This collection gathers posts on seed collection, stratification, and the steps we use to get cold hardy species to germinate. Around the nursery about half of our plants are grown from seed, much of it locally collected the year before. There are many methods for growing trees and smaller plants from seeds, ranging from in the ground to plug trays, air pruning beds, small and large raised beds, every size of pot, and then all the options for mediums, fertilization, mulch and compost. We don't yet have one definitive system for this, every year seems to be an ongoing trial with a batch of methods, new ideas and leaning into what worked best on the last iteration. Some seedings do well in small pots, transplant well and are easier to grow than in the ground in a weedy bed. But given the right conditions, in ground can be far easier if you get all of the elements right, and many growers have their established system, a recipe that works great. In search of better recipes for our ingredients, following are posts exploring what it's like to grow trees and assorted plants from seeds in a small nursery. Posts are grouped by season.
Questions and comments always welcome to doug@oaksummitnursery.ca.
Seeds And Stratification
226 postsArticle build 2026-02-01 13:14
Spring
43 posts
Wolf willow from seeds I collected in the fall. I like these small native shrubs with the sage colored leaves. a few containers made two plug trays of fifty, going heavier on plugs this year since they worked out, I find the trick is to water them daily and wait until they're frozen to pop them out. will likely wrap in shrink wrap into small bundles like 3 or 5.
Canada wild plum stratified winter 2023 then again in 2024. the first year maybe 40% germinated, this spring the other 60%. this is why I like to keep large seeds in the bag until they start to germinate, sometimes the dormancy is so deep they need two cycles. I should note, every species of plum I grew last year did this, and I have left over bags of all of them sprouting. waiting to see if the same is true for walnuts.
Collecting elm seeds. A roof top is easy place to collect reasonably clean seeds. I had to cut the tree growing into the garage and it had the side benefit of shaking off all the seeds. About the species, this is Siberian elm which is contentious in North America and can be invasive with the amount of seed they drop that's easily dispersed. Growing up we had shelter belts of these around our place, and the species has some improved resistance to dutch elm disease over the larger native american elm. Now we only offer american elm on our seed shop, which also drop a tonne of seed in may every year and should be collected quickly before they germinate.
Peaches, germinating in the fridge so ready to pot up. this seed source is identified as prunus davidiana, similar to Siberian peach.
Castor beans. I grew some plants a couple years ago and kept the seeds, they're fun, a fast growing crazy alien looking annual. the seeds really dried out in the fridge so we'll see how many germinate #castorbean .. as a follow up to this post, none of them worked out and I suspect it was just something about how we stored the seed. I might try again, the plants are cool and tropical looking, and they grow large and fast in one season.. just the whole toxicity thing gives me some hesitation.
Germination testing a few annuals, a quick method in a bag on paper towel and a few drops of water. at 5 days most of the basil and tomatoes are up, a good result. red rubin wants to explode out of the bag. so what's next well I'll probably plant the basil, tomatoes need a couple more weeks targeting planting day - 8 weeks for those (we can plant in southern mb early to mid june)
First walnut germinated in the fridge, stratifying all winter. Black walnut collected in zone 3 is tricky to find, and pushes the northern boundary for nut producing trees. #blackwalnuts
Manchurian apricots, sprouting in the fridge at 120 days stratifying so time to pot up. they don't need the shells removed, which just fall apart when ready. excited because these have good genetics. from a local zone 3 apricot orchard where a named cultivar was selected. time to plant our own apricot grove. and use for rootstocks.
Nanking cherries, potting up sprouty ones from the fridge. If this was april I would be doing them in the greenhouse, so trying these little plugs to see if they can hold on for a month in them. maybe I could have kept them in the fridge a few more weeks? probably better to plant now, they were ready after 4-5 months of stratification, for sure if you're new to this and the seed start to grow in the bag then it's a good time to plant. #seedstarting
Germinating last summer, black walnut top left, butternut bottom left, small one in center is japanese walnut (heartnut), buartnut on right (hybrid of heartnut x butternut)
Sometimes tree seeds get very sprouty before I can plant them, here is pear, nanking cherry, plum, chokecherry. these are all totally fine to plant at this stage, just dibble a hole and usually I trim the lanky roots to avoid j rooting
Two trays of canada wild plum, the first one (and the one full of trees) started early may, and the second one started early april, spotty germination. letting plum seeds have a good long cold stratification period through until may is a better result. the april tray may all germinate eventually, but if they need more cold time in cold strat the seeds may stay dormant and get saved for next year.
Plums just let germinate in a bag of peat moss in the shade, pulling out the sprouty ones to pot up. I had an air prune bed planted oct 2022 and this spring (18 months later) keep finding new seedlings in it, I suspect the bed froze too hard to fully stratify them being above ground and not well insulated, so last winter I went with stratification in a fridge or root cellar and that gives the seeds a longer period above freezing. plum can need longer than most seeds maybe up to 5-6 months or even a warm period followed by cold, or even two cold cycles / winters. So in the bag until they germinate for this spring to monitor.
Plums seeds planted fall of 2022 decided to germinate, surprised to find them hidden in this grassy bed so quickly potted them up.
A few trays growing in the greenhouse in small 2.5" pots at about 2 weeks from germination. some of the larger seeds like plums, walnuts, oak need some more time, I suspect a certain number of days without frost or warm enough average soil temperatures.
Nannyberry seeds germinating in the fridge. I even did a shorter stratification than recommended: 5 weeks warm (room temperature) followed by 3 months cold. There were locally collected, maybe my local source is easier to germinate than usual.
These silver buffaloberry seeds are ready to plant after a few months in the fridge in damp sand. This seed was collected last fall and has a high germination rate, it's the yellow variety and some percentage of the seedlings will produce either red or yellow fruit.
Yellow silver buffaloberry seeds after cold stratification, about 3 days out of the fridge and they're starting to germinate. these were done in a mix of sand and peat.
Red leaved chokecherry after three months cold stratifying starting to germinate
Germination testing elm seeds. elm are funny, the seeds ripen and fall at the start of summer, so they need to be collected right away and kept cold and dry. looks like 90%+ germination for both american and siberian, and they're fast - just after 4-5 days. #seedsaving #treeseeds
Black spruce (left) and white spruce cones.
Germination testing some purple lilac seeds, these are 8 days after taking them out of the fridge #seedgermination
Potting up our germination test from months back, the small oaks have been alive and fine just in a dish with a small amount of water and paper towel on the window sill, a few pine cones for mulch. kind of resilient.
