Taking hardwood cuttings

[Chris Sheppard]

Have a customer with a sweet chestnut tree that he is quite attached to but has taken a lot of damage from falling limbs recently and is pretty well fubared.

 

It's one of 10 trees taken from seedlings from a big sweet chestnut on one of the local estates which grew with a distinctive figuring and these 10 trees were planted in various locations across North Yorkshire as a bit of an experiment to see if they would grow the same.

 

The damaged one wasn't particularly old, or a particularly nice specimen, but he's keen to try and do something so as not to lose it completely.

 

We're wondering how easy it is to take cuttings and whether it's likely we could have any success with them putting roots down as I've no experience of doing anything like this.

 

The remaining stem is only around 4-5" diameter and has now lost pretty much all it's branches and we're thinking that maybe it's best to take the stem right back to ground in the hope it may coppice, but take cuttings too so that if it doesn't coppice there's half a chance something might survive. We have kept the branchwood to one side and they do look to have a good amount of young growth from last year present.

 

Are we clutching at straws or might we stand half a chance of saving something?

 

Any help apprecated