Sweet chestnut ∗ The 10 best planting and care tips

Characteristics

• Scientific name: Castanea sativa
• Family: beech family (Fagaceae)
• Genus: Chestnuts (Castanea)
• Synonym: sweet chestnut
• Origin: Caucasus, North Africa
• Distribution area: Western and Southern Europe
• Growth type: deciduous tree
• Growth: upright, spreading
• Size: 25m to 35m
• Leaf: lanceolate, roughly serrate
• Flower: catkins
• Fruit: nut

Sweet chestnut blossom

the sweet chestnut is a monoecious, unisexual tree species. Male and female flowers are in separate inflorescences on a tree. A wild chestnut blossoms for the first time when it is 20 to 30 years old. Refined fruit varieties from the tree nursery flower and bear fruit much earlier, often in the third or fourth year. The following features shape the sweet chestnut blossom:

• Male flowers: 20 cm to 25 cm long, creamy yellow, catkin-like spikes
• Female flowers: inconspicuous, greenish-yellow mini catkins
• Flowering period: May to July

Thanks to its late flowering period, the sweet chestnut is hardly susceptible to late frosts. To protect against self-pollination, the male catkins bloom before the female flowers. For a rich harvest of delicious chestnuts, a second sweet chestnut is therefore required as a pollinator. This task is fulfilled equally by the original wild species or by a special pollinator variety.

sweet chestnut fruit

In autumn there is a lot of activity in Germany's forests, because it is chestnut season. From October, prickly, five to ten centimeter large fruit cups fall to the ground in droves. Inside the thorny shells are shiny dark brown chestnuts, also known as chestnuts. The crunchy nuts are edible and contain many healthy ingredients, as the following table shows:

You can eat peeled chestnuts raw, cooked and roasted.

sweet chestnut leaf

In spring, the sweet chestnut puts on a robe of leaves that is well worth seeing. These attributes illustrate the highly praised ornamental value of the leaves:

• leaf sprouting: late April to early May
• leaf shape: stalked, elliptic to lanceolate, shortly acuminate
• leaf edge: dentate to roughly serrate
• size: 12 cm to 20 cm long, 3 cm to 6 cm wide, 1.5 cm to 2.5 cm short petiole
• color: Shiny dark green on top, slightly lighter underneath, prominently veined

The sweet chestnut says goodbye to the leafless winter break with a subtle, yellow-brown autumn colour.

Sweet chestnut growth

The sweet chestnut is the only European tree species of the chestnut genus within the beech family. Thus, the sweet chestnut is distantly related to large native trees such as oaks or beeches, which is reflected in their majestic growth:

• Size: 25m to 35m
• Growth habit: domed to rounded crown, spreading
• Trunk: straight, mostly twisting
• Bark: young trunk and twigs smooth, reddish-brown to olive-green, later with longitudinal cracks, brown-grey
• Wood: warm, golden-brown colour, easy to work with, largely weather-resistant by nature

in the 20th In the 19th century, chestnut blight infestation caused a massive decline in populations in the natural range. It is thanks to intensive efforts in biological control and strict controls when exporting chestnut wood that the beautiful tree species was able to recover in our forests. You can find out why foresters adore the sweet chestnut so much in the following video:

Sweet chestnut against climate change

Plant sweet chestnuts

The best time to plant sweet chestnuts is in autumn. Hobby gardeners plant chestnuts to experience the miracle of growth from scratch. You can plant young trees with pot balls that you have grown yourself or bought ready-made at any time of the year, provided the ground is not frozen. The right choice of location and expert planting technique illuminate the following sections:

Location

North of the Alps, the sweet chestnut prefers a place with a protected microclimate. In combination with a late flowering period, the southern European tree species is well-armed against late frosts, even in our latitudes. With this choice of location you are doing it right:

• Sunny to semi-shady location
• Warm and sheltered from cold east and north winds
• Fresh, loose garden soil
• Ideally on deep soils with low lime content (below 20%)
• Exclusion criteria: shady locations, heavy, clayey soil and waterlogged clay soil

Plant chestnuts

Every chestnut has the potential for a new sweet chestnut. It is a point of honor for the ambitious hobby gardener to grow the magnificent tree species from ripe chestnuts themselves. Before you plant chestnuts, subject the seeds to a cold stimulus to overcome the natural germination inhibition. The following brief instructions explain the correct procedure:

1. Do not peel chestnuts
2. Slightly roughen the shell with sandpaper
3. Soak chestnuts in lukewarm water (thermos flask) for 48 hours
4. Fill the freezer bag with coconut soil and sand (1:1) and moisten
5. Fill in the soaked chestnuts, close the bag tightly and place in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator
6. Keep the substrate slightly moist for 4 to 6 weeks

Plant germinating chestnuts in a seed pot with loose, permeable soil without peat. In the bright, warm location, take care of the young trees until next autumn. Alternatively, you can plant chestnuts directly in the bed. However, direct sowing is associated with a high failure rate.