Making a jersusalem artichoke seed garden, I've brought in tubers and seeds this year to have a variety of plants and improve chances for pollination. Tubers in a few new varieties from @myprairiegardens #jerusalemartichoke
Planted a multi sown raised bed of stratified seeds this morning. other photos are an update from the first bed planted a couple weeks ago. raised beds are easier to manage for seeds and it's ok to have high density. #plantingtrees ... to follow up on this post, it worked well for the first season, we just had some trouble the grass invading the bed. I was able to grow out a variety of trees and some of the conifers did well to live in the bed for a few seasons to get up to size. Now we try and rotate our beds more quickly with tarping to keep the competing weeds and grass down, so we've moved onto smaller beds that are easier to work with.
Hawthorne just about to flower. this one grows wild here, not sure about the species. I would like to grow more of them but the seeds are tricky to germinate. #hawthorne
Planting stratified seed, some open pollinated norkent apple seeds from a friend, ussurian pears, Asian pears, and then sweet cicely also a gift from a friend. one way to know you seeds are stratified is to leave them in the fridge until they start to germinate, takes some extra care when you plant. I like to broadcast into small beds then cover them lightly with compost and stuff #seedplanting #treeseeds
Malus bacatta seeds germinating, showing a careful method if you're monitoring germination rates. Usually I'll stratify and plant them into a community pot then prick out the germinating seeds. But I have a few seed lots of these and I want to check the germination rate, so planting them as they germinate. Note these went 38 days in cold strat, and germination started 1 day after warming up, each day I'm getting 10-20 from the bag start. Sometimes longer stratification will make all of the seeds germinate at the same time. Sometimes I wait a few weeks and determine I didn't strat them long enough and the seeds go back in the fridge for another cycle. Sometimes I soak the ungerminated seeds with a ga-3 spray and see if it helps. by far the easiest way is to plant outside in the fall, but this gives me something to do over the winter and some trees do well with a head start. #seedstarting #appleseed
Some fun new things recently germinated, bunch berry, strawberry, caster beans, purple ruffles basil, goji berry #growingplants
Basil. one of many trays. So is it weird to want to grow all of them? the main logistical challenge is I'll want to keep seed, in fact most of my gardening is focused on seeds this year. 150' spacing between Basil beds to avoid cross pollination.. last year my basil plants were all in one bed and seem to have come true to seed.. anyone else have experience trying to spread out plants to avoid crossing? #basil
Jerusalem artichoke from seed after a week, second photo some older plants around six weeks in small pots under lights. I got a new batch of seeds in from another source, so starting more plants to improve pollination. Hoping to grow enough varieties this summer to collect our own seed, these plants are notorious for being tricky to save seed from. Plants started from seed should have a reasonable chance vs a selection that's only propagated by tubers - does that sound reasonable?#jerusalemartichoke
Pear seeds after three weeks in stratification, good thing I checked they're supposed to need sixty days. my fridge is at 1-2 C (34F) and these germinated in the cold.
Virginia creeper after 60 days stratification and a week to germinate. I'll need to keep these in pots until June so will be interested to see how large they get. It might be viable to start some of our cold hardy perennials from seed in early spring and be large enough to be for sale as potted plants for the start of summer. Rhubarb for sure, trialing others. #seedstarting #perennials
Jerusalem artichoke seeds at 5 days #jerusalemartichoke #seedlings
Dahurian larch are the most cold hardy trees in the world surviving down to -94F / -70C .. here I have a small community pot of them after a couple of months stratifying. Conifers grow slowly in the first year, so you can keep them spaced close and them spread them out later. After two years they're large enough to plant out. #conifers #seedling #treeseedlings #propagation
Kentucky coffee tree seed germinating. #kentuckycoffeetree
Wild cucumber seeds at 60 days cold stratification, germination just starting in the fridge. these are from an old regenerating patch at our farm, they were growing behind the barn twenty years ago and I only recently learned what they were. Just a cool fast growing annual vine with crazy alien pods growing on it. #seedsaving #wildcucumber
Germination testing tomato seeds, hazel mae tomato at 3 days showing 100% germ. #tomatoseeds
Ohio buckeye is an uncommon tree around here but seems fully winter hardy in zone 3. The big compound leaves are so cool. Trying a seedbed of them this summer. Sourcing tree seeds from a similar climate is very challenging, for example my buckeye seeds are from a thousand miles south of here. Will they survive -45? will need to keep them in the seedbed over winter vs heeling them into to find out, i need to see wood above the snow line survive to know.
Nursery area this spring, about to build some seedbeds for more stratified tree seeds .. to follow up to this post in 2026 this process has been a regular thing on our suer sandy soil. Every spring new loads of black soil, aged wood chips and manure pile up near the nursery and I get some healthy exercise moving the material around with a wheelbarrow. The project of building out and topping up beds is ongoing..
Generic variation, same batch of apple seeds - a few just want to be red #appleseed #appleseedling
A little catnip garden from seed saved last year. If you haven't given your car fresh catnip before, it seems a little more potent. #catnip
Malus baccata mandsuria (North Dakota source) at 6 days 40 days stratification. We have a few trays of these along with another seed source of the more generic Siberian crabapple, happy to see these are waking up quickly and nearly 100% germination after only a week. In the past we've had anywhere from 20-45 days in stratification for this same species before germination starts in the fridge, just seems to depend on the seeds, maybe age or just genetic variation.
Summer
79 posts
Wolf willow, native Elaeagnus comutata is this attractive, resilient shrub with silver-green leaves. it's related to russian olive, this is just a smaller native prairie species. collected a decent amount of seeds from roadside stands, will have them back in stock on my seed shop in sept. also potted trees next month.
Checking on some milkweed, as soon as the pods start to brown and come open it's time to collect them.
Cherry prinsepia seedlings with their trypophobic seeds. slow to germinate, but just left in some bins of peat moss in the root cellar for a couple of months the percentage was high.
Douglas fir cones, very distinctive strands on them, from a large arboretum tree growing in zone 3 MB, at the frank skinner arboretum. picked up some old cones, after drying in the dehumidifier happy to find seeds were still inside.. so will try growing a few next spring. some research into rocky mountain douglas fir turns up that the most cold hardy selection could be zone 3/4, so this surely is what I've got. maybe just needs to grow in a shelter spot.
Linden, Tilia cordata. going to try remember to collect seed this fall.
