Horse chestnut is rated zone 5a, so you will definitely need a protected spot. If you have that, then expect it to grow to about 10 m tall. At least, that was the height of the downtown Edmonton horse chestnut, when I last saw it about 20 years ago. I'm guessing it would reach that size in 20 or 30 years, then stay pretty much the same size, with the trunk gradually getting bigger. Uploading a pic has proved problematic, so nothing to show there, sorry.

The related Ohio buckeye is a much hardier alternative, that will reach 6 to 10 metres in the same time period. Nowhere near as dense foliage though.

Okay, better luck with the pics today, I took these about 20 or 25 years ago. House is no longer there, torn down to make a parking lot in the mid 1990s. Tree apparently planted around 1920 and is still there I believe.
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Yeah..I don't think horse chestnut will make it, the Ohio buckeye is a good substitute and should grow into a admirable tree in your retirement,..but not full grown.

I had grown about 70 seedlings from that downtown Edmonton tree, some had held on for a few years, though all had succumb when temps had dropped down to -40 C.

I thought I had seen some Edmonton nurseries offering a prairie hardy selection for zone 3? The now closed Wellington Garden Centre had a rather large specimen growing in their display area and with being situated near the outskirts of the city, I don't know if there's a whole lot of heat island effect happening there, but did have some wind protection. Whatever the case, every degree makes a difference when it comes to borderline hardy stuff.

Thanks for the photos Don, that's what I was looking for. I know two people in Manitoba growing horse chestnuts. One is my aunt and she had a young tree she had purchased at a local nursery - it was about 6' x 6' x 6'. I haven't remembered to ask her how it fared last winter which was record cold. The other person is someone my dad knows here in town and I think his tree is much older, but I don't know him well enough to call him and ask to see it. His yard faces the river and you can't see the tree from public property.

That is, unless either of them are actually growing Ohio Buckeye, but I think they would both know the difference...

I have seen about ten mature ones between 20 and 30 feet in edmonton. I am going to start taking pictures this summer. Two are in one backyard. And another person has four in their front yard. None are protected spots. A couple are on city boulevards. They are zone 3 hardy if bought at a big enough size or edmonton is zone 4 or 5. You pick lol.

That's great to know, Oiltown. Thanks!

I have a couple of buckeye's, one is a cultivar, it was miss labeled so I'm not sure which one it is. It has better fall color and a nicer form compared to the species. It looks very close to a horse chestnut, some leaves are exactly like the chestnut. My tree has seven leaflets in a cluster. The flowers are the same as a buckeye. The full size buckeye's around here are 20 to 30 feet also, height and width. My guess would be that some of those trees are cultivars of Ohio Buckeye trees.

Buckeye cultivar

City of Edmonton is more a zone 4 then 3, ..unless I'm in zone 2 in Beaumont? A large city can help with several degrees milder winter lows and less rapid temp. fluctuations,..as Terry said, every degree can help.
I've also gathered seeds from the city and grown over a hundred seedlings,...none is alive today. You'll never know unless you try.

Leaves

Nice!..I want it! I'll have to agree with you.

Hmn...there are more out there with same fall color.

Another cultivar...

Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie Torch Hybrid Buckeye zone 3-7

Oiltown, yes, if you know of other horse chestnuts in Edmonton, please photograph and post pics. I know there was an effort to distribute horse chestnut seedlings 15 or so years ago, but the only ones I've ever come across are the downtown tree, and one front yard in southeast Edmonton that had 2 healthy horse chestnuts 10 or 15 years ago, then suddenly they aren't there anymore. Or maybe I just forget exactly where the house is and can't find it anymore? Anyway, would love to see photo-proof of others. I have an Ohio buckeye I planted 20-25 years ago and it is an interesting specimen, but just doesn't have anywhere near as dense or impressive a crown as a horse chestnut.

I can attest to horse chesnuts being present in the city. I know of at least 5 other specimens off the top of my head. In may, when they flower and late fall is a good time to spot them. At other times they blend in to the landscape.

