I found evidence that my Tsuga c. spent the winter of 2020-2021 in the cold frame, so I didn't put them in the ground until mid-July 2021 (Not always easy to find things in folders full of pictures but it beats a file cabinet any day of the week!).

Tsuga left center 10-14-2020 (2).

Great post Bill! I'm a seed grower too. Lots of fun.

Thanks. Seed-growing can be rewarding and frustrating. You're way above my pay-grade, but I've had success w/a couple ones -- as you say, honeylocust is easy ,and so are coffeetree and oaks. Some odd ones I've had success with are osage orange, ginkgo and baldcypress. The baldcypress cones were collected and separated into seeds in autumn, and placed in a water-filled glass, covered and stored in the frig over winter, then sown in spring. Most of them sprouted and after a couple yrs transplanted (not easy due to big tap roots) to my stream-side flood-plain. Every one survived and are now trees.

Yes, stratification is an important part of germinating seeds. Few will germinate without it.

I believe with the honey locust, scarification of the seed coat is necessary, I used fine sandpaper that was recommended. Then soaked for a couple/few days.

Most of my seeds that only needed stratification, were either in moist paper towels, inside a baggie, in the fridge, or in a large pot, out in the cold frame (for the correct length of time).

A tiny seed-grown ginkgo that somehow got lost in the weeds and my attention, and 15 yrs! or so after planting (I think it had initially been chomped down by deer along w/some other seedling trees in that area), somehow made a new appearance and now I tend/weed around it. The stick there beside it is to mark the location.

I guess I could add #10 here.

Aesculus glabra:

Not long ago, 2023, I placed a few 'Buckeyes' directly into the prepared bed and the next spring there it was.

5-26-24:

8-25-2025: Second season in the ground.

Sanctuary Arboretum and Botanical Garden (my yard) currently has over 400 accessioned woody plants, and I'm going to guess that I have grown over half of them from seed. I have really good records for my collection, but I don't have a good way of isolating which ones were grown from seed without going through each record individually. I did go though the oaks, and I see that I have 25 different Quercus species currently in the collection that I grew from seed.

This year I'm upping my game with seeds and will try growing some stuff that is known to be really hard to germinate. Many woody plants need long periods of warm-moist stratification followed by long periods of cold-moist stratification. I've ordered some gibberellic acid
(GA3) and some other special supplies that is supposed to make the process a little quicker and easier. I guess time will tell if my efforts are rewarded.

Hi Brandon!

Good to see you around again.

Congratulations! Arboretum and Botanical Garden, that's great. :-)

I hope you fared well through the storms the last week or so. Any damage from the ice?

Anyways, I want to thank you again for all the help you gave me in the past when I was 'experimenting' with my various plant projects. ;-)

Sorry to hear about the oak Brandon but good you were spared from ice storm damage.

Your place looks enormous and so beautiful, from what I can see from the picture.

My ~0.2 acres are filling up fast, but then, I'm slowing down some too. And that works out well together, all in all. 🤣

Is your Arboretum/BG open to the public?

Be fun to see it sometime, if I ended up in that area. I travel some so you never know.

The picture shows about a sixth of the total garden. We're open by appointment. The garden has a Facebook page, if you are on there. We are a Tennessee State Certified Arboretum and are ArbNet accredited. You could also just drop by, but there wouldn't be anyone to show you around. A lot of our trees are still very small, but we have some that are decent sized. The oak that fell was here to start with.