Potting up some ginko. the seeds are cool they stick around like a nut.. ginko is one of the oldest living tree species, its from the jurassic. doesn't flower and produces naked seeds without a fruit. It's the only surviving Ginkgophyta an ancient group of seed plants. they can borderline survive outside in zone 3, but more of a warmer zone 4 tree. #ginko #ginkobiloba
Caragana seed, collecting it now before all of the pods pop open. you need to time it when they start to turn brown, and before it hits the ground. unless you use a tarp. I collected a couple of brown shopping bags, and they can air dry in there for a week or two, then I'll finish them in the dehydrator on low heat, sounds like popcorn. #seedsaving
Checking the wild sarsaparilla seeds, just starting to ripen. depends on the year, sometimes they ready now. I just collect them for seed, but they would also make a great plant dye, intense purple
Butternuts, the large nuts stay attached like a battery that drives initial growth. some of the nuts are slow to germinate so I keep them in bins in our root cellar, once they're sprouted they can get potted up. so far I prefer this method to an air prune bed, but it's more work.
Collection of wild Ribes from seed are doing well, this is plant followed by it's tag.. yah the tags are temporary. collecting this germplasm is one step on the way to propagating these, and eventually using them for our own seed source, or breeding work. all of these species are super cold hardy and resilient in our climate, produce edible fruit, and have unique characteristics. native currants and gooseberries are not easy to find from any Canadian nursery, maybe you can get one, but you want the whole collection right? something about spikey fruit is just cool.
Cherry prinsepia bush, Prinsepia sinensis an unusual shrub with tiny hooked thorns hidden in the branches, and a sour fruit with trypophobic seeds. I collected seed from this stand last fall and got it to germinate, it does have a deep dormancy. trying out some softwood cuttings to see how they root. probably a good alternative to barberry, and a larger shrub than a goji, more people should grow this one
Western sandcherry from seed this spring, collected from a neighbour's hansen bush cherries. they were excellent tasting, no idea yet if other sandcherries are as good. so this population will be kept separate from the ones I've been growing for apricot rootstocks, and will be used for breeding hybrids. so many hybrids, I want to cross all the prunus. what do you get when you hybridize fruit with different colors and sizes, I feel driven to find out. sandcherry is an excellent starting point because its progeny will likely fruit early, and root from softwood. eg all the cherry plums, and black nanking.
Siberian stone pine. warm stratified one month, cold 3 months, and about 6 weeks in the greenhouse in a shady spot in this bag. I potted up a plug tray, and will wait for more. could I just plant all the seeds? yes, but this wait for it to sprout method works good for larger seeds.
Jerusalem artichoke seeds, germination test. cold stratified just on some damp paper towel in the fridge may 6-june 1 and then set on top of the fridge so room temp to germinate. today is june 10, and these are a few days old. you need to do this cold step for these and many perennial seeds to germinate, otherwise plant outside in early spring and the soil and nighttime temperatures should be cold enough. #jerusalemartichokes
Seeds from the usda National Clonal Germplasm Repository (COR), approved my request for a few native currant and gooseberry species, thankful because I'm building a collection and some are hard to find, and even then takes time to grow them out and ID. these are from carefully documented sources in their gene bank essentially. excited for such a small seedling, in some cases this seed was over ten years old and I only have 5 of them to germinate. amazed to see germination rates quite good. I find a good place to do this is under the greenhouse bench, it stays humid and in the shade.
Amur grape germinating after five months of stratification. One way to know your seed is ready is when any of them start to sprout in the bag, easier to plant at this stage. These went into plug trays 2-3 per cell, will see how they do.
Collecting american elm today. the viability stays up there if you collect it right after dropping, air dry thoroughly and refrigerate. elm is unusual because it drops in june, and the seed can germinate right away, within a week. so if there's some rain, all the seed is gone within a week. year old seed I've test still has a good germination rate. should you plant elm? I don't know, it's hard to be down on a whole genus, american elms are nice trees and can get large even in areas where there is dutch elm disease. If you don't have a tonne of elm around then the disease pressure will be very minimal. It's both things, the city here isn't planting new elms, but there are plenty of old ones and they're nice shady trees.
Ginko. what a cool seed to grow, very old species. the roots are fibrous out of the seed, unusual. These are probably zone 4-5 trees, though there are some growing outside locally here in Manitoba in city yards, I heard in one case the tree was established as bonsai, maybe the older thicker bark is more cold resilient. #ginko
Ohio buckeye, a cool tree with large seeds that grow in spikey pods, attractive compound leaves. I collected a small number before the squirrels got the rest. Kind of a crazy seed the size of a chestnut.
Collecting sea buckthorn, these tree were loaded. a bit over ripe but perfect for seed. Likely the iPFRA seed strain Indian-Summer.#seabuckthorn
Wolf willow seeds almost ripe. they get soft and them the inside goes powdery, seeds turn dark brown.
My approach to isolation, to produce true to type tomato and pepper seeds. so far so good. anyone else ever try this?
Ribes odoratum, ribes rubrum .. old bushes I planted in 2001. collecting a bag of each today for seed.
Manchurian apricot seeds are in stock, apricots cold hardy to -40C/F. I'll be growing these in our nursery and should have enough to make them available on our seed shop.
Stinging nettle, right now the seeds/pods are green, this is a good time to collect them for tea or all of the medicinal stuff. I wait for them to turn brown then collect them for seed. Generally, let the seeds mature and brown on the plant. Sometimes this gets tricky, quite a few plants can quickly drop their seed when it's ripe, there is some skill and experience needed do collect wildflower seeds.. so far I just do the easy ones.
Caragana seeds ready to harvest, the window is just a couple of weeks before the pods pop open in a spiral and drop the seeds. siberian pea shrub grows easily from seed, no stratification needed. it creates a dense rhizomal spreading hedge, or can be trained with a single trunk as an attractive small tree, I've seen some nice ones carefully pruned niwaki style.
Acorns still viable after storage for 10 months in refrigeration. These are white oak, and I ship them worldwide in an envelope. At this point I'm just selecting the sprouty ones, any that haven't produced a small radical by now probably aren't viable, acorns are recalcitrant meaning you can't dry them and they only store for a limited time.
Collecting wild sarsaparilla seeds
Clematis seed pods right out of dr seuss
Wild sarsaparilla covering this forest path. other characters include wild licorice, wild raspberry. last year the seed was ripe this week, this year maybe because of more rain they're later.
Rhubarb grows quickly from seed, if you're going to save some make sure to bag it. Seeds are ripe when brown, let air dry. #seedsaving #rhubarb
Isolating our tomato and pepper plants for seed. so far so good.
Butternuts locally sourced in zone 3. first time growing, I find they take their time or just wait for warm weather to germinate. these are 4-8 weeks out of stratification in the greenhouse, just now steadily germinating. slower than the buartnut and japanese walnut, at least from these seed sources this year. my black walnut are also still coming up. anyone else find the same?
