent over an hour with me talking fruit varieties and tree care. They gave me to contact info for the Hungry Gardener, who I see contributes here sometimes, and he invited me over to his beautiful garden. I enjoyed his tour so much and learned a ton! I will be starting the Master Gardener program in February. So, suffice it to say, I am at a very exciting point in my studies as a gardener. This forum is invaluable to me as someone just starting out! Thank you for the warm welcome!