Plant young tree - tips

Do not miss the following tips for the perfect planting:

• Before planting, the root ball is placed in water until no more air bubbles rise.
• The planting hole is twice as big as the root ball.
• Of the excavation is enriched with compost soil and horn shavings.(€9.00 at Amazon*)
• For the correct planting depth, the root disc is flush with the surface of the earth.
• A support post protects the young sweet chestnut from windthrow.

After planting, water the sweet chestnut thoroughly. A mulch layer made of leaves, bark mulch or bark compost is advantageous.

digression

Horse chestnuts are inedible

Maintain sweet chestnut

The sweet chestnut is easy to care for. Please water a young tree regularly when it is dry. Older chestnuts are deep-rooters and are content with an occasional rain shower. For a good supply of nutrients fertilize in March with two to three liters of compost and 100 grams of horn shavings. Rake in the organic fertilizer a little and water again. In the following sections you will learn how to successfully propagate a sweet chestnut and protect it from diseases with the right pruning.

multiply

The sweet chestnut is to be multiplied by sowing the seed (see above) or the proven cutting method. In early summer to cut She semi-lignified non-flowering branches 20 centimeters long. Remove the foliage except for four leaves at the tip of the shoot. Plant the cuttings either in a protected propagation bed or in a pot potting soil.

In both cases it is to be expected that the hereditary factors of the wild sweet chestnut will prevail in the young tree. So that the varietal characteristics are preserved for a rich harvest of tasty chestnuts, the complicated propagation by budding or copulation is primarily considered.

Diseases

Infestation with chestnut bark hovers like a sword of Damocles over every sweet chestnut. The fungal infection is one of the most aggressive diseases and in the worst case can lead to tree death. The unmistakable symptom is the escape of a dark liquid from the wood. The best prevention is systematic care of the cut, because the pathogens use open wounds as a portal of entry. The following tips provide an overview:

• Rule of thumb: cut sweet chestnuts as seldom as possible and as often as necessary.
• Thoroughly thin out the crown every two to three years in February.
• Thick branches in stages a stringsaw off.
• Remove diseased, broken and dead branches.
• Cut back branches that are too close together or rubbing against each other or cut them off at the base.

Please pay attention to meticulous hygiene. Scissor blades and saw blades are disinfected with alcohol before and after cutting.

Popular Varieties

The original species Castanea sativa was the inspiration for the breeding of countless cultivars, the best-known representatives of which are named in the following list:

• Dorée deLyon: refined sweet chestnut bears delicious chestnuts from the 2nd month. year, growth height 8 m to 10 m.
• Asplenifolia: delights with deeply dissected leaves and tasty chestnuts ranging in size from 2 cm to 4 cm.
• marigoule: resistant to bark canker infestation, gives edible, slightly mealy chestnuts from October, growth height 25 m to 30 m.
• Anny's Summer Red: Dwarf variety with a compact size of 1.5 m to 3 m, perfect pollinator variety for a bountiful harvest.
• Variegata: self-pollinating noble variety with white variegated leaves, white flowers and edible chestnuts.

FAQ

What is the difference between sweet chestnut and horse chestnut?

Despite numerous similarities, both tree species are not related to each other. The sweet chestnut belongs to the beech family (Fagaceae), while the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) belongs to the soap tree family (Sapindaceae). The sweet chestnut is also aptly called sweet chestnut because its fruit is edible. In fact, chestnuts are a delicacy that you can enjoy raw, cooked or roasted. Because soap tree plants are slightly poisonous in all parts, the horse chestnut bears inedible fruit.

How much does a chestnut picket fence cost?

The weather-resistant wood of a sweet chestnut is ideal for a rustic picket fence. Demand and supply on the market are correspondingly high. We looked around for you and determined the average price level. You can get a 75 centimeter high picket fence from EUR 8.95 per meter. Ready-made premium goods with a height of 100 centimeters and a pole spacing of 5 centimeters cost 15.45 euros per meter. If you would like a 180 centimeter high chestnut fence with privacy protection, it will cost EUR 28.50 per meter.

What is the 6 letter crossword clue for sweet chestnut?

If a crossword puzzle asks for sweet chestnut with 6 letters, there are three solutions: Marone, Maroni, Kaeste. Sometimes seven letters have to be entered as the solution word. In this case, the answer is: Chestnuts for the Swiss variant or Keschtn for the South Tyrolean variant.