I have some free butternuts for planting if anyone wants to pick up a few
near the intersection of Merivale Road and Meadowlands Drive in the west
end. Please reply by email. If mailing from outside the NCF be sure tp put
"notpsam" in the subject line to get past my spam filtre.

These are tree seeds of a nothern variety of walnut which is being killed
off by an asian tree virus. It's on some government endangered species
list. You can read about it by doing a search on "butternut tree" in the
Internet.

I gathered these nuts to plant along waterways when I go out boating. They
prefer the moist air near water. They also have to be in the sun to grow
and produce nuts. After 5-6 years they start producing nuts and then the
squirrels scatter the nuts and more trees grow. (Some Internet websites
erroneously claim it take 20 years to start producing nuts. The trees from
which I gathered these nuts are less than 10 years old.) They have to be
planted in the fall because the seeds have to go through a cold phase to
germinate.

I've started planting some around the west end of Ottawa on public
property but I am hoping to get some planted in isolated areas along
waterways outside of Ottawa where they might escape the tree virus and the
species may survive. Apparently the tree has disappeared from the southern
limits of it range in the Carolinas, and 80% are said to have gone from
one northern US state. The Ottawa Valley is about the northern limit of
it's range.

Of the 8 trees in the group where I gathered these nuts, one is infected
and is dying. There is also a big old butternut behind the KW Neatbly
building on Carling Ave at the headquarters of Agriculture Canada where I
gathered some nuts in the early 1980's. If anyone want's to see what a dying
butternut looks like, that tree is one.

PS: I also have some dried black cherries, elderberries, and juneberries
for planting if anyone wants a few.


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William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
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My applogies. This was supposed to go in a local gardening newsgroup.

(the tree is not infected and the butternuts have been washed. thanks
for the concern.)

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William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
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(William R. Watt) wrote in
:


My applogies. This was supposed to go in a local gardening
newsgroup.

(the tree is not infected and the butternuts have been
washed. thanks for the concern.)

would removing the outer husk also help? i have several
infected butternuts, one of which is producing nuts still (the
others are in my sugarbush & woodlot, so i wouldn't likely see
nuts before the squirrels get them, so i don't know if they're
producing or not). i really like the butternuts, & would like
to try to grow more.
i do have an American chestnut which had blight, was severely
pruned to remove all traces & has no sign of blight now. it
produces nuts, but a lot of them are empty. i don't know if
this is because of blight or a pollination problem though. is
it possible that coppicing the butternut tree & burning the
blighted parts might restore it, as it did with the chestnut?
lee