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Tree Project.

Hazel Trees.

Hazel Trees or Corylus Avellana are of course Native to the UK and seen everywhere. If left to grow this deciduous tree can get up to 12 m in height and live for some 80 years. However, it has long been the practice of woodsmen to “Coppice,” trees which basically means to cut the trunks at quite a low level and harvest the timber. This forces the tree to re-shoot throwing up many fresh shoots that grow straight up. These can again be harvested every 3 or 4 years to yield large numbers of straight poles that can be used in all sorts of ways. If the older stems are cut out selectively it is possible to leave enough mature stems to still get a Nut harvest every year. Coppicing also has the unusual benefit of extending the life of the tree to many hundreds of years. It also means that even a wild tree can be so restricted in size that it can happily be found a home in many back gardens.
Hazel Nuts are a fantastic food source both for wildlife and people and because of this they have long been cultivated commercially to give better Nuts and even for ornamentation.
The Catkins, which are the male flower parts and the female tiny red flowers appear in Winter with both coming on the same tree, but not at the same time. This enables cross pollination from another tree which is necessary for fertilization and the production of Nuts that can be harvested in the next Autumn.

Other names are given to Hazel Trees and basically Cob, or Filburt Nut trees are simply the names given to cultivated varieties. These are often smaller and more productive trees and many have dark purple leaves that are particularly attractive. Some like the “Corkscrew,” or “Twisted,” Hazel are even grafted to restrict their size even further. The “Corkscrew Hazel,” has stems and branches that grow twisted and literally “Corkscrew,” through the air. It has red leaves and even the nut clusters are coloured red, but are still edible. Instead of having yellowish catkins it has red ones that give a little winter colour when there are no leaves on the trees making them a lovely addition to any garden.







 

 

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