Planting an American Chestnut tree grove

You can be a part of environmental history!
Join Edge of the Woods Nursery for the planting of an American Chestnut tree grove.

Sunday, April 29th, 1 PM will mark the start of an American chestnut tree orchard in western Lehigh Valley. Why is this so important?

One Hundred and Eight (108) years ago, the American chestnut tree was considered the “queen of the American eastern forest.” From Maine to Florida, and from the Piedmont west to the Ohio (over 200 million acres), these beautiful and stately trees (upwards of 100’ tall) supported both wild life and communities through its fruit and hardwood. Everything changed in 1904 when the first blight was found on a Chestnut tree in the Bronx Zoo. By 1940s four billion* trees had succumbed to the dreaded Endothia parasitica or Chestnut blight.

Since the 1980s, science and passion for this American favorite have teamed together to develop a disease-resistant American chestnut tree. It takes 6 generations of breeding and 5-10 years per generation for this to occur.

Replanting is now occurring all along the eastern coast, from Maine to Florida. In Pennsylvania, the state chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation has planted more than 50,000 trees and maintains 150 orchards, orchards for education and breeding. This effort now includes the northwestern Lehigh County. And Edge of the Woods Native Plant Nursery is proud to be counted among this effort.

“At Edge of the Woods Nursery, the Orchard will be an educational demonstration site, not a breeding site. It will be a place for people to come and learn about the chestnut, be able to identify it and how our actions can affect and impact the environment. Most importantly this orchard will help us keep in touch with the research and progress of the restoration efforts. Please consider joining us for this historic event with them,” said Sue Tantsits, Edge co-owner.

According to Edge’s co-owner Louise Schaefer “Our planting will be from the genetic line of blight resistant American Chestnut. We will not be planting hybridized, Chinese, Japanese or European chestnut. We feel we border closely on some natural areas and do not want to introduce the seed of any non-native chestnuts.”

This truly is an historic opportunity which along with other replanting efforts, will help to recapture and support an ecological environment that our grandparents and great grandparents were familiar with and almost lost to us.

History…..Environment… Science….Passion
Bring family and friends to share it with you!

*4 billion trees equates to almost 13 trees per person in the US today