I have not seen any succesful red horsechesnuts in the city. I have one that always has major dieback and has never flowered. I believe these trees are more like 5a.

Yeah. It's odd that the nurseries sell red horse chestnut.... I bet if they started selling the regular cream coloured ones at a good two inch calliper to start, we would see tons around. Sugar maples and Norway maples are a good example of trees that can grow to full size in edmonton but have a tough time when started small. They don't normally seed either but that may be the varieties that are sold.

I saw my cousin today and asked about the tree, and she says it came through the cold winter fine. She thinks that my aunt is also of the opinion that buying a decent sized tree is important for it to survive.

She also mentioned that their previous house near the U of M had a mature horse chestnut. It was also on the riverbank, like the one I know of here in town.

A couple more to note...sherwood park has about five along baseline road on the right side every couple blocks. Growing fairly slowly. Largest is probably 15 to 20 feet but most have no dieback.

On the right-hand side travelling in which direction?

Travelling east. The city planted loads of trees so they're kind of hard to see but I uploaded a picture of one of them. I have uploaded a pintrest site with lots of photos from searching google earth. Unfortunately, half the city was in spring time and wasn't leafed out yet so I will have to get the photos come this summer. Also the photos are two years old and many of these trees have gotten much bigger since.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pintrest tree page

That's a great collection of Edmonton tree photos. Yes, those certainly do look like horse chestnuts.

Just for interest, Ohio buckeye is hardier than horse chestnut and can get to a decent size in zone 3. Doesn't have the same canopy density, but still nice. This one from the U of A (old photo so I don't know if it's still there).
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Its still there. They just trimmed it to be a boulevard style so there are no branches till about 6 feet. As far as hardiness goes, I've seen buckeyes do well in Fort Mcmurray which is zone 2 I believe. They are extremely hardy.

I would say horse chestnuts are zone 3 because all the one's I've shown have made it through zone 3 winters. As far as Edmonton goes.....I would say its zone 4. Its supposed to be based on average minimum temperature each year. I went back over 50 years and Edmonton's average minimum ended up in the -31c zone which is zone 4

Only reason Edmonton has been called zone 3 for so long is because they take the international airport temps 20km out of the city. I've already had a discussion with Josh Classen(meterologist for ctv) who said there is an odd cold sink there that doesn't happen anywhere else and its mostly 5 degrees colder than other places alot of the time.

Just for reference....the other year when the international airport was -46c, Edmonton city centre was -35c. That's a substantial difference. City centre has only hit -40c once in 60 years and that was -40c on the dot.

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I've been keeping an eye on a few horse chestnuts that are planted locally and they have been doing well also, they were about 5 feet tall when planted. So far I have not noticed any die back, they need a good pruning though. I will post some pictures in spring.

Hmm, I think I like it better before the bottom branches were all chopped off! Good to hear it's still there.

I always said that Edmonton was better then a zone 3, oiltown proved it! My place in Beaumont is about 7 degree colder, [in the coldest winter] then the city, when driving to work.
The orchard out of town is pretty well on the same cold section of airport road, about another 4 degree colder then in town, no wonder, all of the hundred seedling died off. I'm sure in Beaumont, it wouldn't be a sure thing either.. touch and go.

If you can show me a horse chestnut tree growing on a acreage out of town, [supposedly zone 3] .. I'd be very happy to go and see.

Too true about the International vs downtown temps. Looking at the "past 24 hours" info on the Environment Canada website shows that the downtown airport weather station's lowest temp has been -21, whereas at the international airport it is -29.

Not sure why but the edmonton journal and sun both have previous day temperatures from the international aiport which makes absolutely no sense. Might as well take spruce grove readings for the paper....and even those are normally warmer than the international!

I actually tried calling and emailing both outlets and neither would give me an answer as to why.....if I were to speculate, both papers are eastern canada owned. Maybe they are trying to make Edmonton look worse than it is. A little political motivation, but who knows.

Fall color.

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Ooo! The oak is pretty!

