Fruitscaping with Chestnut Trees

The American Chestnut is back! The forests of eastern North America were once dominated by the American Chestnut. Massive trees often reached 120 feet tall on trunks to 13 feet across. The wood was esteemed as a premier cabinet and furniture making material, as versatile as oak, but easier to work and more beautiful. Beginning around 1900, blight struck the American Chestnut, and by 1950, only a few small, isolated stands remained.

Researchers collected genetic material from those surviving trees and began to cross them with the blight-resistant Chinese Chestnut. Several varieties were developed and tested in groves that had been innoculated with the deadly blight. We are happy to report that no blight has been found in the original test orchards. We hope you will join us in bringing back the great American Chestnut!

These new American crosses have much larger nuts than the Chinese Chestnut, with a sweet crunchy, chinquapin flavor. They are delicious fresh, steamed or roasted, or they can be dried and ground into a sweet flour for making cakes and breads.

We’re also pleased to add the Chinquapin, another Castanea that has sweet crunchy nuts. Chinquapin are smaller growers, more of a multi-caned shrub. They are grown much like a chestnut, only planted closer together on 15 foot spacing. You will need two for cross pollination and good crops.

Recommended Fertilizers for Planting and Maintenance

• Starter Fertilizer:  Plant with Espoma Organic Bio-tone® Starter Plus.  This will increase root mass and help avoid transplant loss in difficult planting conditions.
• Fertilizer to Maintain:  Our varieties of Chestnut Trees work great with Espoma Organic Holly-tone Fertilizer.

Growing Guide

Click here to see find our Chestnut Trees Planting and Growing Guides

Additional Information

The Edible Forrest
Lacking shade in your yard? Why not create your own edible forest. Planting a mixture of nuts and large growing fruit trees over time will give you a cool shady retreat to laze away a summers day under. Mixed fruiting forests are fun to work with, try this cool combination. Chestnuts with their large, coarsely textured leaves and broad umbrella-shaped canopy, mixed with the willowy beauty of pecan and the broad, heart-shaped leaves of mulberry.

Shipping Restrictions

We’re so sorry… but due to agricultural restrictions we cannot ship any plants outside of the United States, or to the states of California, Hawaii and Alaska. Also, citrus trees cannot be shipped outside of the state of Florida.

Here are some important things to know about your shipments

Unpacking Your Plants Guide:  Prior to receiving our plants, please click this link to read our Unpacking Your Plants Guide to get to know the steps to keeping your plant healthy after receiving it.

We do NOT ship bare root:  Our trees are shipped in the same exact containers they are grown in, for the most healthy transition. The plants are watered well before they are packed and wrapped in a shipping bag to ensure they stay moist during transit.  It’s as if you came and picked them up right from our nursery yourself!

Why do we not offer free shipping? At Just Fruits, we price all of our plants online exactly as we do in the nursery. Therefore, the shipping cost is simply what it costs for us to get your order from the nursery to you. Many competitors may increase the plants’ prices in order to hide shipping costs… we do not do that. We want our customers to see exactly what the plant costs are, separate from what the shipping costs are. That way if you decided to come visit the nursery to pick up your plants instead, you would know how much you save in shipping.

Weather Watching:  We now ship all year round! However, we do watch for extreme weather. If there is extremely cold or hot weather expected around your shipment date and on your path of shipment, we will contact you and notify you that we plan to hold the shipment for the next possible shipping date with better conditions. If you ask us to still ship it, through the conditions, we will not be responsible for any damage caused to the plant & UPS will not refund any claims. We love our plants, and do not want to see them die, so we would rather wait until it’s the right time to ship it, than risk losing a plant in transit.

Click here for more details on our shipping process.