Almost done planting. next up straw mulch, drip tape, hoops and isolation netting. this system of tunnel isolation with alternating tomato and pepper plants has been on my mind since last fall, a system for growing heirloom varieties for seed. and for tomato sandwiches.
Canada mayflower covers the forest floor along our trails, collecting seeds but stuff eats them soon after they turn red. Does anyone know if I collect stems with not quite red yet fruit attached if it will ripen after picking? collecting for seed. #seedsaving
Riverbank grape from seed.
Virginia creeper seeds are ripe when the little grape-like fruits turn blue. This patch of vines where I like to collect are old and overtaking a stand of chokecherry.#seedsaving #virginiacreeper
Buckwheat seed ready to collect, seems to go on flowering for a long while. #buckwheat
Jerusalem artichokes from seed on left (first photo) and from tubers on right. you can see the from seed ones are still larger and started to flower. I started them in the spring and they went out as transplants so not equal growing time - but this shows that you can get plants as big from seed in the first year. 3rd photo is 2 more beds grown from tubers of other cultivars. hoping they all flower soon so we can try for some more seed collected locally. #jerusalemartichoke #sunchokes
Cleaning wild raspberry seed. I process them in a modified blender and then decant until clean, the seeds will sink and the rest floats, works well for most berries with small seeds. #seedsaving
Lime basil getting one final haircut before bagging for isolation. these extra large organza bags will keep all the pollinators off and ensure the seeds are true to type. I might even add some additional netting. #seedsaving #basil
Keeping an eye on seeds that are not quite ripe yet. good indicators are color and when they were collected last year, but it's sometimes a small window that shifts by weeks. #seedsaving
Jersusalem artichoke flowers attracting some cool pollinators. the seedling plants from this year have been flowering for a few weeks, and the other cultivars started from tubers in may are about to start. skeptical that we have a long enough growing season here to collect seed without keep them in a greenhouse. next year.
Raspberry seeds just hanging out of the sun dried fruit, the heat wave here has been drying out everything.
Bagging heirloom tomato flowers to try and ensure their seeds are true to type. Tomato flowers self pollinate if you can keep the bees away. This seems to work well on a small scale, and the technique carries over to controlled crosses. Wondering if I should try some . #tomatoes #seedsaving
Organza bags to keep peppers from cross pollinating. Does anyone have experience with this, should it be as good as distance separation? pollen is smaller than the holes, but for a self pollinating flower wind pollination should be almost zero, at least I've read it is for tomato. I have all pepper plants bagged and 5-10 ft separation, hoping it's 99.9% for making true to type seed. #seedsaving
Collecting caragana seeds yesterday. They ripen unevenly, so some pods were green, others were popped open and empty, the rest were tan brown and ripe. Siberian pea shrub is easy to grow from seed, no stratification needed and you can have 3 ft seedlings after a few months. They're usually grown as a hedge, but if pruned as a single small tree they can look very attractive.
Basil project, photos before I let them go to seed. Here's 10 of the 30 types I'm growing for seed production. .. first one is dark opal, followed by: .. licorice, toscano, persian, lettuce leaf, lime, corsican, holy, cinnamon, last is west african #basil
Collecting comfrey seeds, just cutting the spent flowers with ripe seed and letting them dry on the stem in an organza bag. I just tossed the bag in the patch, will check back when more are ready. #seedsaving #comfrey
I photo journal all summer to track the unripe fruit and seeds, to log how ripe they were and when, how many there were, etc and it's incredibly useful to look back on if you're into seed collecting or picking wild fruit. I also like go keep a google sheet to record when I collected seed and where to plan, useful because its free and shared with my phone and laptop #seedsaving
Collected some black currants yesterday, happy to find these. They're overripe but its good because while I'll eat a few they're mostly for seeds. Bush was a large seven year old ben series in need of a good pruning. #seedsaving
Project tomato seeds - heirloom tomato bagged to ensure true to type seed. Tomatoes are self pollinating, but bees can sometimes cross them. This summer I'm growing 45 of the coolest heirloom tomatoes for #seedsaving
Wolf willow, Elaeagnus commutata from locally collected seed
Blue spice basil.. germinating after two months. maybe the seed was old, or maybe this one needs some bottom heat. also had a slow time germinating green pepper basil and west african basil, they took a month on a heat mat. interested to know if anyone else has had the same experience. #basil
Checking on some comfrey flowers, i think they bloom from the bottom up so if these were bagged now most of the flowers will have been pollinated. #seedsaving
Project peppers, just potted them up and I'm trying these large organza bags to keep the seeds true type. these little plants can't hold back making peppers, I carefully removed every open flower before bagging. wondering how far apart to space them in case of wind cross pollination, or how unlikely that is with the bags.
Redosier dogwood. when these are all white I'll be out collecting seed
Comfrey flowering. I'm out of comfrey seed so will be collecting it when ever it's ready
Rhubarb seed ripens fast so if you want to keep it, these organza bags from amazon are perfect. using this same approach for tomatoes and peppers to keep pollinators off the flowers and ensure true to type seed without needing go space the plants far apart. #seedsaving
Purple lilacs from seed, common purple lilac
Vitus riparia, or riverbank grape germinating after a long six months in cold stratification, in a bag with damp paper towel and in a fridge crisper. #seedgermination
Tray of jersusalem artichokes about one month old from seed. #jerussalemartichokes
A chokeberry bush I've been propagating and collecting seed from. last photo is seedlings growing from dropped fruit. #chokeberry
Jerusalem artichoke started from seed this spring, happy to see some early flowers knowing that they need a long season to finish #jerusalemartichoke
Potting basil propagated from cuttings. my basil project this summer is to grow as many types as possible. they're going into pots and spaced to avoid cross pollination for seed collection. i might have 20 types growing, many are separate species with interesting characteristics. #basil
Stratified prunus americana seeds before planting today. They've been in damp sand in refrigeration for six months. I could have planted a couple of weeks ago, just needed to make a screened in bed for squirrel protection.
