Photo: Qwert1234 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Survives zone 4 through 8
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
A very cold-hardy shrub — with an even hardier northern variety extending across northeast China, Korea, Japan and eastern Siberia — bearing small egg-shaped nuts fully enclosed in a bristly, tubular husk two to three times the nut's length, and showing good field resistance to eastern filbert blight.
- Hardiness
- Zone 4–8
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Nut
- Ripens
- September
- Mature size
- Suckering shrub 2–5 m; coppiceable; container short-term
- Light
- Partial to full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.5 (lime-tolerant)
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- Japan and the Korean peninsula (var. sieboldiana); a more widespread form (var. mandshurica) extends across northeast China, Japan, Korea and eastern Siberia.
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 3–4 yrs
- Growth speed
- Moderate
- Spacing
- 400 cm (157 in) apart — about 16 m² (172 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Rounded to obovate, 6–15 cm, rounded to shallowly heart-shaped base, pointed tip, coarsely and irregularly double-toothed margin, hairy beneath along the veins.
- Root system
- Suckers readily from the base and roots, indicating a spreading, suckering root habit.
- Fruit description
- Small nuts (~12 mm), egg-shaped, smoothly covered by a husk constricted into a tube slightly to several times the nut's length depending on variety; the husk is purplish when immature with dense pale hairs and bristles, and kernels are rich in oil.
- Propagation
- Seed sown fresh in autumn in a cold frame, or by autumn layering and by division of root suckers — described as very easy — planted straight into a permanent position in early spring.
- Pollination
- Monoecious and wind-pollinated; the hardier northern variety is self-fertile and produces good seed crops even in cool climates.
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Succeeds in sandy, loamy and clay soils across mildly acid to alkaline pH; most productive on moderate-fertility ground, performing poorly in either rich heavy or very poor soils.
How it spreads. A shrub to about 5–6 m that suckers readily from the base, spreading gradually outward as a multi-stemmed clump.
Growing tips. One of the hardiest of all hazels, with good field resistance to eastern filbert blight. The more cold-tolerant northern variety is rated hardier and more widespread than the Japanese/Korean form, with nursery sources reporting it tolerating temperatures as low as −45°C. Transplants well even at a larger size.
Grow journal
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