2018 from seed!

Starfox · Apr 12, 2018

This spring has taken forever to get started, even with my prop box it's been too early for my first batch of seeds but a few have popped up so far. Hopefully the next fortnight it will warm up and I can sow some more.

This is one of the Tipuana Tipu seeds I collected.

These are either Ficus cortada or salicifolia

Anyone's guess to what these are, maybe some Hakea and Kunzea

The two in the middle I think are Sturt desert peas and the one on the right I dunno.

Fonz · Apr 15, 2018

Ok, planted all my seeds:

417 Pinus Thunbergii
29 Zelkova Serata
80 Taxodium Distichum
100 Acer Buegerianum
27 Crataegus Oxyacantha
19 Ginkgo Biloba

I'll take your orders now. $500 a tree. Delivery in 15 years.

Wires_Guy_wires · Apr 15, 2018

Starfox said:
Well this will be my third attempt at them, one year they were done in by the cold and another a windy patch where I guess they dried out but I do really want to get one into it's second year at least and hopefully beyond. I believe it is possible to grow these here but I am right on the brink so they need some extra care so I will keep on trying.
I'm in Spain though so not overly sure how easy it would be to ship to the US but I guess that can be thought of if I get any survivors.

Just if anybody is interested I know the Rainbow Eucs get a lot of attention because their colours are amazing but this is also a great quality of many Eucalyptus species, even though the colours may not be as vibrant they can certainly be spectacular in their own right and are probably a lot more hardy and easier to grow than the Rainbows.
Some examples below taken from google....

E. pauciflora or the Snow Gum is definitely a good example.

Eucalyptus Coccifera or Tasmanian Snow Gum

And there are many others that will exhibit similar colours too after a few years.
Plus you can get some amazing smooth barks like this....

Angophora costata

And I haven't even started with the Iron and Stringy barks yet either, lol.
Sorry to go off tangent a bit but Eucs are probably my favourite trees and it would be great to see them used more, and they are easily grown from seed, fast growers and definitely interesting.
I think that anyone interested by the Rainbows should check out other varieties too because the Rainbows are very tropical and I have found tricky to keep alive. Most other species are far more forgiving and some even cold hardy to a degree.

I have a few rainbow eucalyptus that I'm going to airlayer. I can spend a euro or two to mail you a cutting if you'd like.
I keep them outdoors in summer here in the NL's, and in the bathroom during winter. So they should do just fine in Spain. I found that in the beginning, it's better to keep them in the shade and on the dry side, in potting soil mixed with coarse sand (50/50). When they have their 5th set of leafs, repot in half organic and half inorganic and keep them heavily watered. They are strong rooters, strong shooters, and everything that survives the first year becomes hard to kill in my opinion.
I repotted a single tree 5 times in a year, and it's still doing fine. They're just pretty hard to ramify because they tend to produce very, very long and thin shoots. This takes lots of pruning, but leaf size reduction goed crazy fast that way.

Starfox · Apr 16, 2018

Cheers for the offer, I still have plenty of seeds left so I should be ok. I have no issues with getting them started but lost the ones I did to cold and drying out. As you say I suspect getting them past that first year is the key.

Eucalyptus cuttings are notoriously difficult to get to root, and from my reading deglupta cuttings only work if they come from juvenile trees. I appreciate the offer though but I'm happy to keep on with the seeds.

Greastart · Apr 19, 2018

Wild Dogwood. Was stopped at a traffic stop on a mountain highway late last fall. In the spring the roadside in the construction zone is blanketed with wild Dogwood blossoms. Knew it was going to be at least 15 minutes so got out of my pickup and started harvesting ripe Dogwood berries. Brought them home and soaked for a couple days to get the fruits off of the seed. Put a few in a damp paper towel and sealed them up then put them atop the water heater. (Notice I didn't call it a "hot water: heater. Why heat hot water?) Anyway, the put the rest in a dry paper towel and sealed them up and put them in the garage fridge. After a few weeks with no sprouts emerging from the seeds on top of the water heater I just put them in the fridge next to the others. That was around Christmas....I think. Well, since I don't use the garage fridge much I forgot they were there. Remembered today.

So imagine how surprised I was to find that almost all of the seeds that had been soaked, heated gently for weeks then thrown into a garage fridge and forgotten for months had sprouted and SURVIVED. I'll get them going in soil this weekend.

Starfox · Apr 20, 2018

Going in on 4:20 dudes.
Really need these to be time travel autos. Dry as here.

pweifan · Apr 20, 2018

Greastart said:
Notice I didn't call it a "hot water: heater. Why heat hot water?

I've legitimately never thought about this. You are absolutely correct!

Nice job on the seeds

Do you know what kind of dogwood it is? It's possible Wild Dogwood is a name I haven't heard before.

