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. As we continue to experiment, the following posts explore 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
58 postsFall
58 posts
manitoba grown butternuts getting hulled, a couple of passes in the water and they come out cleaned off
then we pack then into peat moss and refrigerate. they are available in packs of 10 on our seed shop, and we also have year old trees in our...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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nannyberry starting to ripen, they’ll turn blue this month and taste delicious off the tree
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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Collecting narrow leaf cat tails for seed. needs to be done with a bag because they explode easily. #cattails #seedsaving
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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...
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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
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Collecting red birch seed just as it ripens. Betula occidentalis #seedsaving
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...
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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...
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Prairie sage grows in patches around our place, collecting some for seed. super aromatic. #seedsaving
Enjoying how pink these seeds are
tobacco from seeds traded at a seedy saturday, claimed to be collected twelve years ago
I forget which species. Cool to see flowers...
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Milkweed seed pods, leaves are the food source for monarch caterpillars.
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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Bag of Scots pine cones for seed. Similar to red pine, more pointed and seem to ripen later.
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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...
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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...
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