Culture

Best grown in moist, organically rich, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Tolerates average garden soils. Avoid heavy clays. Prompt removal of root suckers will help maintain plant appearance, and, if desired, help prevent thicket formation. Plants may be propagated by suckers, early summer soft wood cuttings or seed.

‘Contorta’ plants sold in commerce are often grafted which means the root suckers lack contortion. Such suckers cannot be used for propagation and must be regularly removed to prevent partial reversion of the plant to the uncontorted characteristics of the root stock.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Corylus avellana, commonly called European filbert, European hazelnut or cobnut, is a deciduous, thicket-forming, multi-trunked, suckering shrub that typically grows to 12-20’ tall. It is native to Europe, western Asia and northern Africa where it is typically found growing in rich thickets, woodland borders, wooded slopes, hedgerows, clearings and along streams.

Monoecious flowers (separate male and female flowers on the same plant) bloom on bare branches in late winter to early spring (March-April) before the leaves emerge. Somewhat showy, pale yellow-gray male flowers appear in sessile drooping catkins (each to 2-3” long). Inconspicuous female flowers with red stigmas bloom just above the male catkins. Double serrate, elliptic to ovate to orbicular, medium green leaves (to 4” long) are rounded to cordate at the base and generally hairy. Leaves turn variable but often unexceptional shades of yellow in fall. Smooth light bark is gray-brown. Fruit is a hard edible brown nut (to 3/4” long) enclosed in a leafy, hairy, light green husk. Nuts are known as cobnuts. Nuts appear in terminal clusters of 1-4 and are half covered in ragged husks. The husk (involucral tube) surrounding the nut extends beyond the nut by at least one inch to form a beak. Nuts ripen in late August and September.