2018 from seed!

How to your seeds? I can only get them to germinate in a paper towel in a plastic container. Its a pain in the butt to pick them off with tweezers and place them in soil.. They seem to stay small forever. I have like 6 left from about 100 that sprouted.. lol!

Do you mean eucalyptus seed or seeds in general?
 
How deep are you planting the seeds? Most Aussie species only want to be scattered on soil surface and covered "only" by about a sprinkling of soil(about a millimeter or two no more).Protect from birds etc.

I do the same. Sprinkle them on the surface but honestly I usually sprinkle them on a gritty mix. I haven't tried good ole potting soil. That might be the key. Thats exactly why i was asking..
 
I normally use a light seed raising mix in a flat tray, something like equal parts perlite, coco fiber and vermiculite although I can't find any vermiculite lately so just went for perlite and fiber. As Craig says I just sprinkle them on the surface and water them in, maybe an extra dusting of soil over the top but from there I'll keep them damp until they germinate. Then once they are growing and have the first set of leaves you can start pricking them out and up potting. Normally you should end up with way too many to deal with so just pick your best growers to pot up, out of say a hundred you may only end up with 10 growers that survive but that would be an astonishing success rate for a tree in the wild.
 
I normally use a light seed raising mix in a flat tray, something like equal parts perlite, coco fiber and vermiculite although I can't find any vermiculite lately so just went for perlite and fiber. As Craig says I just sprinkle them on the surface and water them in, maybe an extra dusting of soil over the top but from there I'll keep them damp until they germinate. Then once they are growing and have the first set of leaves you can start pricking them out and up potting. Normally you should end up with way too many to deal with so just pick your best growers to pot up, out of say a hundred you may only end up with 10 growers that survive but that would be an astonishing success rate for a tree in the wild.

Ill try that. I just got some red gum seeds and some rainbow Eucalyptus seeds.

One other question, When you pluck them out to repot, what kind of soil do you put them in? Do you just stick with perlite / potting mix? Thanks so much for all the info!
 
I lost all of my oaks to squirrels this year. Will have to hit @theone420 again in the Fall for cork oak acorn again. Sad to see this yesterday.
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Ill try that. I just got some red gum seeds and some rainbow Eucalyptus seeds.

One other question, When you pluck them out to repot, what kind of soil do you put them in? Do you just stick with perlite / potting mix? Thanks so much for all the info!

Ideally I would or at least attempt to use a loose as mix as possible but straight potting mix is fine too. It all comes down to how much soil I need and what I have laying around.
 
I lost all of my oaks to squirrels this year. Will have to hit @theone420 again in the Fall for cork oak acorn again. Sad to see this yesterday.
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Sorry, I feel your pain.. Last year the iguanas ate all my ficus seedling... like 30 of them and a bunch of other trees and plants. All that work that you do just makes your heart sink. When I evacuated for Hurricane Irma I left over 150 trees (which I lost every single one) but took about 30 of my favorites with me. I kept them alive for the 9 days while i was gone. When I returned, I watered my plants like normal. Within 3 days, all of them were dead. Our water company had put a ton more chlorine in the water to kill the bad stuff in the water supply. I literally started all over again just about a month or two ago. Its crushing.
 
I planted about 100 each of Mugo pine,Scots pine and more than 100 American elm seeds last week. The elms are already up and growing. Haven't seen a pine sprout yet though.
 
Sorry, I feel your pain.. Last year the iguanas ate all my ficus seedling... like 30 of them and a bunch of other trees and plants. All that work that you do just makes your heart sink. When I evacuated for Hurricane Irma I left over 150 trees (which I lost every single one) but took about 30 of my favorites with me. I kept them alive for the 9 days while i was gone. When I returned, I watered my plants like normal. Within 3 days, all of them were dead. Our water company had put a ton more chlorine in the water to kill the bad stuff in the water supply. I literally started all over again just about a month or two ago. Its crushing.
Pissed of is understatement when I saw that. The first thing came to mind was which poison will give them the most painful dead. I have calm down.... since they only chewed on oak, I will let them live for another day. We have way too many of them running around.

So sorry for your lost. Time for a better collection?
 
Pissed of is understatement when I saw that. The first thing came to mind was which poison will give them the most painful dead. I have calm down.... since they only chewed on oak, I will let them live for another day. We have way too many of them running around.

So sorry for your lost. Time for a better collection?

Yea.. I'm definitely starting a more diverse tree collection. I'm moving into trees other than tropicals which i know nothing about but its fun learning. I've planted Siberian Elms. Bald Cypress, and currently stratifying Japanese Maples, Chinese elms, Coastal Redwoods. Ill probably fail miserably but I'm sure Ill learn a few things. I also had, for the first time, planted Japanese Black Pines and most of them have popped up, which i think is pretty cool.

and lets just say, I threw my fair share of dead iguanas over the fence.
 
I lost all of my oaks to squirrels this year. Will have to hit @theone420 again in the Fall for cork oak acorn again. Sad to see this yesterday.

