Hallson Gardens

Hi All, been a while since I posted.........Hi KHT

I have a few different species of acer (japanese maples) I have tried a couple of times to grow them from seed but with little success, does anyone here have any useful tips and hints i can use? i will try any and all

Hey AJC, been wondering how you are doing? Did ya give them the cold chile for a while? Toss them in the freezer and then plant. Let me know how it goes. I have some in there now and will be pulling them out in Jan.

AJC, the Acers vary considerable in when to collect and plant. You might want to try posting this in the Jap Garden forum here. Those guys are Acer Aces!

I have had success with seeds in the past Alan. I picked the seeds in October, placed them in the bottom of the fridge in moist (not wet) peat) and planted them out on a heated incubater in or around March April
About 15 sprouted
I killed a few early with too much haste to pot them on
I killed a few more later with keeping them too wet
The frost killed a couple
I finished up with about 7 good plants
This is one of them, and is my pride and joy
It is well worth trying. You have nothing to lose

Thanks for the info peeps

I knew about the fridge bit, its do i lay the seeds on top or do they need to be so deep?

Jush shaken through the damp peat Alan (in a plastic bag). It is NOT a seed tray or planting that you are doing
When they come to be planted out I just buried the seed and no more. Not sure if that was the best thing or not though

This is called "stratification". We do it at school each year with about 75% germination results. Hope this helps!....p

http://www.treeshrubseeds.com/treatingseed.htm

thanks for the replies, I will start them off today, I will pop half in the fridge and half I will pot up and leave outside all winter, see how i get on, I will let you know the results next spring

So, any luck with the Acer seeds? I would love to get my hands on some seed from any pretty Japanese maples. Here in the forest, I have to mow billions and billions of baby sugar maples, even though I try to rake up all the propellers each spring. Makes for an interesting “grass” substitute (hehe). Makes me think any maples will grow well here. Have one sugar maple that has a trunk over 11’ around!

wanda

So, any luck with the Acer seeds? I would love to get my hands on some seed from any pretty Japanese maples. Here in the forest, I have to mow billions and billions of baby sugar maples, even though I try to rake up all the propellers each spring. Makes for an interesting “grass” substitute (hehe). Makes me think any maples will grow well here. Have one sugar maple that has a trunk over 11’ around!

wanda

out of about 30 seeds i have so far only 6 seedlings to show for it, but that might be the seeds rather than the method so i htink it works

thanks all

Here is the method I used.

Fill a clay pot with gritty sand. Plant the seeds on the surface and sprinkle more sand on the top. Some seeds are covered to about half an inch some are not covered at all. This gives some variety of exposure to frosts etc.

Leave the pot outside all winter.

Come spring, hey presto, it worked for hibiscus as well.

I had a tray which didn't 'sprout' in the first two seasons. I left the tray outside last winter and two days ago when I checked it lo and behold about 5 little maples have appeared
Who said gardening doesn't need patience?

Sam, Mother Nature is testing ya! I love her little surprises as I dump what I don't think is going to sprout to come back later to find new plants. I have learned to mark each dumping area! One never knows what might pop up later!