Hey Folks,

I’m lucky enough to have my shop in an older neighborhood with a number of really old and interesting trees.  Earlier this year, I showed off a dogwood tree from the neighborhood, this time it’s a venerable American chestnut ready to pop.

Every year this tree is heavily laden with chestnuts that all seem to wait until the first really cold night.   Then they seemingly all drop at once, causing all the neighborhood squirrels to literally “go nuts”

The tree is quite large, over six feet in diameter.  While this is not unusual for older chestnuts in rural areas, it is unusual to find one this big in an urban residential neighborhood.  I’m pretty sure that it’s over 100 years old.  The American chestnut was nearly wiped out by a chestnut blight around the beginning of the last century.  Prior to that, it was a major lumber species in the eastern United States.  Cultivation as a garden landscape species has preserved it for future generations.

Cheers,
Tom