Greastart · Apr 20, 2018

Pweifan, not certain but I believe they're https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornus_nuttallii, or Wild Dogwood. Just depends on how formal you want to be!

pweifan · Apr 21, 2018

Greastart said:
Pweifan, not certain but I believe they're https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornus_nuttallii, or Wild Dogwood. Just depends on how formal you want to be!

Thank you

That helps a lot. It looks like they're pretty localized to the west coast. I would have never guessed the right kind!

Greastart · Apr 21, 2018

Greastart said:
Wild Dogwood. Was stopped at a traffic stop on a mountain highway late last fall. In the spring the roadside in the construction zone is blanketed with wild Dogwood blossoms. Knew it was going to be at least 15 minutes so got out of my pickup and started harvesting ripe Dogwood berries. Brought them home and soaked for a couple days to get the fruits off of the seed. Put a few in a damp paper towel and sealed them up then put them atop the water heater. (Notice I didn't call it a "hot water: heater. Why heat hot water?) Anyway, the put the rest in a dry paper towel and sealed them up and put them in the garage fridge. After a few weeks with no sprouts emerging from the seeds on top of the water heater I just put them in the fridge next to the others. That was around Christmas....I think. Well, since I don't use the garage fridge much I forgot they were there. Remembered today.View attachment 187908So imagine how surprised I was to find that almost all of the seeds that had been soaked, heated gently for weeks then thrown into a garage fridge and forgotten for months had sprouted and SURVIVED. I'll get them going in soil this weekend.

Hey, how did rainbow eucalyptus pics end up replacing my dogwood sprout pics????

Starfox · Apr 29, 2018

What I thought was a ginkgo seed due mainly to it looking vaguely like one and being found in my ginkgo pot turns out to have been a Chinaberry. Oh well.

Leopard tree is coming along nicely too.

Paul F. · May 17, 2018

A PINUS HAS ARISEN

cmeg1 · May 18, 2018

All my seed was expired I guess.....I hate when that happens.So made cuttings for backup!

Hyn Patty · May 18, 2018

Me, I’m germinating the following this year, all of them around twenty or thirty of each, but more of the JBP’s.

Japanese maples
Trident maples
Amir maples
Zelkova
Chines elms with orange peeling bark
Mikawa JBP
Also regular JBP
Paperbark Birch
Winterberry hollies
Crabapple and a couple of others I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Hyn Patty · May 18, 2018

Cofga said:
Japanese zelkova
Chinese zelkova
Trident maple
Acer shirasawanum
Acer palmatum, seeds collected from 3 different neighborhood trees
Once these hatch I’ll need to plant them out among the other landscaping plants in the yard as sunny spots are limited elsewhere. Hopefully SWMBO won’t mistake them for weeds.
View attachment 177826

You and I can swap some seedlings later or work on a forest project!

Hyn Patty · May 18, 2018

Fonz said:
Ginkgo

You can scarify those hard seed coats and they will germinate faster. Just like you would do to lotus seeds. A file works well to nick them.

Hyn Patty · May 18, 2018

Sn0W said:
My black pine seeds arrived and these are the instructions provided. Was wondering if anyone had tried this method?
View attachment 173715

I would suggest you go to the Contests Forum and click on the 6 Year Japanese Black Pine Contest. There are a ton of posts there with recent step by step directions with lots of photos that IMO are a lot better than the directions you were sent. Such as chilling time and longer soaking period.

Paul F. · May 21, 2018

I just collected some mahogany seeds (Swietenia mahagoni) (about 5 pods) Tons of seed. And there was plenty where that came from. I attached a few pics on what they look like. I grow a lot of them. They germinate very easily in paper towels - 7 to 14 days. If anyone is interested let me know. Send me a private message. You can send a SASE or we can trade some seeds.

Starfox · May 21, 2018

Today I sowed 6 different Eucalyptus species, here is hoping they will do well. Normally they come up in numbers so we will see.
I'm thinking of running a parallel personal experiment following the same guidelines as the 6 year JBP contest and start a thread with all my germinations and see how many I can follow through on to make a tree. I still have plenty of seed to get through too so could be interesting.

Paul F. · May 21, 2018

Starfox said:
Today I sowed 6 different Eucalyptus species, here is hoping they will do well. Normally they come up in numbers so we will see.
I'm thinking of running a parallel personal experiment following the same guidelines as the 6 year JBP contest and start a thread with all my germinations and see how many I can follow through on to make a tree. I still have plenty of seed to get through too so could be interesting.

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!

2018 from seed!

Masterpiece

Chumono

Imperial Masterpiece

Masterpiece

Sapling

Masterpiece

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Sapling

Shohin

Sapling

Masterpiece

Shohin

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Imperial Masterpiece

Shohin

Shohin

Shohin

Shohin

Shohin

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Masterpiece

Shohin

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