Virginia creeper from seed some time in March. they're up to the ceiling and still in small 2.5" pots. I would say you can get plants the size the garden centers sell in a just few months from seed. They way I usually grow these is from softwood or semi-hardwood in July, but seeds seem just as fast to establish new plants. #virginiacreeper #propagation
Wild tobacco have good germination at about one week, no stratification needed. while I don't smoke, I think this could be a useful plant for the natural pesticide properties in the nicotine. I'm going to pick about 6 of these seedlings to grow ;) #wildtobacco #aztectobacco
The following seeds are: wild sarsaparilla, wild raspberry, red elderberry, snowberry, Siberian peashrub, rhubarb
American hazel, collected for seed. Going to add these to our etsy shop and website by the weekend. #americanhazelnut #hazelnut #hazelnuts
Rhubarb seeds forming. Looking forward to planting these. #rhubarb
Korean pine just germinating now. Stratified indoors for a few months and planted out in May, these guys sure take their time to come up. The Red pine and Jack pine we planted germinated a month ago. Very cool to see how large these seedlings are, several times the size of other pines. #koreanpine #pinetrees
Excited to see our monster rhubarb plant is bolting, I grew dozens of rhubarb from seeds over the winter and while it's usually advised to use division I found they grow very fast from seed, we had plants the size you see in a garden center in the one gallon pots after 12 weeks under the grow lights. Looking forward to propagating this one. I planted it three years ago but forgot the variety, I know it makes good pies and has leaves over 2' wide. Around our orchard we're starting to use rhubarb the same way you use comfrey. #rhubarb #propagation
Bur oak a few days after germination. I've noticed our oak and hazelnut trees are still germinating, we had frost in the first week of June and it seems to make them wait. I mulched our beds again today and reinstalled the squirrel deterrent hardware cloth. #acron #germination
Bur oak acorns planted in the fall are germinating. squirrel protection is holding up. I'll wait a few weeks then take the mesh off, not sure yet how long they're at risk from squirrel foraging #acorn #oaktree #acorns
An old jack pine, as large as I've ever seen one. collected some cones for seed. #jackpine
Trying some succession in our nursery beds. we combined conifers in many of our beds with faster growing trees because they do well with some shade and need two years to grow before transplant. the River birch on the left will grow a couple of feet while the pine will be a few inches tall by the fall. The soil gets disturbed when we lift the birch but if it's done when the pine are dormant they seem to recover. A third layer of succession - we've started planting peas and beans in the beds with slow growing trees to improve the soil and add some shade. In addition we have some seeds that need two seasons in the ground like Hawthorne to germinate, these beds will be annuals this year. Last year we used shade cloth on our transplants, so far this year it hasn't been needed but the small conifers may need some shade in July/august. If the legumes get too big or when the crop is done we'll cut them to the ground and mulch the beds with them. working to get the most out of our beds.
Collecting wild red osier dogwood berries for seed. We have these growing from softwood cuttings and also planning seed beds this fall. #propagation #nativeplants
Highbush cranberries require patience to grow from seed - collected a bag today but they'll need a long warm stratification that begins next spring, so the seed planted this fall will wait until spring of 2023 to germinate. #cranberry #highbushcranberry
Fall
57 posts
Drying pine cones to open them, these are scots pine.
Collecting siberian peaches from various sources to trial. siberian c isn't exactly a cultivar, it's a seed strain with a certain set of characteristics like cold hardiness, late ripening, generally firm fruit with some yellow / green tinge to the skin. every source for these has some genetic variation depending on hybridization, and selection pressures. most sources for them are in warmer zones, 4-5. hoping to get a population growing here and really trial them in zone 3 to see if we can select for the best cold hardiness.
Collecting narrow leaf cattail and goldenrod seeds
Trying this out, drying peppers for seed extraction in halves. less work, usually I'll take out the seeds and dry the peppers / just eat them, seeing how well we can combine steps
Canada wild plum seeds available. hard to find, usually I can just get enough to grow in the nursery. these are sourced from an old row of plums probably planted for rootstocks, I selected the trees that appear to be pure prunus nigra based on the leaves and fruit, there's probably a little hybridization but these were only these plums in the area. I've also restocked american wild plum, which are a little smaller, ripen sooner and have serrate leaf margins. shipping by letter mail. #canadaplum #native #wildplum
Seeds drying, processing. the acorns rested for a few weeks and now they're float tested, about half sink and that sorts out all the best ones, weevils are most of the reason. a good percentage of the floaters are also viable, it usually just means a small amount of air inside from moisture loss. plum seeds are cleaned in water with a paint mixer, then they get dried at 30C in a food dehydrator, then stored in open containers in a fridge for a couple months.
New seeds added to my shop, some of the new stuff collected this fall. I've been out every day picking fruit and tree seeds when they're ripe getting stocked up for the winter, we grow all of these seeds in the nursery and also offer them for mail order, shipped by regular letter mail.
Cleaning a brown shopping bag of catnip for seed. doing this will get your cat's attention #seedsaving
Stinging nettle seed. easy to clean with a screen. I collected them last month and like to air dry in paper bags, after cleaning they get labelled, dated and go into a fridge. you can follow a similar process for many seeds, often the trick is timing. #seedsaving
American hazelnut, collected a few big shopping bags this fall for seed. here I'm checking them over and bagging into seed packs. hazelnut are sort of borderline recalcitrant, so you need fresh ones. I have them at room temp air dried just to get them out of the husks, them for winter storage will have then in poly bags in a fridge. #seedsaving
How not collect yarrow seed? must have missed them, almost no seeds in the flowers. timing wildflower seed collection is tricky, I must need to cut them far earlier, think the flowers had browned off for a couple weeks
Wild tobacco seed extraction. wear gloves if you're a non-smoker it's a sticky fragrant plant full of nicotine. I has some in ground and also in small pots, it's easy to grow. #wildtobacco
Stand of smooth sumac, I think. stems are smooth not fuzzy like staghorn, leaf margins are smooth to serrate but blunted. I like collecting local seed for species like sumac where they have a broad range and we're about as cold as they'll grow.
Highbush cranberry, fully ripe and they will hang around for a while. the seeds need a long warm stratification, almost six months at room temperature so starting the now is helpful to get plants growing in the spring.
Time to collect virginia creeper seeds. I have a spot where I can fill a five gallon pail on a good year, if I get them before the birds
Found a nice patch of wild licorice. the seeds are in these little burs
Nannyberry starting to ripen, they'll turn blue this month and taste delicious off the tree. these are a native shrub in the viburnum genus, related to highbush cranberry. they set fruit in the same way, you might think it was cranberry but it ripens a month later.. and while cranberry is very tart and better to cook with, nannyberry is great fresh, sweet just with a large seed, tastes more like a saskatoon mixed with something else. when they're super ripe they can hang late and taste like raisons. I'll be trying to collect more seed this fall, like other viburnum they need a long time to stratify, seed started in the spring will germinate the following year.
Ussurian pears covering this old road. I filled some bags, this is my pear rootstock in the nursery and it's ideal to find local seeds. I'll have more than enough this fall to add them to our seed shop. #wildlpear #ussurianpear
A better look at the stone pine cones I collected this week, and then by luck I found a labelled Swiss stone pine at an arboretum and picked up some cones to compare. they are quite different. leaning towards the related siberian stone pine based on the cones.
