Chinese Chestnut

This beautiful tree offers something unique in every season. Easy care, hardy and productive, Chinese Chestnut (Castanea mollissima) is a beautiful choice for your home garden, farm or orchard. It's also a great choice to include in a permanent wildlife food plot.

They produce a bumper crop of delicious edible nuts that are valuable as a cash crop. Sell them to local restaurants, or to harvest for yourself. Imagine your family and friends gathered to roast your own harvested chestnuts on an open fire, or in the oven! What a special treat.

Chinese Chestnut trees are easy to care for lawn trees. They develop into a magnificent, large specimen with a massive trunk and a wide-spreading, densely rounded crown.

In spring, long, creamy white flowers add a ton of interest. The highly textured, glossy green leaves are very attractive. They cast deep, dense shade in the summer.

In the fall, neighbors will slow down to check out the shining yellow and gold leaves. This is a deciduous tree, so it loses the leaves in the winter, but makes up for it with a striking bare silhouette.

The Chinese Chestnut is a wonderful large shade tree that is often planted alone for the beauty and shade it provides. The primary difference between the beloved American Chestnut and the Chinese Chestnut is the Chinese has a more spreading canopy.

Order one or more today! It does require another Chinese Chestnut cultivar to pollinate for nut production, so consider ordering at least 3 to get the largest crops.

How to Use Chinese Chestnuts

The Chinese Chestnut develops 2 to 3 nuts per bur and the flavor is similar to the American and Spanish sweet chestnuts. When the burs are ripe in early fall, they tumble to the ground and split open, revealing the wonderful fruit inside. Harvest them for your use right away or allow local deer to happily eat them for you.

Because they bloom late - well past the danger of frost - they'll reliably produce year after year. Best production is found in areas with a long growing season and mild winter. Plant several Chinese Chestnut trees to ensure pollination for a bountiful harvest.

On average, 15 year old trees will provide 150 pounds of nuts. They'll ripen in fall and provide a windfall for your family. Give them time to get established in your yard, or in permanent wildlife feed lots.

Chinese Chestnuts are sweet, and grow between a quarter size, up to a 50 cent piece or even larger. These are BIG nuts, that pack a lot of nutrition inside. They have a silky texture, and give a buttery, toasty flavor to many dishes.

With plenty of Vitamins C and B, folic acid and minerals like magnesium and potassium, these nuts are nutritious powerhouses. Cut an X into the bottom of the bur, then roast or boil them. You can easily peel them while they are warm.

Perfect in savory meat or meatless recipes, you can also mill them into flour for polenta or Italian castagnaccio pancakes and cakes. Sweet and full-flavored, the pale, golden-yellow nut makes a great selection for roasting or boiling for holiday treats or to include in salads, stuffing or soups. Even the processed Chinese Chestnut flowers makes fabulous pancakes!

#ProPlantTips for Care

Chinese Chestnut trees are easy to care for lawn trees. They love well-drained, moist, loamy soils, but also do well in drier soils in more arid climates. Chinese Chestnut is a recommended replacement for the American Chestnut.

The tree performs poorly in alkaline soils with high pH levels. Collect rainwater in rain barrels to water if your municipal water is too alkaline with a high pH.

Because they are sun lovers, they won't like being in the shade of other trees. Choose a site in full sun that offers them a little room of their own.

Once established, they will tolerate periods of drought. Providing them plenty of water through the growing season, though, promotes good tree growth and adds to regular nut production.

For groves, plant them 40 feet on center (measuring from trunk to trunk.) Apply organic all-purpose fertilizer in spring.

Give protection against deer, if you plan to utilize the nuts. Fence it while young, and apply Deer Repellent spray according to the directions. Harvest the nuts regularly in fall.

You'll be thrilled with this beautiful and productive tree, order today!