When I was in SoCal, for years I wanted to be able to grow filberts.....but they don't grow down there. So now I can finally get a couple of filberts and I'm deciding what to do with them....tree or shrub? I've read that they sucker when grown as a shrub.....

1. Can anyone say that I grow mine as shrubs and that's fine?

or

2. Growing them as shrubs is something that you really, really, really don't want to do?

TIA.....

I believe you would want to grow it as a tree. As a shrub it gets unruly. Also, unless you remove suckers from the crown of a hazelnut tree every year, it grows as a bush.

So, you have to keep after it...either controlling an unruly shrub or pruning out suckers in a tree.....hmmmm....
Thank You for the info.....

We had our filberts for 30 years as trees. If not kept pruned they get to be a sizable tree. Once the tree gets any size the suckers aren't really a problem, just more of multiple trunks that will actually grow together. With trees the squirrels and jays will get most of the nuts. The population of critters exploded. There were four squirrel nests in the trees and countless other nests of jays and squirrels in neighboring trees.

We had neighboring filbert trees develop the filbert blight and spread to our trees. Since our trees had gotten so big I couldn't treat them without affecting the veggie and perennial garden. We had the filberts removed last summer. Because the blight is significant in Oregon and Washington if I was doing it again I would keep them as shrubs. Might have been able to save them.

Well, those were my thoughts....

The blight...getting filberts that are now more disease resistant....

Don't want to have to do any top work on trees..

I should have given thought to the birds getting the nuts since the crows in SoCal always beat my neighbor to his pecans...

If kept shrubby, I could 'net' them.....?

Didn't think about the birds, but oddly enough, did give some thought to bears. We do occasionally get bears and growing nuts/ fruit...will that draw more bears? lol.....not much worried about the occasional bear, but don't want to encourage them. I remember a DG'er who lived in Hoopa (Ca) encountering bears when she was out after apples near her property. I'm only used to having to deal with coyotes and the occasional bobcat, bears have outside my realm of probabilities....lol..

Well this will be moot for awhile...rebeccag in Pistol River was going to be picking them up for me in Salem. She's closed her nursery, but she and a friend from Crescent City who also previously had a nursery were going to be doing a run to pick up a load of plants in Salem for another nursery owner here in Crescent City. In Barb's diesel truck and pulling a 20' trailer...hit ice 10 miles out of Reedsport, hit 50' of guard rail, then out of control, ending by hitting rocks and the trailer blocking the highway....the truck's a total, trailer still in Reedsport and they're both simply lucky to still be alive...guess my filberts can wait awhile.

Should I be thinking of planting filberts given the mentioned problems? Worth the trouble? Don't waste space on them?

Sherry, So glad they are ok! What a terrible experience.

Yep...and they're both very seasoned drivers for this area...so y'all be careful out there.

Yes, has happened to the best of drivers.

I'd heard there were some terrible accidents in the Salem area. Glad all are safe.

Safe, but very financially costly.....