I've got what I'm sure is a horse chestnut tree. Don't know how old it is, but it's trunk is about 16" diameter and it's at least 30 ft tall. I'm located in South-Western Ontario. Just a few days ago it dropped most of the newly forming nuts (they look like small green spiky balls, between 5 to 10 mm in diameter). The tree seems to do this every year. I know that you're not supposed to eat these nuts, but I figure they're good for the many squirrels we have. We usually find a few fully formed nuts on the ground in the fall. I'm just wondering if it's normal for the tree to drop most (or almost all) of these "baby" nuts, or is there anything I can do (fertilizer, etc) to "help" the tree hang on to them so they form full-sized nuts.
Yes, that's normal. Each flower spike has 20-30 flowers on, but only 1-3 develop mature seeds. The rest drop off around now. Largely a matter of energy resources available to the tree - if every flower tried to develop, the tree would have its energy resources exhausted quickly (and would also collapse under the weight!). Note that Horse-chestnut is somewhat poisonous for people, don't eat the seeds!
