Sweet chestnut - how far north?

[wrsni]

I know it prefers a milder type of climate and therefore is concentrated mostly in southern England, just wondering how far north you can go in the British Isles and it still do OK.

 

Anyone have experience of trying to grow it away from the balmy climes of southern England or even just seen it growing elsewhere.

 

Any experiences very welcome.

[johnanderton]

You see loads in Cheshire then as you get into Lancashire then they filter out , don't seem to see chestnut a lot in lakes

[se7enthdevil]

i was talking to big j the other day and he was telling me about some great examples he'd seen and he lives in edinborough.

[Big J]

i was talking to big j the other day and he was telling me about some great examples he'd seen and he lives in edinburgh.

 

Very true. There are some very large old sweet chestnuts in the area. I can think of at least a half dozen trees locally with a DBH of over 5ft, some up to 8ft. Dalkeith Country Park (just south of Edinburgh) has a small stand of perfect form, straight stemmed trees at about 2-2.5ft dbh. 30-50ft of straight stems on them.

 

Up here, the issue seems to be that most sweet chestnuts struggle to grow with good form. You see a fair few on the old estates, but unless it's a fairly sheltered stand with good soil, they suffer badly from ring shake and spiral grain.

 

Jonathan

[Forest2Furniture]

The 17.5 acre woodland I manage in North Nottinghamshire is nearly all Sweet Chestnut, some of them over 350 years old.

[Spruce Pirate]

As Big J says, they certainly grow big, but mostly with poor form. There's a small plantation along the road from us here, we planted it about 5 years ago. It took off with vigorous growth and good survival, but due to changes on the estate I haven't been back into it for a couple of years. I must get back along and have a look at how they're doing. They were planted mostly for something different, production not essential, but would be a bonus. I'm not sure if they're commercially viable up here.

[NI Tree]

were are you talking about in NI as we have some

[born2trot]

One of the best examples is in the car park at Maryculter House hotel , Aberdeen . Its an ancient tree in a very historical site well worth a visit .

[ben_inthewoods]

Very big specimen in dingwall,highlands. In a council owned wood called paradise wood.

[Chris Sheppard]

We see odd ones round us, but did some work near York where there was quite a few planted about the wood and they all looked to be doing OK.