Corylus avellana contorta -

Sow seed outside as soon as ripe in Autumn. Ground layer in Autumn or airlayer in late-Spring.

Druse: Softwood stem cuttings under mist successful. Do not remove from medium once rooted, set in pots of medium or devote a flat to these and allow cuttings to go through winter dormancy before repotting.

Also, grafting/budding onto other Corylus rootstock, though you then have to contend with non-contorted sucker growths from the rootstock.

Will seeds or cuttings of these really come out contorted? I'd always been told they had to be grafted. How do you collect the seed? I have one and would love to have more.

Teresa

The seed pods are very obvious but I don't find alot of them on my bush/tree and it is about 15 years old. Trina

Hi,

The research that I've done this summer says that we have to propagate by cuttings as the seeds will go back to a normal non-contorted bush. The contorted bush is a mutation and will not produce another contorted bush through seeds. The nursery here has a bunch of own root plants selling for$100. They told me they took cuttings in July '04 from a very old plant. The new plants are now about 3' tall. They must have used fluorescent lighting to get flushes before the winter season to gwet that size plant.

Grafting is the way to go. You must make sure you have disease free stock, because European Filbert Blight is deadly, and can cause an outbreak among neighboring filbert farms, if they are in your area. It is a worldwide issue for EFB, so make sure you receive disease free stock, and continue to practise healthy propagating methods. I personal have never provided cuttings from contorted filberts, because my experience in Filbert country is that cuttings are not true, and become very easily infected.