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Hazel Tree help?

janek2004janek2004 Posts: 1
in Problem solving
Hi there- really excited to have joined this forum! Total newbie here so probably looking for advice that might be really obvious!
We've just moved into a new place with a garden. There used to be a huge hazel tree but it has been cut down- it wasn't cut to a stool for coppicing- it almost looks like it's been pollarded (photo attached)
I'd appreciate any advice on how best to manage this- thinking of taking out all lower coppice growth but leaving the upper growth to try and recreate more of a tree shape? Could that work? Or do I need to take the rest of the trunk out to recreate a coppice hazel?
Thanks in advance for any tips- most stuff I've found about hazel just talks about coppicing and I've not seen something like this?


Posts

  • CeresCeres Posts: 2,698
    Welcome to the forum. I thought "Hazel. How difficult can it be?" but I think your's is beyond my pay grade. If it was mine, I'd coppice it. If you want to grow a hazel tree I think it would be better to start from scratch.
  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445
    edited 27 January
    It looks as though all the new shoots have been shortened which will spoil the effect a bit so I'd have the whole lot back to 6' maximum and thin the new growth when it appears. 
    Hazel naturally suckers after a few years and there are not many single stemmed trees about


    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • StephenSouthwestStephenSouthwest Posts: 635
    edited 27 January
    Welcome to the forum.
    What shape or form would you like your hazel to end up as?
  • Joyce GoldenlilyJoyce Goldenlily Posts: 2,933
    I think you will have an ongoing problem forever with this hazel suckering. It is what they do naturally. You could cut back all of the suckers to the main trunk which is in the centre and remove any low-growing stems to the height you want but it will be an annual job. It is quite probable the "haircut" it has been given will have stimulated it into producing many more growths.
  • thevictorianthevictorian Posts: 1,279
    My thoughts as someone who had the same problem years ago with our allotment hazel is to cut it all down and start again. The problem as I see it is you have a quite ugly trunk in the middle and even if you clear the new sucker growth, it will look odd with new growth coming out of the stump. If you clear the path for new growth then you can leave which ever stem you want to make the new tree. I think hazel are best as multistem trees and they lend themselves to controlled sculpting by removing any unwanted growth. Ours now has three main trunks and is kept bare for the first 8ft because we sit under it (the squirrels get the nuts first anyway but we keep it for hazel sticks).

    You will have to keep removing the suckers but you can have a nice looking tree in a few years and a great one in perhaps five by starting again.
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