- Keep walnut tree small by constant pruning?
- Cultivate walnut tree as bonsai?
- The only sensible solution: dwarf walnut varieties
Walnut trees naturally grow very tall - often up to 25, sometimes even up to 30 meters, with a crown diameter of up to 15 meters. Now there are hobby gardeners who would like to cultivate a walnut, but do not have enough space for the enormous dimensions. So you wonder if you can keep a walnut tree small. We get to the bottom of the matter in this post.
Dwarf walnut varieties are the best choice for small gardens
Keep walnut tree small by constant pruning?
"If I regularly cut back my walnut from a certain age - then it should theoretically be possible to cultivate small, right?"
Posts on the subject in tree forums read something like this.
However, we must urgently advise against wild pruning. The walnut tree generally only responds to radical pruning with increased budding.
Rule of thumb: The more radically you cut your walnut, the more the large root will pump the stubs full of plant juices. As a result, new shoots emerge wherever possible. In some cases there are too many shoots that are then too dense, which ultimately attracts plant diseases because the leaves of the tree cannot dry well.
In addition, ongoing radical pruning has an unfavorable effect on the lifespan of your walnut tree. This means the tree dies much earlier than usual.
In short: radical cutting is definitely NOT an option to keep a walnut small.
Cultivate walnut tree as bonsai?
Most experts are clearly against cultivating a walnut tree as a bonsai. This method of keeping small can also increase susceptibility to disease and shorten the lifespan of the tree. In principle, however, the bonsai variant is even more justifiable than radical pruning.
The only sensible solution: dwarf walnut varieties
Fortunately, in addition to these half-baked or sometimes extremely harmful approaches, there is also a healthy solution for keeping a walnut tree smaller: Decide on the right variety from the start.
There are now also dwarf varieties of walnut trees. One of them is called 'Europa' and, according to breeders, should only be about 3.5 meters high.
Such dwarf varieties are breeds that are grafted onto weak stocks and thus only produce the smallest trees.
Note: As far as we know, among the "classic" walnuts, the 'Weinsberger Walnut' is the type that requires the least amount of space. Their crown diameter does not normally reach more than seven to eight meters.