Environment & Energy

Denninmi

(6,581 posts)

9. Some advice for the OP - watch out for woodchucks, deer, rabbits, and voles.

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 03:33 AM

Jul 2012

I had a devil of a time getting my chestnuts going, they were repeatedly damaged by animals. I lost the top growth for the first three seasons on many of them to various chewing animals. They would strip the growth in the summer, and girdle or just plain eat the wood in the winter. I finally had to enclose them in hardware cloth cylinders surrounded by a larger cylinder of welded fence wire. I left those on until the trees were about 2 inches in diameter and about 8-10 feet tall. Good thing chestnuts are tough and capable of regenerating well from the roots and trunk.

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My hybrid chestnuts are growing like gangbusters! [View all] NickB79 Jul 2012 OP

looking good! madrchsod Jul 2012 #1

Yeah, the blight really did a number, so these are resistant hybrids NickB79 Jul 2012 #2

A question: LWolf Jul 2012 #4

You can breed hybrids into a fairly stable strain given enough time NickB79 Jul 2012 #7

I think it's a wonderful effort. LWolf Jul 2012 #10

The first peoples of the Americas treated the forests as a giant garden. hunter Jul 2012 #5

Indeed. It was the largest permaculture experiment ever done NickB79 Jul 2012 #6

It would be cooler if they were growing like Ghostbusters TlalocW Jul 2012 #3

I don't know that I'd want gangbusters all over my yard. Kablooie Jul 2012 #8

Some advice for the OP - watch out for woodchucks, deer, rabbits, and voles. Denninmi Jul 2012 #9