Monday, January 14, 2013

Fall Color and Fun Stuff

I'd thought I would update with some fall color pictures. The fall color seems to vary with the variety/species. The american hazelnuts (native) Corylus americana, have a nice red color. The european hazelnuts, Corylus avellana, have a yellow fall color. For the hybrids, you can see which has more genes from the american or european from the fall color.
(I could not get this pictures to go side by side, so I made them all large and center)
Some nice red fall color
Small hazelnut plant by my parents' deck.

You can see the variety of colors from green to yellow to orange of the hybrids
Hazelnuts on both sides
Hazelnuts with black chokecherry in between (the trees)

This is a ripe hazelnut bunch. The shape and size of the husk really varies with each hybrid. These look leafy and are slightly open. The more open they are (showing the nut inside) the easier they are to get out of the husk. 
The new fence my dad put up this year to keep the deer out! The owl will (hopefully) scare squirrels away.
You can see the big different from the previous hazelnut bunch. These are smoother and look juicer (it'll get juice on your hands that usually is irritating to the skin). These are harder to get out of the husk.
Can you spot the hazelnuts on this branch? They are very hard to see!

This is Dan Johnson (my dad), founder of Riverbend Hazelnuts, modeling the fancy chair he made out of hazelnut branches!

You can see hazelnut plants are very multi-purpose. You can cut them down to the ground for wood, and they will sprout new branches right from the ground.
Yes, that is a hazelnut in the background with the wonderful red fall color.