Chestnuts typically flower in late June or early July … with the Chinese chestnut flowering a week or so earlier than the American chestnut, and those further north slightly delayed from the flowering of those further south or along the coast. Chestnut flowering is a magnificent event from a visual, fragrance and food perspective. If you stand under a flowering chestnut you can actually hear the buzz of pollinators in the canopy above. What it must have been like a hundred years ago when the entire forest canopy appeared white with chestnut flowers. The amount of food for pollinators and those that prey on pollinators is astounding. Little surprise that scenes such as the warbler in the tree top, or the nest of robins would be commonly associated with chestnut.
Please enjoy these terrific photographs of the early flowering from some of our backcross orchards in Ellington, Litchfield, Middletown, Woodbridge, Salem, Falls Village and Guilford.
