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Chinese Chestnut Seedling

bare-root trees
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Castanea mollissima

40-60' × same. Low-branching broadly rounded open form with large long narrow sharp-toothed shiny green leaves. Curious catkins look like green fireworks sprouting from the branch tips. Grooved grey bark. Although variable because they are seedlings, they usually produce good-to-excellent nuts 5–7 years after planting. Immune or at least highly resistant to the dreaded chestnut blight and used in breeding work to develop a blight-immune American chestnut. Native to eastern Asia. Z4.

(2½–5' bare-root trees)
ships in spring
Quick Details
Hardy to Zone
4
Compare
Compare with other Chestnut
Variety Product Type Hardy to Zone
American Chestnut Seedling bare-root trees 4
Hybrid Chestnut Seedling bare-root trees 4
Chinese Chestnut Seedling bare-root trees 4
Japanese Chestnut Seedling bare-root trees 4
Additional Information

Nuts

The nut seedlings we’re offering are grown from nuts harvested from the most productive specimens. Like all seedlings, each one is a little different, and nut quality may vary.

Chestnuts

Delicious sweet chestnuts are an important food for both humans and wildlife. Use them for roasting, stuffing and soups, or dry them to make flour for baked goods. The tree’s profuse fragrant white blossoms feed the pollinators. Lustrous dark green foliage is ribbed and sharp-toothed. Yellow fall color.

Before 1900 the American chestnut was one of the most important deciduous trees in the eastern U.S. Chestnut blight showed up in Brooklyn, NY, in 1904; within 50 years it killed virtually every chestnut tree in the eastern U.S. The blight does not kill the roots however, and rare stands of stump sprouts can still be found. Hybrid chestnuts and Chinese chestnuts are resistant to blight

Chestnuts prefer loamy well-drained acidic soil and full sun. Two or more needed for pollination and all three chestnuts we’re offering this year will cross-pollinate with each other.

Breeding for Blight Tolerance

Learn more about different perspectives on traditional breeding vs. genetically engineered chestnut trees as a strategy for blight tolerance.

Shipping

Items from our perennial plants warehouse ordered on or before February 20 will ship from March through early May, starting with warmer areas and finishing in colder areas.

Orders placed after February 20 will ship from April to May.