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
54 postsWinter
54 posts
flowering quince, a shrubby relative to the larger tree form quince
these guys are full of seeds, more so than other quince. Chaenomeles speciosa is the species, they maybe get to 10ft as a shrub or larger bush, True Quince (Cydonia oblonga) can get about twice that size. neither ones of...
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black eye susan seed
some cone flowers seem easy to collect, cut in the fall and stored to dry, passed through a screen. I have just enough experience with flowers to know it can be tricky to time. a growing part of the nursery work here is...
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basil germination tests
northern red oak are uncommon around manitoba, but we're going to try them from a quebec seed source in zone 4a
provenance is the location, where the seeds are from - and often for a seed lot you want them from a close by or similar climate to know the trees will grow well. there is genetic variation inside species for traits like...
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germination testing our basil, this bag has a strong response after just a few days
basil seed can have a shorter shelf life so it's important to periodically test. most of our seeds are just from last season, by selling out we always have a fresh supply. having said that, stored cold and...
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a new seed lot of siberian c peach for our trial
now 5 sources of the cold hardy peaches have been collected, all growing in zones 4-5 from ontario and quebec, with a range of reported ripening dates, and some differences in the seed's appearance. we're hunting for the...
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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...
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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
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.
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...
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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...
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chia seeds as “indicators” for watering
the chia will droop when they need water, and they’re easy to trim...
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Collecting wild licorice seeds, they hang around all winter. #wildlicorice
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Jerusalem artichoke seeds germinating
no stratification with ga-3 treatment. The usual method is the cold strat for 30 days...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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
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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
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...
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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...
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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...
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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