Heartnut Seeds - Start your own orchard

We have Hybrid Heartnut seeds available for the first time!

What are hybrid heartnuts? To begin with Heartnuts are Japanese walnuts that readily cross breed with all of the other walnuts we know.  That is, it will readily crossbreed with butternut, black walnut, and English (Persian) walnuts.

Heartnuts taste similar to English walnuts with similar mouth feel and can have more or less tannins than English walnuts.  Use wherever you would use English walnuts for cooking. Nuts generally crack in half allowing most of the nut meat to come out half or whole.  

Heartnut trees are somewhat hardier and have less disease than English walnuts.  So if you want to try to grow your own walnuts this is the one to try.  Trees start producing nuts  in year seven or eight depending on how happy they are. 

Heartnuts are the walnut for Zones 4B and warmer. They very much look like an English walnut tree but the leaves are a bit larger giving it an almost tropical look. Please see our page description for the full information. These walnuts can be used anywhere English walnuts are used.  We have been told that Heartnuts are the tree of the future! Your Heartnut seedlings will produce nuts similar to the row of nuts pictured.

Hardier and less diseases than English walnuts. Consider these hybrid seedlings an experimental new crop we are hoping that you will consider growing as much as we do.    Need two seedling trees or any other walnut nearby to pollenate.  Trees can grow to 60 feet tall and they do grow fast compared to other walnut species.

Seeds Sold in packs of 20 or 100 seeds.

Keep the seeds refrigerated and moist.  Then plant out in the spring to grow your own hazelnut tree.  Great low cost way to buy trees and great for education of our next generation.  We consistently get 75% germination when stratified properly, some seeds actually wait for another season to sprout, so plan accordingly.   Sold in packs of 20 seeds, one dollar each seed, for a packet at $20.00.  Cannot ship to West coast or Canada for small orders.  For bulk orders or tax exempt please email us at dawnz@znutty.com or call 607 318 1318.

How to stratify Heartnut seeds.

Heartnut seeds need to be stratified for over 1200 hours (at least two months) to maximize germination rates in a cool 34 to 38 degrees Fahrenheit. The same temperature as your refrigerator.  The seeds have an internal clock that keeps track of time in that temperature range and will then sprout after a few weeks to two months in the warmer temperatures we have in May in the New England states.  Some hazelnut seeds will wait for two stratification periods to sprout and is probably part of the survival of the species.

The bag you receive the nuts in will work if you do the following.  Add some water and poke some very small holes near and at the bottom of the bag.  It is important the soil be moist, not wet or the seeds will mold.  If you can squeeze water from the soil then it maybe too wet.  Check the seeds weekly and do not let the seeds dry out or they also may not sprout.

We suggest you pot them about an inch below the soil and protect from rodents like mice, squirrels and chipmunks and out of the wind where soil could blow off and expose the seed.  If planted directly in the soil then create a mound of hardware cloth you can buy at any big box hardware store or farm store. Please close the ends of the hardware cloth and bury all sides in the soil making  small tent to protect the seeds from rodents.

You can fall plant, or store in plastic bags in the refrigerator crisper drawer until spring planting time. For winter storage, wet the potting soil or peat moss with the seed per above. Once prepared, check the seed every week through to spring. Do not allow the seeds to dry out or they will not want to sprout and will wait if they have the energy for the following spring. 

 We recommend a refrigerator at temperatures between 33 to 38 Fahrenheit or underground at a well-drained location in a wire cage container for the winter. Potting soil/mulched covering of wood chips, straw / leaves is strongly advised.

The potted or planted seeds need direct sun and some breeze after germination to grow properly. Therefore, shop lights in a room or partial sun near a window will not work.  Either condition will generate spindly weak seedlings.

With some initial care a few trees will give you a lifetime of delicious nuts to enjoy year-round. 

Propagation of seedling trees

Please remember that the seed grown from named cultivars can not have the cultivar name. Cultivars are propagated by asexual means, that is, by grafting, layering, cuttings or tissue culturing and through a license to propagate. A named cultivar has the same set of genes in every tree produced this way. A seed produced tree gets genes from 2 parents and so every seed grown tree is unique with its own set of genes and so should not be loosely named as its cultivar parent.