We have two (one male, one female) Heartnut trees that are around 15 years old, twenty feet or so tall and have been very healthy up until this spring. They were starting to leaf out in April and then were hit by a killing freeze of 16 degrees. All of the new growth died back and we've noticed both trees "bleeding" sap at various points along the branches. Is this their demise?? We would hate to loose these wonderful trees. Help!!
Isis, Heartnuts(or any walnut, for that matter) are not 'male' or 'female' - they're monoecious, meaning that they have both male and female flowers on the same tree, though not usually at the same time. Now, to your freeze damage. I know exactly what you're dealing with - I have several grafted and a few seedling heartnut selections and most were well along in the process of leafing out and/or blooming when the Easter Big Freeze Disaster struck. Some are now beginning to re-leaf, but I have at least a couple of 4-5 year old grafts, which were about 4-5" caliper trees that were killed outright, all the way back to the black walnut rootstock. Many of the heartnut and Carpathian walnut varieties that I grafted last year were killed back to their BW rootstock. I'm still waiting for some of my 10-yr old seedling butternut/heartnut trees to re-leaf, after being frozen while in the process of leafing/blooming. All you can do is WAIT to see if your trees can/will re-leaf. In all likelihood, there's going to be major twig/branch/limb dieback. Once you see how far back the limbs are dead, based upon where they're able to push new growth, it may be advisable to prune off dead wood. Good luck.
