critters
I had chestnuts just starting to shoot up about 4 inches in pots outside.This morning the rats with fluffy tails had dug half of them up.
I had just taken the 1/2 inch hardware cloth I had covering off them ,because the shoots were starting to poke through. I still have some more nuts stratifying in my freezer,so I will have to start over,this time the pots will have to be in some kind of cage. I had water tested hickory , black walnut,and chestnut, then put them in the freezer last fall. So far, the chestnut were the only ones that sprouted through the surface in the pots.
I'm in central Wisconsin, in the Wisconsin Rapids area.Around here the black walnut seem to grow the best.I have planted hickory seedlings here,but they have all died out at an early age. As far as the hickory nuts,I'm figuring on them to be the last to sprout, seeing they are such slow growers.
Nuts and trees have pretty bad odds around here between the squirrels, rabbits and deer.Over the long run, deer are the most destructive. Ken