Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Red Filbert

 This is one of my red filbert saplings just coming in to leaf...

My dad and I both love this plant. A family friend has a huge one and kindly provided a few seedlings and suckers which we dotted in various hedges and wilder parts of my parents' land. Now their plants are big enough to be producing their own seedlings and suckers and I'm benefiting with a few saplings for my own land. Hopefully in a few years I'll be spreading it around too. It's a brilliant plant. Almost all the wildlife benefits of wild hazel plus the spectacular purple colouration -  It even produces red nuts for your nutbowl. I'd love to see this one more widely planted; it'd do well in the same places those red stalked dogwoods or purple leafed cherry plums are so frequently planted - supermarket and motorway service station car parks, city parks and so on and would provide a feast for the eyes and the odd wild or not so wild stomach too....

3 comments:

Pablo said...

I have 25 of those coming from the Conservation Department next month to plant.

tai haku said...

Pablo
I am sure they will do very well for you; they seem to do well for pretty much everyone. Are you using them as a hedge or in open ground? If you can find some, the related but harder to find Golden Hazel - Corylus avellana aurea makes an excellent contrasting companion.

Jeremy said...

Which bit if the nut is purple? The skin on the nut meat, or the hard casing? Or the bracts that wrap around the nut? Great plant.