Hello my name is irene and i am looking to find out about planting a horse chestnut tree my daughter made in school it is in a milk carton at the moment but desperatley needs to be planted as the roots are lokking a bit squashed now my problem is that although my garden is quite big im very unsure on planting it in the garden as i no how big these trees get was thinking of planting it anyway and keep trimming it to keep it at man height but was then told that the roots get bigger if you do that so can anyone out there tell me what to do!
Plant were you have room for a magnificent large tree. Do not prune back. Do pull open roots when planting, do not plant with deformed roots.
Hi ron thank you for your reply judging by your reply i don think i should plant it i really think its roots are going to be overly large for my garden
Well you have to plant it somewhere - check with local parks people to see if they'd like it, or even a school with lots of room.
Said to be apt to drop large limbs suddenly when mature. Not suitable for places where someone might be hurt or property damaged.
"Said to be" is about right! I've never seen it happen, except in storms of the sort of severity that would do almost any tree in.
hey guys thanks for your tips on my daughters tree my neighbours son has loads of land to which he will plant her tree on cheers irene
I haven't noticed a particular breakage problem either, but according to Alan Mitchell "This not only requires room but it should not be planted where the public are likely to spend long periods beneath it, as in school playgrounds or the open grass areas of public parks. This is because after it is about 100-years-old it is liable to shed suddenly a very heavy branch." We may not have any here planted before 1907, of course, denying me the opportunity to observe this phenomenon in person.
I'm a newcomer to this site, but I just wanted to add that I'm so happy that Irene H. found a home for her daughter's Horse Chestnut seedling. I fondly recall the American Horsechestnut Trees of my youth. Magnificent trees providing lots of shade with beautiful flowers in early Spring. Then later in the Summer would come the green, spiked fruits which held the Chestnut seed. The boys collected the green ones and used them as "grenades" while playing soldier in the back yards. Then, in the Autumn, the girls got a chance to collect the ripened seeds and use them for jewelry. We'd bore holes in them to make rings, or to string them together as necklaces. What fun we had! It's a wonder any seedlings survived the incursions of the local children, but they did just that. The seedlings turned up everywhere on the property. Sadly, a blight devastated the American Horsechestnut, and it is seldom seen anymore in this country. Cheers to Irene and her daughter for caring so much. Rose M
The American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) was the species devastated by the Chestnut Blight and has ho-hum flowers in late spring or early summer. The Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is a European species with attractive flowers in early spring but unrelated to the American Chestnut and unaffected by Chestnut Blight. It is still a very common tree though. The American relatives of the Horse Chestnut are the Buckeyes. Still attractive trees but the flowers are not quite as showy.
