Conkers

[PurpleDragon]

Right, I'm standing on a hill waving my ignorance around my head like a red rag.

A conker is produced by a horse chestnut tree, am I right?

I have looKed online and seen how to propogate a horse chestnut, but not a red horse chestnut for which you need to do extensive things with bark.

So, if I plant my conker, will I get a horse chestnut? Yes or no. Thank you

[Andy Hamilton]

As far as I know a horse chestnut (conker) tree needs some frost to start it off. Something to do with the conker needing to crack. Plant it two inches in the ground at about this time of year and wait.

I say as far as I know and should really say as far as I can remember as I can recall our old headmaster at my lower school talking about it when I was about 6 or 7.

[2steps]

my brother and I planted conkers before and got plants from them. though if I remember rightly they took a long time to come up

[nogginthenog]

My girlfriend's dad used to be a sargent in the Grenadier guards. She remembers being taken out as a kid with her sister (this was probably Germany) and her Dad told the young soldiers to collect conkers. Apparently they had hundreds!

[Andy Hamilton]

My girlfriend's dad used to be a sargent in the Grenadier guards. She remembers being taken out as a kid with her sister (this was probably Germany) and her Dad told the young soldiers to collect conkers. Apparently they had hundreds!

Perhaps this was for the horses? - Conkers can be ground up and made into a horse feed I asume that this is how they got to be known as horse chestnuts