Let's see those '10 gardens

[T.G]

Originally Posted by Mark C

Anyone here have any experience growing nut trees? I'm buying a new house in southern PA, hopefully the last house I'll buy ever (or at least for a very very long time). I've started thinking about landscaping, but I'm really not interested in growing things I can't eat. My grandparents had an apple tree, it made a huge mess, there were bees and rotting fruit everywhere, so I'm not interested in a fruit tree.

That got me thinking about nut trees. Walnuts are out because I don't want their toxic roots killing my tomatoes, chestnuts are out because I don't want to deal with the spiky balls of fun. Looks like hazlenuts grow well in this area, possibly certain cultivars of pecan and almond also.

So, anybody have experience with nuts?

Whatever tree you get, check into if it's self-fertile or needs cross pollination. If it's a cross-pollinator, make sure you plant two - one "male", one "female" or you could potentially end up with a tree full of nothing, or like what happened to a friend of mine with his avocado tree (which isn't exactly a male/female relation, but needs cross pollination to fruit IIRC) where it bore fruit for decades, until the neighbors cut down their tree, now instead of many hundreds of avocados, he's lucky if he gets 20 avocados per year off a tree with a 30' crown.