That sucks. I have found a lot more local cork oaks so getting you more acorns should be no problem. I may even send you a couple of my 1 yr seedlings if I have as many as I think I will. I have 30 or so at the moment and that is more than I will need for sure. I have lost a lot of mine to my new puppy and he got my last sprouted red oak last week but I still have a lot of acorns so they will be planted next year to try again.[/QUOTE]
 
Yea.. I'm definitely starting a more diverse tree collection. I'm moving into trees other than tropicals which i know nothing about but its fun learning. I've planted Siberian Elms. Bald Cypress, and currently stratifying Japanese Maples, Chinese elms, Coastal Redwoods. Ill probably fail miserably but I'm sure Ill learn a few things. I also had, for the first time, planted Japanese Black Pines and most of them have popped up, which i think is pretty cool.

and lets just say, I threw my fair share of dead iguanas over the fence.
Am not sure if Japanese maple will do well in Florida Keys though. Others you listed looks like they will be fine. Japanese black pine definitely will do well there. I have quite a few of them that I participate in the 6 years contest.
 
That sucks. I have found a lot more local cork oaks so getting you more acorns should be no problem. I may even send you a couple of my 1 yr seedlings if I have as many as I think I will. I have 30 or so at the moment and that is more than I will need for sure. I have lost a lot of mine to my new puppy and he got my last sprouted red oak last week but I still have a lot of acorns so they will be planted next year to try again.
[/QUOTE]
I think I still have a two cork oak seedling left which I think I will put into a gallon container so I can provide some protection. I think I still have about 10 coast live oak which I will also put in 1 gallon container. I want to do a few more cork oak next year if you don't mind collection some of the acorns in the Fall. I will plant them in individual pot instead of community pot which is much harder to protect from squirrels. Thanks in advance.
B
 
Am not sure if Japanese maple will do well in Florida Keys though. Others you listed looks like they will be fine. Japanese black pine definitely will do well there. I have quite a few of them that I participate in the 6 years contest.


I figured as much on the maple. I always wanted to germinate some so Ill consider it a success if I can do that. Ill ride it as long as I can.. :)
 
I'm way late on this thread, but this year I started a
bunch of bald cypress,
jbp for the contest about 15 left out of a bunch of seeds. I ordered 25 but ended up with around 75.
I tried jrp but the birds an Squirrels ate all of them early.
I have about 6 huangshan pine.
A few pomegranate,.
One Fugi apple and 3 gala (I know they aren't true to seed but that's where they came from)
a pin oak, had around 10 but only one survived squirrels,
one Orange one lemon one grapefruit,
some Dawn redwood
Chinese red pine
i tried ezo spruce but they all died
and I collected some crabapple about a month ago, stratified for about 2 weeks and already got 5 sprouts. I'm of course bringing those in for the winter since I started them so late. And I'm already half prepped for next year's batches
 
I'm way late on this thread, but this year I started a
bunch of bald cypress,
jbp for the contest about 15 left out of a bunch of seeds. I ordered 25 but ended up with around 75.
I tried jrp but the birds an Squirrels ate all of them early.
I have about 6 huangshan pine.
A few pomegranate,.
One Fugi apple and 3 gala (I know they aren't true to seed but that's where they came from)
a pin oak, had around 10 but only one survived squirrels,
one Orange one lemon one grapefruit,
some Dawn redwood
Chinese red pine
i tried ezo spruce but they all died
and I collected some crabapple about a month ago, stratified for about 2 weeks and already got 5 sprouts. I'm of course bringing those in for the winter since I started them so late. And I'm already half prepped for next year's batches

Ive been trying to germinate pomegranates for the last month and cant get one to grow a damn root. I've ordered seeds online, I went to the store and bought a fruit and tried germinating those fresh seeds. NOTHING. Its pissing me off now. Germination times say 30 days but cut that in half if the weather is over 80 degrees. Its like 90 every day here. Should take no longer than 15 days but Im still waiting..

I do have a dozen Huangshan Pines growing too. They are awesome.
 
Ive been trying to germinate pomegranates for the last month and cant get one to grow a damn root. I've ordered seeds online, I went to the store and bought a fruit and tried germinating those fresh seeds. NOTHING. Its pissing me off now. Germination times say 30 days but cut that in half if the weather is over 80 degrees. Its like 90 every day here. Should take no longer than 15 days but Im still waiting..

I do have a dozen Huangshan Pines growing too. They are awesome.

It took about 10-15 days for me every time. Just clean the pulp off let the seeds dry a few days then soak em an plant em or just plant em that's the ones I started inside though, I started some in paper towels an transferred them outside and experimented. I even got a few cuttings to root when I pruned em an my plants only a few months old. Maybe try a cutting from an old plant if you can find one. I hear they root pretty easy from cuttings of almost any size

Yeah I'm excited to watch the development of my huangshan, they're growing faster and more vigorous than my jbp an they were started a month after
 
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