Hazelnut (hazel): planting and care. Redwood hazel

An ordinary hazel (hazel-grouse) is a forest inhabitant of the middle zone of Russia, known since ancient times as a magnificent taste of its fruits - nuts, their high nutritional value, and the magical properties of wood attributed to it by folk beliefs. This useful shrub is invaluable and for its winged assistants - bees. Its abundant spring flowering gives a huge amount of the main food of insects - pollen, thoroughly supporting them after wintering. The excellent decorativeness of hazel, and especially its hybrid culture - hazelnut, is increasingly used by gardeners in decorating dachas and estates.

Description of the culture

It is a deciduous shrub or low, up to 8 m in height, a tree, a hazel, the photo of which can be seen in the article, has a decorative and attractive appearance. Oval or spherical dense crown and light smooth gray-brown bark with transverse bands create a pleasant impression. Flowering hazelnut occurs in early spring, even before the leaves blossom. Since hazel is a monoecious plant, beautiful staminate earrings, single or collected in bundles, and pistillate flowers appear on it. Four bifurcated joint stamens make up a flower. Spring flowering hazelnut - a beautiful life-affirming spectacle. The fruit of the hazel is a nut. They are covered with greenish plush and are united in a fruit crop by 3-5 or more pieces. Hazel fructifies annually, alternating abundant and moderate yields. Beginning with the 5th-8th year fruiting is characteristic of a culture such as hazel (hazel). Planting and care are determined by the method of planting.

Nuts: composition and use

Ripe kernels of hazel are not only very tasty, but also the most caloric of all kinds of nuts. They exceed in nutrition the products produced by the meat and dairy industry. Contained in nuts fatty oils, trace elements, vitamins, amino acids and their unique compounds give the kernels excellent taste and medicinal qualities. Their use in food is useful for children and adults, it contributes to the multifaceted development of the young organism, as well as the prolongation of life and the maintenance of health at a qualitative level in people of mature age. Nuts are eaten raw or roasted, added as a filler in the production of chocolate, confectionery, oriental sweets. A nutritious oil with excellent taste is a component of salads, hot and cold snacks. The long shelf-life of hazelnut fruit (3-4 years), during which they do not lose their basic qualities, is another advantage of this unique product.

Tannins available in the bark and leaves of hazel, tannins, essential oils can effectively use them in the perfume and pharmaceutical industries.

Healing properties

High bactericidal properties of hazel are successfully used in the treatment of skin diseases (neurodermatitis, eczema, etc.). Young leaves of the plant relieve painful manifestations in liver lesions, and the purified fruits (without the brown husk) in a mixture with honey strengthen the hematopoietic function of the body and relieve rheumatic pains. Vodka infusions of nuts are successfully used in the treatment of pulmonary problems, bronchitis, fever, kidney stones. Grated kernels, carefully mixed with egg white, are an excellent remedy for chemical and thermal burns. Broths of the spring bark relieve feverish conditions with malaria, nut oil helps in the fight against helminths, is used in cosmetology.

Leshchina: photos showing decorativeness

No less important are the decorative qualities of the bush. Leshchina is appreciated by landscape designers of garden territories due to dense foliage, which in autumn is painted in yellow and red tones. There are also very picturesque forms of hazel with a wonderful crimson shade of leaves, which persists throughout the season. This is the so-called hazelnut red-leaved. The use of such unusual plants in the backyard landscape design will not only beautify the space, but will make it unique and unrepeatable.

Red-leafed and green-leafed hazel

To ensure annual fruiting, you should plant on the site of mutually variegated varieties. Hazel "first-born" and "Tambov early" are just pollinators of red-leaved forms. Forming a sufficient number of winter-resistant male inflorescences, they prevent the loss of yield. Since in winter, hazel often pollens pollen, but female flowers are preserved, which are subsequently pollinated due to winter stocks of the pollinating variety. Types of hazelnut with green leaves are considered more winter-hardy. A hazel-fledged hazel is vulnerable in the cold season. However, even among the redheads, they are famous for their frost resistance of the cultivar "Mariya Makarevich" and "Pushkin Red".

At the beginning of the last century IV Michurin, working on the acclimatization of southern hazelnut species, received winter-hardy crops. Subsequently, for the years of breeding, new varieties of hazelnut with excellent characteristics were created, which are successfully growing today in both the southern and the moderate latitudes of Russia.

Hazelnut (hazel): planting and care

Hazelnut gives preference to the eastern and north-eastern sections of low slopes. It is in these areas that there is minimal danger of burns or freezing. The haze is shade-tolerant, but permanent shading can lead to loss of yield and decorativeness. Choose for planting should be protected from bright sunlight and strong wind areas with fertile, well drained neutral soils without underflooding by groundwater. In order to obtain stable walnut harvests, shrubs should be planted at an interval of 3 meters for the possibility of cross-wind pollination.

Reproduction of hazel

Planting hazel is a simple process, but it takes time, if the planting material is prepared independently. The hazel is propagated by seeds, by dividing a bush or by root layers, which are bent to the ground and, pinned, placed in grooves and covered with soil. The tops of the branches are gently lifted and tied to pegs. A year later, well-rooted layers can be transplanted to the chosen permanent location. Planting hazel seeds - a longer and time-consuming process. First, stratification will be required, i.e., long-term cooling of seeded seeds simulating a biological winter. And secondly, with such reproduction, the main signs of the maternal culture change, and the variety is not preserved. Usually, hazelnut seedlings are regenerated into a half-cell, which, however, does not yield to the maternal form in taste and decorative qualities. Naturally, the time of the beginning of fruiting is also postponed. The sowing material is ripe nuts - hazel. Planting and care is quite simple. Seeds are sown in autumn, deepening by 7-8 cm, or in spring - by 5-6 cm. When planting seeds, hazel begins to bear fruit after 6-8 years, vegetative reproduction enables the young bush to come into fruiting for 3-4 years.

Vegetative reproduction

The bush grows at the expense of sleeping buds, located on the rhizome. 2-3-year-old shoots have weak roots. They need to grow a couple more years. Well settling takes place, having roots more than 15 cm. Acquired or grown walnut seedlings can be planted in spring or autumn. Pre-planting treatment of the plant consists in trimming the dead or broken roots and dipping them into the dung-clay chatterbox, which protects from decay. The foliage falling from the hazel tree introduces into the soil the full complex of nutrients necessary for the culture. Therefore, it is necessary to add exactly such soil to the planting pit for the seedling - from under the bush of an adult hazelnut - and humus. Seedling carefully arranged in the hole, sprinkled with soil and, ramming, well spilled. The root neck of the plant should rise 3-4 cm above the ground. The final stage of planting is the mulching of the soil in the place where the plant was planted like hazel (hazel). Planting and care at this stage are not burdensome for the gardener.

Formation of a bush

Providing decorative bush does not cause any trouble to the horticulturist. It is practically not cut off, removing only the broken branches and unnecessary shoots. Form a bush in 6-8 barrels and subsequently only maintain its appearance. A vigorous shrub is 70-90 years old, but bears fruit in the first 20 years. Because approximately from this age, you should begin replacing the old trunks with a new shoot, each year cutting 2-3 trunks. Imitating a tree, one trunk is chosen and at the half-meter height 4-6 skeleton branches are formed. Be sure to remove the entire basal shoot. The magnificent design of the garden area is achieved by minimal costs, which are required by the decorative culture hazel (hazel). Planting and grooming, as well as trimming hazelnuts are simple manipulations, nevertheless bringing aesthetic satisfaction and a good harvest of nuts.