A fun group of uncommon trees at a local research station, left to right hackberry, black walnut, buckeye.. and the resident squirrel who caches a trail mix from all three. I'll be back to collect seeds from all three later this month.
Some kind of stone pine, brought from Switzerland, grows well in zone 3 / -40C. heavy cones full of large pine nuts. collected a bag, saved from the squirrels. working on ID.
European mountain ash. collected about 20 lbs of fruit for seed today, imagine it will make about a cup of seed. nice tree, attractive, the fruit are almost good enough to eat, I guess you can cook with them. I have a sweet mountain ash grafted in the orchard, should fruit next year. spent an hour keying out american vs showy vs european. European are the ones with the larger more often orange fruit, and the trees can be larger, older bark more rough. Note american can have orange fruit, but often they are red.
Collecting plums for seed from this 'wild plum' tree, it has a good crop this year. Prunus americana is so interesting because it's always freely hybridizing snd mixing up its genetics with other prunus. here this tree is pollinated by other plums in town, and it's seedlings will likely have lots of genetic variation but the wild phenotype is usually prevalent
Collected a few local cones from what is likely siberian spruce, a species that's rare around here. I always have some conifers growing as a background project, 2-3 years for them to get up to transplant size so I like to have just patches in the corner of a bed. they over winter better in ground.
Collecting narrow leaf cat tails for seed. needs to be done with a bag because they explode easily. #cattails #seedsaving
Wild tobacco, cleaning for seeds. once they turn brown and dry the little pods explode with seeds when you crush them. #wildtobacco #seedsaving
Thanks to a friend with an old norway spruce in the back tard I was able to restock with some early winter foraging. many time spruce cones open on the tree and the seed is lost, but a windy day can sometimes knock them down and provide full unopened cones full of seed. #seedsaving
3 Days into germ testing our fushimi pepper seeds, looking good I thought they would take a couple weeks. do fresh pepper seeds germinate faster? #seedsaving
Wild bergamot. dried flowers thrashed around with a screen to collect the seeds. this works well for many flowers, though for some I'm still figuring out how to separate things after. #seedsaving
Goldenrod does this poofy display when the seed mature #goldenrod
Sorting some trees seeds, green ash, boxelder, american elm. when I collect these they're stored in paper bags for the first month to air dry, mostly in a fridge, and now that they're dry I moved them to plastic. they'll store like this over the winter and by next fall they get restocked. a percentage is for our nursery and the rest is for our seed shop. #seedsaving
Haven helping while I clean the catnip seeds #catnip #seedsaving
Sweet cherry peppers. grown with isolation bags for seed, also we get to eat them. flavour? starts like a good red bell pepper with a slight cherry after taste that's distinct, no heat in these ones. I bet they're good in a salad. #seedsaving #peppers
Soaking some canada mayflower and wild sarsaparilla seeds overnight to hydrate them before cleaning. these guys and snowberries are just about all the seed that's hanging around here in the fall. just collected hops, next up are lilacs and rose hips, then I'm done collecting seeds for the year. lilac seed is stupid tricky to separate any tips welcome.
Jerusalem artichokes started from seed this spring are flowering. I'm holding out some hope for cross pollination and new seeds with several varieties growing. #sunchokes #sunchoke #jerusalemartichoke
Collecting red birch seed just as it ripens. Betula occidentalis #seedsaving
Highbush cranberry seeds drying. they're so pink
Drying some jack pine in the dehydrator to open up the serotinous cones. old forestry manuals describe the temperatures to use. the last bit is funny: "The resin of serotinous cones melts when heated, usually at temperatures in excess of 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 deg C). In one study, cones opened in 80 seconds at 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93 deg C) and within 20 seconds at temperatures above 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204 deg C). Seed viability is not markedly affected by heating, unless the cone ignites"
Stratifying seeds, some need a month or more of warm strat before the cold, so I'm starting them inside. seed just needs to be slightly damp. splitting up the lots, some in the fridge, root cellar, some in ground. stuff can happen so it's like an eggs in one basket thing. last year I put all of my plum seeds and acorns into air prune beds, and the winter was too cold for them. another lot of prunus seeds was snacked on by rodents.
Prairie sage grows in patches around our place, collecting some for seed. super aromatic. #seedsaving
Castor bean pods, close to ripe I would think, anyone know if they can take a frost? hoping to save the seeds.
Enjoying how pink these seeds are
Drying some cleaned seed, front is virginia creeper back is choke cherry. #seedsaving
Tobacco from seeds traded at a seedy saturday, claimed to be collected twelve years ago. I forget which species. Cool to see flowers late in the season.
Milkweed seed pods, leaves are the food source for monarch caterpillars.
First time growing a castor bean plant, I'm guessing the seeds are in these crazy alien pods?
Prairie sage seeds, not sure if I'll be able to separate them from the plant material. I've read about various machines to separate seeds using vibration.. so far I used a few techniques from floating to winnowing, to a stack of strainers with every screen size, but flower seeds and small fluffy ones like sage are a challenge. For my own seedbeds I can just grind up the whole plant.
All the beds around our small nursery are frozen now and will be covered in snow until April. The small raised beds each have a different type of tree seeds naturally stratifying. #treenursery
Packing some boxelder seeds, collected mid September right at their peak for the best germination. Maple / Acer seeds don't have a long shelf life so you want to get them as fresh as possible. We have these and some Red maple collected just a couple months ago, dried in brown paper bags in a fridge. The grocery stores are here switch to paper so I'm always looking for more ways to re-use the bags. #boxelder #treeseeds
Raised beds for tree seeds almost all filled, a few left to screen in the bottom for air pruning. Getting down to the wire on unfinished projects we've had some frost and the ground will freeze in the next couple of weeks, usually we'll see snow by Halloween.
Choke cherry / prunus virginiana seeds cleaned and spread out to air dry. I collected the fruit last month and it stores well refrigerated. the easiest way to clean them is in a 5 gallon pail with a paint mixer and a cordless drill. Mix for one minute, decant and repeat. The seeds are hard enough the paint mixer can't harm them, and they sink while the rest floats. For this batch I got them about 3/4 clean and let the pail sit over night, it softens up remaining pulp by hydrating and letting it break down. There's some potential that over drying these and other prunus will lower germination so I usually just air dry for a day or two then refrigerate, vs other seeds I'll dehydrate over night at 90 -100f (30-40c) to lower moisture content. These locally collected seeds are available from our site and etsy shop, link in profile. #seeds #treeseeds #seedsaving
Bag of Scots pine cones for seed. Similar to red pine, more pointed and seem to ripen later.
