Hybrid Chestnut

Castanea spp.  

Thin, shiny leaves are sharply toothed along the edge. A thread of tiny flowers hangs gracefully in late spring. Fast growing. Two trees are needed for nut production. Thrives in rich soils.  Avoid planting in wet spots or early frost pockets. This tree has a way of catching the devotion of people who, in learning about the history of the North American forests, stumble upon the shoots growing out of an old chestnut stump and find meaning and purpose.  It is said that at one point a squirrel could travel from Ontario to Tennessee without once leaving the branches of a chestnut tree.  These were not horse chestnuts or buckeyes but the seriously prickly, sea urchin-like chestnuts that get roasted by the side of every European sidewalk, that fattened the Appalachian wild pigs and led to the easy banjo-playing life of mountain people with their sheer abundance.  But a blight was released with the cultivation of Chinese chestnuts which caused the death of at least 4 billion trees and changed the face of our forests forever.  We are glad to once more be offering these hybrid chestnuts, a cross between the native and the Chinese which have some blight resistance, in the hope that one day our forests will feed a free and lazy lifestyle once more.