Cracking on with your nuts
GO nuts and get planting trees with great looks and ready-made nibbles.
Walnuts, sweet chestnuts, cobnuts and sweet almonds can all be planted now and grown successfully in the UK.
Bare-rooted nut trees are available from November through to the end of February. But most will not start producing nuts for four years.
Roasted chestnuts are a winter favourite and the sweet chestnut Marron De Lyon produces kernels that can be cooked in sugar syrup.
This variety is self-fertile, although slow growing, taking up to 50 years to reach a height of nine metres.
Walnut trees love free- draining, heavy soil. In dry soil they often shed before nuts ripen. These “wet” nuts can be eaten but soon deteriorate.
Modern varieties such as Broadview and Buccaneer grow to five metres but take just a few years to form nuts.
Lara, with fruit on its side buds, is ideal for medium-sized gardens as is Europa, which has the ultimate height of around three-and-a-half metres.
Intense
In small gardens, grow Dwarf Karlik No 5, which remains compact due to the short distance between its nodes. After 20 years it will be nearly two metres tall. It can be grown in a large container on a sunny, sheltered patio.
It is self-fertile. The nuts, which are about the size of grapes, have shells that can be easily cracked. The kernel has an intense nutty flavour.
Hazelnut Kentish Cob, Corylus maxima, is one of the easiest to grow in Britain. Often referred to as filberts, it is ornamental, too, admired for its yellow-green catkins in spring.
The biggest and tastiest is Corylus avellana Hall’s Giant. The most decorative is Red Majestic, which has purple foliage that is green-tinted by summer. Purple-red catkins drip from twisted stems as spring comes, followed by edible nuts.
Sweet almonds will also reliably crop in the UK and produce scented, pink spring blossoms.
Almonds thrive in a sunny, sheltered spot and will grow to three metres. You can train them as a fan-shape on a south-facing wall.
If you have a small garden, look out for Sibley’s Patio Almond, with an ultimate height just over one metre.
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