Hazelnut (Filbert or Hazel)
Corylus species (BETULACEAE)
Planting and Growing Hazelnut Trees
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow hazelnut, filbert, or hazel trees in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- Flowers, foliage, catkins, and nuts of hazelnut, filbert, or hazel trees
- Growing conditions for hazelnut, filbert, or hazel
- When to plant hazelnut, filbert, or hazel
- How to plant hazelnut, filbert, or hazel
- How to prune hazelnut, filbert, or hazel
- Watering, fertilizing, and care of hazelnut, filbert, or hazel
- Landscape uses of hazelnut, filbert, or hazel
- Pest and disease control for hazelnut, filbert, or hazel
Growing Hazelnut Trees
About 10 species of slow-growing, spreading, deciduous shrubs or trees, 10–120 ft. (3–37 m) tall, depending on species, with smooth, alderlike, yellow green, fuzzy, oval, pointed, toothed leaves, usually 4–6 in. (10–15 cm) long, turning yellow in autumn.
Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick, Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’, has a distinctive twisted trunk and limbs.
Hazelnut Planting and Care Guide
Flowers and Nuts
Inconspicuous female flowers and long, dangling, willowlike male catkins borne on same tree in spring, form edible nuts in autumn.
Best Climates
U.S.D.A. Plant Hardiness Zones 5–9. Ground hardy, zones 6–8.
Soil Type and Fertility
Damp, well-drained soil. Fertility: Average. 6.0–8.0 pH.
Where and How to Plant
Full sun to partial shade. Space 8–12 ft. (2.4–3.7 m) apart.
Proper Care
Easy. Allow soil surface to dry between waterings until established. Fertilize quarterly spring–autumn. Remove all suckers. Prune in autumn. Propagate by cuttings, grafting, nuts.
About This Species
Good choice for accents, backgrounds, edgings, screens in cottage, woodland gardens. Some species are regulated to prevent spread of eastern filbert blight out of infected areas.