I talked to my aunt and she said her little tree did almost die in our terribly cold winter; it was late to bud out, had a lot of dieback, and didn't bloom. That one has pink candles. Her previous tree was white and had grown well for over 10 years. She also knows of a pink specimen somewhere in St. James (near Wpg airport) that is 20-30 ft high and blooms spectacularly. I'll see what I can find out about it.

As far as I know the pink one is not as hardy.

I didn't think that a oak can have color like this, very nice!

Dont forget the northern pin oak as well. Starting to pick up traction in nurseries. I planted one almost ten years ago. ZERO dieback. Does good in winnipeg from what ive heard as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:2125295}}

Yes, very nice foliage on that 'Regal Prince' oak and good to know about the pin oak being fully hardy for the area, I had been eyeing some pin oaks, though hesitated with the hardiness factor.

Yeah..just OK for the city, I.M.O. I'll stick with my bur oaks.

I was going to say the same thing...I don't think the pin oaks will do well outside of a city, from what I've read anyway. I guess worth trying if you don't mind replacing. I have nightmares of nursing it along for years and then having it suddenly die back!

Norther pin oak is a different species than pin oak. Quercus ellipsoidalis compared to quercus palustris. Northern pin oak is rated zone 3 and its native range is the border of canada and minnesota. Pin oak is zone 4 and native range doesnt even make it to north to wisconsin or minnesota.

Oops, that was a mistake on my part..I did mean to write "northern". I don't have any first hand experience with it, so I may well be wrong. But I did a fair bit of research a few years ago when I was thinking of buying the "Shooting Star" variety and it sounded like there was long-term survival issues outside of the city and repeated die back. Maybe that was because it is grafted, I'm not sure. For growing in my yard, the Minnesota/Canada border is a long ways as far as what grows well and what doesn't! There are even some things my Mom doesn't have trouble with near Moose Jaw, and that extra half a zone makes a difference for me where I am.

Hopefully other people can have success with it and further breeding can be done so I can grow it well here. With Northspruce being zone 3, maybe it would grow fine for her.

This post was edited by weeper on Wed, Jan 14, 15 at 13:06

I'm actually zone 2b, I changed it to 3 so people would talk to me on the rose forum. (I'm only sort of kidding).

The oak options are nice but I'm set on chestnut. I like the form of the tree and the palmate leaves. Plus, I don't have the right type of soil for oaks. Here in MB, burr oaks are a strong indicator of alkaline clay soils. The soil in my yard is fairly acidic silty loam. Also, there are so many oaks around even if it was a novel species I don't think it would grab attention as a specimen tree.

Good luck with the Chestnut, northspruce! It would be awesome to see more of that beautiful tree around.

A lot of the trees that I have planted die back for a few years or just grow very slowly. I planted a Black Walnut 11 years ago and it has been chewed on by horses, deer and grass hoppers. It has died back and shows signs of sunscald but it must like where it is because when it starts to grow it will put on three feet a year. Last year just the terminal buds died and it is 12 feet tall, without die back it would be 20 easy. It has had both male and female flowers so if we have average winters I think that it will produce nuts, time will tell. I have planted a few more, one from Quebec, and will use those to compare with the first one. Provenance is the key to have the best chance with a plant you wish to grow, but finding out where a plant comes from or even where an individual plant gets its hardiness from can be a puzzle.

That's interesting Wayne, I know someone who planted walnuts many years ago. I'll have to ask her about them when I see her. Don't black walnuts suppress neighbouring plants though?

Yes they are supposed to affect some plants, linden, pinus, malus, silver maple come to mind. It also depends on soil drainage, good drainage doesn't let the juglone build up in the soil. I have a linden planted to close to one walnut, it's gravel fill from when the building was put up, so we will see how long it takes to affect it.

Here is that horse chestnut last summer that I originally had a picture of without leaves.

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Northern pin oak at u of a

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I checked on the Horse Chestnuts today, they are just starting to leaf out, that is late compared to the buckeyes that I have. I forgot to take my camera but I will get back there soon, we had a normal winter this year with an early spring so the trees should have been fine. They are about 10' tall now.