Corylus avellana 'Contorta'

I work for an environmental activist group in the state of Indiana. A really great part of this job is that I can get so many cuttings of great trees! I found my first Harry Lauders Walkingstick today and thankfully they where home any willing for me to take a couple of cuttings.

The cuttings are about 4" with about an inch of softwood on them with a couple of leafs on the softwood part and tons on the hardwood part. In the PlantFiles I know that it said that they propagate from grafting but is there anyway that I can get these to root? Would they root if I was to take all the leaves off the hardwood area leaving only the couple form the new growth, use rooting hormone on it then just plant the hardwood part?

Or is there any other ideas to get this to work? I do not know, I just hate to pay for trees and the like because they grow in the wild and since I can get cuttings of plants all the time...

The answer so people know is, no, this does not work. I tried planting in soil and in water and they both died in two days time.

Shame no-one could help Herby. I doubt I can either but I like the tree you are trying to get going. Aren't you a bit out of season for hardwood though? I am getting ready to start them now & we have opposite seasons. I didn't see your cuttings but it sounds like they might have done with less old & more new growth. Your description sounds like better cuttings for grafting than rooting. Maybe wait till winter & go back, get mainly new growth & use honey instead of hormone (or vegemite, if you can get it). I am not saying it will work by any means, but you can better your chances. You could always just graft of course too.

Hazel, while not impossible to root from cuttings, is very difficult. Rooting it is a job for professionals with considerable expertise and access to an extensive propagation unit.

Commercially, the cultivar 'Contorta' ("Harry Lauder's walking stick") is usually grafted onto a seedling Hazel rootstock, which is a lot cheaper and easier, though this has the down side that rootstock sprouts of normal wild-type Hazel are common. A very few growers do take the trouble to grow it from cuttings so the plants are on their own roots and don't send up wild-type Hazel sprouts; the difficulty of doing so is reflected in the considerably higher price of such plants.

Resin

OK. That's interesting Resin. So it is possible, just very hard. Crazy plant. I happen to have 8 young hazel bushes coming up from seed now. Perhaps I'll try grafting one of these later.

There are a couple of nurseries that produced/produce plants on their own roots. Heronswood Nursery (pre-Burpee buyout) was one of them and the only other nursery I know of is Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery, in Wisconsin. I just checked and Song Sparrow is not offering the plant this year. The plant was listed last year. Song Sparrow may have the plant again next year.

As Resin has said, if at all possible, buy a plant on its own roots. If you buy a grafted plant you will be forever cutting out the normal suckers that grow from the understock.

On own-root plants, even the roots are contorted.
Mike
tl³

OK. Even the roots. That's crazy. I might be pushing my luck to get one, but you never know. I hope Herby succeeds in the end.
Ian

Hi everyone,
Likes Resin has stated, take cuttings on this type of tree is difficult but not impossible. Several years ago I tried. Take cuttings of about a dozen and half in early spring. Stuck them in the ground, kept them watered. And one took roots! Yes one out of 18 isn't bad is it? lol. My matured tree is over 20 years old. The tree was from Monrovia I think, it's a beautiful specimen tree.

lol...I just noticed that this thread got some replies, sorry about the delay. Thanks for the info people. I was emailing with one of the members and I learned that for hardwoods you need to wait till winter when the tree is doorment...well now that I think about it they where just talking about this tree but I got the impression that it was for most hardwoods.

I just love contorted plants...do not get me wrong but normal trees seem so "strict and clean-cut" but contorted ones just seem so...free...?

oh man, I so sound like a tree hugging hippie...

Contorted filbert are a pain. We just stuck our first batch of cuttings on Friday. We keep our stock plant in 5 gallon containers in a greenhouse to promote early growth every season and take the cuttings off of the new growth only, when the sticks are about 1/4". If you take them much larger, they don't root as well. We dip them in dip'n grow 10-1 solution, stick them in pumice and place them under a mist system and get about 70% take. It can take 3 to 4 weeks for them to root. Corylus is not easy, but it can be if you get the timing perfect. We've seen takes up to 90% and as low as 5% when they didn't get enough mist.

Is Filbert the Turkish tree hazel? The nuts are nicer from the English species right Resin?

Nope! Turkish Hazel is Corylus colurna. Turkish Hazel nuts are edible, but incredibly tough to crack (the shells are nearly twice as thick as on ordinary Hazel; take care as nutshell shrapnel flies in all directions when it does finally shatter!!). The flavour doesn't strike me as any nicer.

Resin

Johnnyvino: Sounds like you have a great setup there and thanks for sharing the information.

Resin?...
How do you know so much about trees? I want to be like you when I grow up...lol.

He's a squirrel

oh man! I want to be a squirrel too! *pout*

But really I just do not know how these people can just know all those names, I still have problems with just my name...and I have had it for 26 years...lol. Man I wish it was Tuesday, chatroom night here at DG.