Catnip is about ripe for collecting seed. I've been waiting for the flowers to finish and things to dry out. Not sure what the right amount of time for herb seeds should be, if I wait for them to go completely brown then half the seeds are on the ground. Same with pine cones, seems to be a small window. #catnip #herbseeds
This fall we're using 4x2' raised beds for our tree seeds. Some are air prune beds that will get fit with a hardware cloth top to keep squirrels out. Our larger in ground beds worked this year, but this should work better and we'll plan to use the larger beds for transplants. #treenursery
Out for a walk, collecting seeds
Family walk and out collecting pine cones. This old stand was reforested after a fire fifty years ago, jack pine on the left and red pine on the right. #pine
Wolf willow / silverberry seeds will be available from us this fall. (Elaeagnus commutata) I collected some from local stands to grow, and happy to find seeds this year, last year there were none. Each one of those blue green pods has just one seed inside. these are such cool native shrub with leaves the color of prairie sage. Related to Russian olive. #wolfwillow
Winter
47 posts
Seed stratification, here's how I do it. soak seeds overnight, drain and add some damp peat moss, mix up and put in the fridge. also label with the date and expected months required. I use peat moss but sand is also good, or coir or seed starting mix. you want around 2-4x the volume of your seeds in the medium, it's there to keep the moisture even and create some buffer between the seeds. also if they sprout early it makes the easier to separate, I will often let them start to germinate in the bags then plant out into pots. #seedstarting
Germination testing sunflower and they want to explode out of the bag, second photo is rhubarb to pot some up under lights. don't start your sunflowers in feb it's just a germination test, but rhubarb from seed is underrated, they'll be up to gallon pot size by summer and it's far easier than dividing
Ribes odoratum seedlings of Crandall currant, one of the largest fruiting tastiest currants, but unusual because it's a clove currant. I started them early into stratification, and at 5 months they just germinated in the fridge. Better timing would be start them jan/feb and plant in May. I have these seeds on our shop!
Siberian crabapple seeds collected from various sources showing the diversity. apples are generally a mixed bag of several species, malus baccata often have some percentage of hybridization, the trees will be very similar as rootstock and for zone 2/3 hardiness, but the fruit will range from tiny and red to 1" and red or yellow. #appleseed
Check on your seeds when cold stratifying, if you start them early you get some good germination in the fridge. white nanking and sour cherry seeds at 4 months are ready to grow, and will get potted up under some lights until spring. #seedstarting
Plum seeds germinating last may. I found some in a bed that were planted two years before, the rest I let germinate in bags of damp peat moss in our root cellar before potting up. The seeds can have a long dormancy so you need to cold stratify a few months or more, then they wake up when the temperature increases. Some germinated in april, others through may and even into july so I started to check the bags once a week and pot them. Left over seed went back in the root cellar and we'll see how many come up this year. I would say that 80% of them germinated, so this winter I've gone with a longer stratification starting with one month warm. I'm talking about prunus americana, nigra, and several seedling plums I must have collected fruit from half a dozen plum trees, each its own seedlot, and also seed from the year before. I did the same stratification for our walnuts and butternuts, though they are recalcitrant meaning the seeds should be fresh and not dried, but similarly have a deep dormancy and can germinate in year two. #plumseeds #seedstarting #stratification
Paper birch, the cones crumble easily into thousands of seeds. cold stratify then plant shallow. starting these now to plant in april, at first in a tray that will go on a shady shelf in the greenhouse to be later pricked out and into pots or plugs #paperbirch #seedstarting
Ussurian pears from a row of old trees, collected for seedling rootstocks. also called harbin pear after the region in siberia where hansen collected them in the early 1900s, and brought them back to SD for breeding work #pear #rootstock #seedsaving
Hackberry. tasty thin candy coating even dried in the fridge for a few months. collected from the low branches of a 40 ft tall tree covered in fruit. here I cleaned some seed and started stratification by mixing in some damp peat moss, now three months in the fridge. I have left over seed so will add them to our seed shop. #hackberry
A friend sent me some quince to try, right before the postal strike. six weeks later the mail arrived and sure it's a bit wrinkly but otherwise fine. wow I didn't realize how citric it would taste, like a lemon pair. then I checked and they're used for marmalade so that sounds about right. and just a real pocket of seeds, quite different from other pome fruit.
Canada wild plum, or p. nigra cross. upright tree form, double bumps on the leaf margins, thin point in the leaf. seeds will be hybridized since it was in an orchard next to american plums, but still a good find, stratifying these in the root cellar. really wasn't sure until reviewing the photos, good to photo document a find. #wildplum #prunusnigra
Siberian stone pine, cleaning the seeds today. wow you get a lot of nuts in a cone, and they just crumble apart now that they've air dried. I used a board to sort out the pine nuts from the scales, the rounder nuts tend to roll into a pan first. now for 2 months warm then a few months cold stratification, in time for april/may in the greenhouse
Time to start seeds stratifying. wild american black currant, wild raspberry, wild sarsaparilla, and ribes aureum - a bush I think was crandall with huge berries. these soak overnight then go in the fridge with some damp peat moss until april. many perennial seeds need to go through this cold conditioning for a few months before they'll germinate. for these berry bushes, I'm going to try plug trays so this is enough seed for half a dozen trays of each.
Seed starting with a selection of prunus. #seedstarting #plumtree
Cleaning this elephant head amaranth, didn't find many seeds. still sifting through it, does anyone else find these are more ornamental vs a big seed crop, or did I need to start them earlier
Cleaning basil seed, I like to crush the flowers and then spread on a tilted cutting board. seeds roll, leaves stay. repeat. #seedsaving
Last summer I grew 30 types of basil. isolation is tricky, so only some of them were carefully netted to keep the seed true to type. so I have some fun seed lots of open pollinated basils, like lime x something else. people like weird experimental stuff, should I offer some of these on my seed shop? if so what should I call open pollinated maybe hybridized seed? a percentage will be lime basil, but some might be purple or have large leaves etc, only thing we know for sure is parent is known. no idea if this has value as a seed packet but i think it's cool. all of the heirloom tomato and peppers I grow are carefully isolated from bees to keep them true to type. btw dried lime basil leaves smell just like lime.
Added new seeds to my shop today, I collected all of these last fall locally in southern manitoba. kind of forgot to list them. #seeds
Prunus padus seeds with the distinct rugulose texture, maybe the easiest way to tell the trees apart from p. virginiana chokecherry.
Chia seeds as "indicators" for watering. the chia will droop when they need water, and they're easy to trim out when they get too big.
Chia seed from the bulk food store. funny it has a great germination rate, chia pet anyone?
