Hazelnut

Multi-stemmed shrub or small tree excellent for hedgerows, windbreaks, and coppice systems. Provides early pollen for bees, dense screening, and understory layer in food forests. Tolerates shade and makes ideal living fence material.

Leaves used traditionally as astringent for varicose veins and circulatory issues. Bark employed for fever reduction. Catkins used in Bach flower remedies. Oil rich in vitamin E, used topically for skin conditions.

Nuts eaten raw, roasted, or ground into flour and butter. Essential in pralines, chocolate spreads, and baking. Young leaves edible in spring. Oil excellent for salads and cooking. Catkins can be eaten or used for flour.

Critical early pollen source for bees when little else blooms. Nuts feed squirrels, jays, mice, and woodpeckers. Dense growth shelters birds and small mammals. Mycorrhizal associations with truffles. Coppicing creates diverse habitat structure.

Multi-stemmed shrub/tree to 6m with smooth grey-brown bark. Alternate rounded leaves with doubly serrate edges and pointed tips. Male catkins yellow, pendulous, appearing before leaves. Female flowers tiny, red. Nuts in leafy husks.

Flexible poles excellent for wattle fencing, hurdles, and basketry. Traditional material for walking sticks, dowsing rods, and barrel hoops. Coppiced stems used for bean poles, pea sticks, and light construction. Splits easily when green.

Forked hazel twigs traditionally used for water divining. Symbol of wisdom in Celtic mythology. Trees can live 80+ years but coppiced stools survive centuries. Catkins called 'lamb's tails.' Twisted 'corkscrew' hazel is natural genetic mutation prized ornamentally.