Hazel, hazelnuts for us chipmunks!

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A deciduous shrub of 13 to 20 feet that flowers as early as February and ripens clusters of green or blond nuts by autumn, hazel (Corylus avellana) is grown as much for its crop as for its delicate, colourful leaves in a hedge. It only fruits if a second, different variety grows beside it.

• Health benefits of hazelnuts

Planting hazel

It is preferable to plant your hazel in fall to promote root development before winter.

But you can also plant it in any other season of the year, as long as you avoid high temperatures in summer and frost spells in winter.

It is critical that you plant 2 different varieties together to ensure fertilization and fruit-bearing. Check when purchasing your hazelnut trees that they belong to different species.

• Since the blooming happens in January, it’s important to have planted your trees before mid-December.
• Feel free add soil conditioner when planting, like fertilizer or compost.
• Incorporate this soil conditioner into your garden soil together with soil mix.
• Dip the root clump of the shrub for a few minutes in a bucket of water before planting.
• This is an important step, so diligently follow our advice on planting shrubs.

Pruning and caring for hazel

Hazel, when well settled in, is a shrub that is easy to care for. Regular pruning will increase the harvest.

Pruning hazel

The very first pruning is performed upon planting, it is a structural pruning that will select the branches that will become structural branches for the following years.

• Cut the sprigs back by about ⅓ their length.

After that, don’t prune at all for several years so as to give the hazel time to grow.

The second pruning is best done after more or less 5 years, in winter, and keeping the hazel small will increase the harvest.

• Prune when your plant enters the dormant state, from December to mid-February.
• Hazel doesn’t like severe pruning, better to prune only part of the tree every year.
• Cut back new growth by half in order to restrain growth of the hazel to a height of about 6 or 6 ½ feet (1.8 to 2 meters).
• Eliminate dead wood and branches over a decade old.

If you wish to cut the tree back drastically, or prune the tree severely to even out the branches, never do it before the blooming.

Harvesting the hazelnuts

The hazelnuts are ready to be harvested when the fruit detaches from the branch and falls to the ground.

It’s also possible to eat the hazelnuts when still green, but you must eat them immediately because they don’t keep at all.

Their taste is softer and sometimes tart.

Shells are softer and are sometimes easier to slice open with a knife and board than using a nutcracker at this unripe stage.

• Gather fallen nuts every few days, as those left lying on damp ground quickly go mouldy and squirrels, mice and jays will clear them first.
• Tip the picked nuts into a bucket of water: floaters are often hollow, dried out or weevilled, so it is a useful rough sort, though some sound nuts also float.
• A neat round hole in a nut’s shell is typically an insect exit hole, so crack that nut open and discard it if the kernel is hollowed, powdery, webbed, or mouldy.

Keeping hazelnut

The most important to keep your hazelnuts over an extended period is to ensure they ripen on the tree until they’re ready.

• Usually, they turn golden brown when ripe.
• They must fall out of their envelope easily.
• Dry the hazelnuts in the open air, but don’t expose them to the sun.
• Keep the hazelnuts in a dry and, if possible, rather cool spot.

• Store hazelnuts in their shells, as bare kernels turn rancid quickly.
• Tip freshly gathered nuts into a bowl of water and discard the floaters, a rough guide since they are often hollow, dried out, mouldy or grub-damaged, though some infested nuts still sink.

The hazel year: when to plant, prune and pick

Hazel asks for very little, but each job has its moment. Here is what to do and when, from the day the shrub goes in to the autumn harvest.

Keeping the shrub small and pruning only part of it each year will steadily increase the crop.

Nut weevil, how to get rid of it, & other diseases

Hazelnut weevil prevention

The hazelnut weevil or Curculio nucum enters the hazelnut and eats it up entirely.

That makes for quite a bad surprise when you realize your hazelnut is hollow!

• Nut weevils spend winter underground.
• Since they don’t like the cold, simply scratch and turn the surface of the soil to bring them to the surface. Use a rake for this.
• As soon as it freezes, the pest will die and you should be rid of it.
• Ideally, repeat after each hard freeze to make sure you’ve exposed as many weevils as you can.

Spots on hazel leaves

This is due to Septoria. Septoria is a leaf spot fungus. Hazel is one of the septoria plant hosts.

Which hazel to plant: varieties compared

Because hazel needs a second, different variety beside it to set nuts, it pays to choose two that flower around the same time. The table below sets out the hazels most often offered in garden centres and mail-order catalogues, from heavy croppers to purely ornamental forms.

Learn more about hazel

Hazel cannot be planted alone because it needs another hazel to produce hazelnuts.

So set it up in a shrub bed, or add it to your hedge, that will make your hedge even more ornamental and especially, productive!

• Grow hazel in a mixed hedge for maximum advantages! Fruits, berries, ornamental beauty…

Hazelnuts are always harvested in fall.

Even if the hazelnuts themselves are the prime appeal of this large shrub, it also has a definite ornamental value thanks to its delicate and colorful leaves.

Read also:

• When to prune a hedge
• Growing purple leaved hazel