PICK UP A FREE TREE TO PLANT THIS CHRISTMAS AS A GIFT TO OUR PLANET.
Eighty-five hazel trees are being gifted as part of Gwelen, from the EXPERIENCE project, in collaboration with Forest for Cornwall.
Hazel was a common species in the submerged forest hidden in Mount’s Bay and is an ideal tree to plant in a garden.
Call in to collect your free tree and growing advice.
Trees will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis, one per person.
Hazel is one of the most useful trees for its bendy stems and as a conservation saviour. Its nuts are loved by people, squirrels and hazel dormice.
QUICK FACTS
Common name: hazel
Scientific name: Corylus avellana
Family: Betulaceae
Origin: native
Hazel is often coppiced, but when left to grow, trees can reach a height of 12m and live for up to 80 years (if coppiced, hazel can live for several hundred years). It has a smooth, grey-brown, bark, which peels with age, and bendy, hairy stems. Leaf buds are oval, blunt and hairy.
Look out for: leaves which are soft to the touch as a result of the downy hairs on the underside. Hazel is often coppiced.
Identified in winter by: its nuts, which are each held in a short, leafy husk which encloses about three quarters of the nut. Small, green catkins can be present in autumn.
Identified in winter by: its nuts, which are each held in a short, leafy husk which encloses about three quarters of the nut. Small, green catkins can be present in autumn.
