Can anyone tell me if sweet chestnut trees are normally grafted? I
didn't think they were, but I don't know much about them.

I bought a sweet chestnut tree from a nursery in Calvados a few years
ago. It had three main stems. It's now growing like a bush, putting out
new, and very strong, shoots from the bottom. The old stems produce
flowers and rather pathetic fruit. There is the brown shell but nothing
has developed in it. It's done this for the past three years.

The new stems are now stronger than the original three and are about
seven or eight foot tall but they don't show any signs of having
flowers. Are they suckers? They don't look any different to the original
stems (as you would get with a rose). Or will they take more time to
start producing? Or are they taking all the strength from the original
stems so that they don't grow viable fruit?

To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to grow like a bush. But then the
only sweet chestnuts I've seen are down in the south-west of France and
they grow as I would expect - a very tall tree, something like a
horse-chestnut.

David

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David Rance writing from Le Mesnil Villement, Calvados, France