Collecting wild licorice seeds, they hang around all winter. #wildlicorice
Wild tobacco seeds. i've had these seed pods in a paper bag in the fridge for a few months, they're nice and dry and to extract the seed I just crush them in a strainer. A few passes though the screen to clean them, some seeds like these are easy to process. #seedsaving
Stratifying seeds for the spring. 1. soak overnight 2. drain and add a big spoonful of sand/peat mix 3. date on the label 4. put in fridge and forget about it until april #seeds #perennials #stratification
Jerusalem artichoke (aka Sunchoke) seeds are back in stock! you can find them on our etsy shop and our website, oaksummit.etsy.com and www.oasksummitnursery.ca . Our shipping is worldwide and just a few dollars for seeds - and we have them in stock for over one hundred trees and perennials. We specialize in cold hardy plants! It's a good time now to get tree and perennial seeds started cold stratifying so they're ready to plant in the spring. #jerusalemsrtichokes #sunchokes
Some seeds need a while, these rocky mountain elderberry need some cycles of cold and warm stratification to germinate, they've been stratifying for about a year now and are still healthy seeds, after a few more months in the fridge they should be ready to germinate. Another option would have been plant them outside and just watch for germination over a couple of years. #elderberry
Checking in on germination testing, after a few weeks most of the bur oak are waking up. This process would be more optimal in some soil with more heat etc I have them near a window and it's a bit chilly. I think expecting a few weeks to a month is about right. Usually I fall plant, this is the first year I've store them in poly bags in bulk. They're slowly losing some weight but viability seems good after 4 months in cold storage. Will hold onto my stock until may at the latest and then anything left will get planted, acorns are recalcitrant (need to be fresh and not dried) and have some limited shelf life. One year I froze them in bags just below freezing, about -3C and germination was good, I wonder if that would let you store them for a year or more. #acorn #germination
Germination testing our bur oak acorns after 3 months in cold storage, at about ten days the radicals are starting to emerge. We had a bumper year and I collected maybe fifty pounds for seed, it's more than I need so these have been available is 24 and 100 packs that ship worldwide by letter mail for around $4-6 shipping. It's cool to think that some of these little guys could go on to live for hundreds of years.
Mix it up and then I usually soak over night and them squeeze out all the water until damp. if stratifying / cold condition seeds seems complicated it's not, let the seeds hydrate and store in the fridge for a few months. label. slightly damp is good, just so seeds don't dry out, doesn't take much moisture. sand, peat, paper towel in a poly bag. and that's just to add a buffer to keep them from losing moisture. #seedstratification
Red birch at 15 days #redbirch #growingtrees
Found an old box, I miss these guys. government funding was cancelled and the place was closed a few years ago. there are no Canadian gov tree seed sources left outside of BC, it's one of the reasons I started collecting my own. #treeseeds #seedsaving
Jerusalem artichoke seeds germinating. no stratification with ga-3 treatment. The usual method is the cold strat for 30 days. #jerusalemartichoke #seedstarting
Red birch, paper birch seeds germinating under lights. I have them just about on the surface, 60 days cold stratification. they take some time to size up, but should be 2 ft trees by the fall if all goes well #treeseeds
Here are some seeds that I stratified in sand this winter. I keep dates and notes about the source and year, and I put them all into a bag to be ready mid February. I also have March, April, May bag for seeds that were started later or need more time. I like to use sand for some seeds and paper towel for others. #seedstarting #seedstratification #treeseeds
New apple seeds on plates to dry overnight in the dehydrator. First is Siberian crab, second is an unknown variety, both fully cold hardy in zone 3. After the seeds are clean I dry them on low heat at around 90-100F for 1-2 days to get the moisture content down close to 10% and store in a fridge. #seedsaving #appleseed
Trying some stratification / conditioning with the paper towel method described by the late Dr. Norman Deno, who tested thousands of species to determine actual requirements to germinate and preferred this method over sand or peat. he classified most perennial seeds as 40-70 germinators, meaning 3 months at 40F then germination when moved to 70F. Interestingly, some are 70-40, and many require more cycles like 40-70-40-70 #seeds #seedsaving #seedgermination
Collected these crab apples today for seeds. it's a 30 yr old tree in a family yard, late hanging 1" apples always loaded, hardy to the tip in zone 3. Thinking of planting some and also offering the seeds. #seedsaving #crabapple
Jack pine are the easiest conifers to gather for seed because the serotinous cones stay closed until you warm them up. Collected year round they stay on the trees waiting for a forest fire. They also germinate without stratification, right after that fire they'll start regrowing the forest. #seeds #savingseeds #treeseeds #jackpine
Germination test on locally collected Caragana seeds at 4 days, looking good. The Siberian Pea Shrub is an easy one to start, the dry seeds are direct sown without any conditioning / cold stratification needed. #caragana #seed
Wild cucumber seeds. A native annual vine with alien pod looking fruit. #nativeplants #wildcucumber #seedsaving
I use pine cones for houseplant mulch. fun when one germinates, ephemeral though.
Some late hanging wild sarsaparilla seeds. They've been our most popular seeds on our shop this winter. #nativeplants
Here's how we stratify seeds. Best option is to plant them in the fall, if not just use your fridge. Seeds are stored in some sand slightly damp, and labelled with the type, date, how long they need, more details are better. These are the same poly bags we ship our seeds in, soak them in water for a day, add a couple tablespoons of sand and about one tablespoon of water.
Malus baccata (Siberian crabapple, the worlds most cold hardy apple) seeds at 40 days cold stratification about 2 days out of the fridge are starting to germinate. These little seeds are getting planted out into 200 cell trays under led light until may when they will go into our greenhouse, then into nursery beds in June. Last year we timed it differently and had some transplant shock so we learned a lot and we try again. Hoping for 80% survival to planting out so about 1000 seedlings with a head start on the year. Here in Manitoba we get about 3 months of growing frost free from June - Sep. All of these little tree are planned for rootstocks, if they're large enough we might even bud some this fall, they pull it off in warmer climates maybe it's possible here. #backyardorchard #backyardnursery #appleseed
So wild Licorice is around in the forest here (southern Manitoba zone 3) seems it's a cool permaculture plant with a root that somehow prepared tastes like Licorice and at the minimum it's a nitrogen fixer. I've collected some seed and added it to our site in case anyone wants to try growing it #seeds #nativeseeds
I have some extra seeds collected in the fall so they're available on the website. Pictured are choke cherry, dogwood, River birch and red pine. www.oaksummitnursery.ca
Virginia creeper seeds. I collected some in the fall and ran out of space in our seed beds, so these are available on oaksummitnursery.ca and our etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/oaksummit #seed #seeds #seedsaving #seedsavers #virginiacreeper