Mulberry

It does look like a domestic filbert

Mulberries don't have catkins. Do you have any photos of the catkins?

It is Corylus cornuta, beaked hazelnut, a very common PNW native shrub. Can form dense thickets with its suckering habit and dropped nuts (if the squirrels or other wildlife miss them).

I had planned on planting some filbert, like jefferson and dorris. Is it worth guessing on age, are they slow growing? So these shrubs do produce? When i first noticed them the grass was so thick and as tall as the actual shrub.. my first thought was they look rough. I know everything is defoliating, Do you think the deer i get in my yard might be eating them. All the shrubs seem to be roughly the same size, If they produce nuts i'd love to keep them. How should i better proceed?

Thank you to all who have responded!

I have just an enormousness crocked filbert its's probably 10 x 6 loaded with catkins. Your probably very right, we have an abundance of jays especially among all the other wildlife. in your opinion are they worth keeping or should i pull them up and plant the name varieties i had planned on.

If you need the room for the orchard filberts then you will want to take the existing native ones out. Otherwise it is a matter of personal preference - if you might like the native species enough to keep it there. Try reading up on it and seeing if there is anything about it that might interest you.

Like non-resistant kinds of orchard filberts local plantings of corkscrew filbert are currently being spoiled by eastern filbert blight. So you may soon see your specimen develop large sections of dead branches. Even to the point where the tree is mostly gone.

It says here the two orchard cultivars you mentioned above are highly resistant, so maybe you are attuned to this problem. If not you will definitely want to continue choosing kinds that are.

Hazelnut (Corylus avellana)-Eastern Filbert Blight

https://pnwhandbooks.org/plantdisease/host-disease/hazelnut-corylus-avellana-eastern-filbert-blight