I have a 20+ year old sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) tree in my garden. I didn’t really think it would make it here, so it was planted in not the best spot in the garden. To my great surprise, it has only suffered a little frost damage at the tips in the first few years. It even survived the record cold winter in 2011 here when the entire root system would have been frozen solid for up to 4 months. Last year, I noticed both male and female flowers for the first time, but no nuts resulted. Then, I was leading a tour of the garden in September and took the participants into the lane below the garden from where there’s a good view of the chestnut, a mulberry, Chinese walnut, Carya ovata, Cornus kousa and Rhus typhina. My eyes rested on a chestnut at the top of the tree! I cried out in my excitement and did a little dance to the amusement of those present! The 20 year wait to see if chestnuts could ripen up here was perhaps over! With only one tree, I hadn’t expected this and had planted a second tree next to it, but that is also growing slowly and it will be some years before it flowers.
Last week, we had another look and it looked as though it was slightly open and looked mature (darker colour). I therefore decided to knock it down. There is thick vegetation below the tree, and despite searching I could find no chestnut….just the open husk (pictures). It was presumably not pollinated, but it does give me hope that it is possible in this area. This tree came from woodland in southern England. I’ve now planted good varieties at the community garden (Væres Venner Felleshage), so will just have to wait!
Optimized print or PDF
Hey !
Just to say.
A Chestnut tree can produce chestnuts as early as 3-4-5 years old !
They are very resistant and really like cold winter, and they thrives in the spring and summer months at around 24°C (in deep, acidic, well drained soils).
However, To pollinate (and then produce nuts), Chestnuts trees need 27°C-30°C. (So you need at least a day or a few days with theses maximum temperature, for them to start producing pollens).
And you need two chestnuts trees producing pollens of at least two different cultivar (I guess you have thoses now).
To speed up the early stages, you may need to fertilise with nitrogen a little bit, protect the early tree from sun burning damage with latex white paint on the trunk and put mulch around the base of the trunk to supress competition from weeds.
(a great book is The Chestnut Handbook Crop and Forest Management ISBN:978-1-138-33402-1 )
Good luck so far North !! (legit, in Trondheim thoses trees could be the northernest chestnuts in the world lol)
Thanks! I knew that dentata was an acid lover, but didn’t realise this also applies to sweet chestnut. My soils where I’ve now planted a number of chestnuts have a pH of about 6.5. Is it not true that you can get a few nuts with only one tree? This year, we had a record run of thirteen 30C days (twice the previous record, so there’s still hope!)