Butler Azelnuts are the very big sweet variety you want to eat fresh. (as sold at the Trout lake Farmer's Market 2 years back) I found a seedling in my garden. A squirell must have burried a nut last fall. It comes from the 2 trees I have at the back of my garden. I don't have the heart to throw it on my compost. Free to pick up in the Trout lake /Commercial/Broadway area. Just reply to this thread if interested. D.
Sorry it has been taken. I will most likely have more next year since the squirrels keep burying the nuts in my garden.
The shrub you are talking about is actually a hazelnut, Corylus avellana 'Butler', sometimes called Butler Filbert. There's a good description of it on the GardenWorks website: Butler Filbert (Corylus avellana 'Butler') in Vancouver Victoria Burnaby Penticton Coquitlam British Columbia BC at GardenWorks where it is probably sold when available. Free is better, of course.
The seeds of named filbert varieties are unlikely to produce plants with the same characteristics as the parents. Their nuts are more likely to resemble small, wild hazelnuts than commercial filberts; but you might get lucky. At least the nuts will be edible, and two of the plants will likely cross-pollinate each other.
The 2 trees I have in my garden are from the seller from the farmer's market. He used to sell those Butler hazelnut in fall but all his Butler trees got sick and died. I planted 2 nuts in my garden a few years back and the hazelnuts produced are very big and tasting exactly the same. I guess I got lucky? The squirrels are big fans too unfortunately.
I'd expect that if your two farmer's market origin trees are genetically identical 'Butler' clones they wouldn't pollinate each other, as they would really be two separately growing pieces of a same single plant. And filberts are like apple and avocado trees etc. in that a comparatively small number of specific cultivars has to be matched up in order to get adequate cross pollination in each instance. (Except that apple cultivars can often be pollinated by apparently random flowering crab apple cultivars). So I suspect they are seed raised themselves, rather than true clonal 'Butler'. Or there happens to be a third kind growing nearby somewhere that is fertilizing them. A thing that began spoiling hazel plants in this region awhile back is European filbert blight. Some years ago a response to this was the generation of multiple different new, resistant cultivars from Oregon State University. At the moment I know 'Butler' is an OSU selection but I do not know if it is from this blight resistant set or not. If not that could explain what happened to the farmer's market vendor's source trees. Or, if these were themselves open pollinated seedlings (derived from a 'Butler' tree) rather than true clonal 'Butler' propagules they might not have inherited any resistance 'Butler' might have - with the OSU resistant cultivars there is a very small genetic difference that is protecting them from the blight. Infested trees have large percentages of their tops die off, in the manner of all the local birches that are now being hit by bronze birch borer. (European birches in particular are being severely damaged). One of the nut varieties that is being clobbered in our area is the contorted filbert, so that as with the birches even purely decorative plantings are being affected. I haven't looked recently but a friend's long established Harry Lauder's walking stick may by now be entirely dead, if not nearly so.
@Moes grows and @dominique nonnon, the discussion so far has been useful to us all, but if you are going to discuss transferring the seedlings, please do it in a private message, called a Conversation here - note the userid you want to discuss this with, click the symbol at the upper right, select Conversations, then click the Start a New Conversation button.
