Filberts

Day 7: Some of you may recall that Harry Lauder, the contorted filbert, bloomed this last spring and began to set fruit. I had found empty shells under the tree at least once before in its thirty-year lifetime, but had never seen nuts hanging from its branches. Previous experience with filberts during my growing-up years suggested that it was highly likely that squirrels, birds or worms would carry them away before they could mature, so I built cages around several clusters as a horticultural experiment. Some critter outfoxed my efforts on all but two bunches, and these fell off naturally and were caught by the wires. They were still green when I brought them in the house, but are slowly turning the brown typical of the species. Will they have meats inside? If so, will they prove to be edible? Or will worms emerge at some point in the future, as they did from the acorns I had sitting in a basket? This experiment is not over yet, but at least it has demonstrated that Harry Lauder can indeed self-pollinate.

Nuts To You!

Day 321: "Well, nuts to you!" sez I to the chipmunk who's been scrounging under the bird feeders lately. No, I'm not really expecting a crop of filberts from Harry Lauder's Walking-stick, although the tree is producing some. My experience with our native Beaked Hazelnut and the small grove of filberts we had when I was a kid leads me to think that the few the worms don't get into will be consumed by birds, squirrels and chipmunks long before they ripen. I planted Harry Lauder shortly after I moved here, meaning that the tree is roughly 30 years old now. Only once in the past have I seen evidence of nuts, and that was in the form of a few shells on the ground. I don't recall having ever seen one on the tree before. It will be interesting to see how these progress.