Growing my own bareroot trees

[spandit]

What soil should I use for starting the plants off? Compost doesn't seem dense enough to hold the moisture - should I just collect stuff from molehills and mix in a bit of grit?

 

What about moisture granules?

 

Plan is to buy some cheap bareroot trees and grow them for a bit in the pots so when I actually plant them out, they'll be big enough to stand up against the weeds a bit better. I am a bit worried about watering them but hopefully we'll get a bit of rain this year!

[sandspider]

I plant mine in a mixture of garden soil and compost, and sometimes a bit of sand. Saplings grow pretty well in this, but so far not had much luck with seeds germinating in a similar mix.

[spandit]

Then that is what I shall do! Hopefully sourced some free trees anyway (and will be propagating my own willow and poplar anyway)

[7610]

Good luck with it. The mix just needs to drain. I've got conifers popping out of rough tracks all over the place at the moment. Saplings everywhere. It's been a good summer for trees.

[sandspider]

Nothing that I've planted from seed has germinated this year! Despite proper stratification etc.

 

Good summer for trees I had as saplings, though my horse chestnuts have a bit of leaf miner, and my oaks got mildew when we went away and my neighbour forgot to water them! Grr.

[7610]

Montereys have done really well, Douglas too. Birch saplings have thrived but had mildew on all the oaks. Easily sorted though. Sycamore has, as expected cos they're easy put on a few feet. Acers and field maple as always slow.

[spandit]

My sycamore hasn't done too well and I have thousands of oak seedlings, many with mildew. Not worried if they survive or not - the fittest should make it!

 

My seed grown chestnuts are still pretty tiny. They're out in the wild though and just about holding their own against the grass.

[sandspider]

Sweet or horse chestnuts? How did you prep them?

 

I really wanted my sweet chestnuts to do well, as I have lots of potential uses for the wood. They're still in their pots, maybe they'll germinate next year!

[spandit]

Sweet or horse chestnuts? How did you prep them?

 

Sweet chestnuts.

 

I prepped them by putting them on some soil and chucking some leaf litter on top - that's what would happen in nature. Mine have the advantage that being off the forest floor, they're less susceptible to squirrel/rat predation and I can monitor the watering. I've seen a few coming up on my land where I've thrown chestnuts gathered from a local wood too.

[Goaty]

This is something I'm trying as a sideline, see how it goes. Renting a small plot and buying in seedlings and my own collected seed.

Sweet chestnuts rarely set viable nuts round here, got one nut local and bought a bag of Spanish from grocers.

Big nuts need to be sown straight away, it's very visible how conkers rapidly dry out going from a plump bright shiny seed to a shrink wrapped effect around the embryo.

Seeds with tough shells do all the shrinking internally.

Beech

Hornbeam

Birch I'll buy in.

Got

Conkers, turkey oak, holly oak, mockernut hickory, the bought sweet chestnuts and birch seed I've collected.

Been collecting leaves from a gardening friend to compost for leafmould. I acquired an excellent native species catalogue from appletons nursery in NZ a few years ago and they incooperate decomposed tree material, shredded puffballs and composted wood chip to their seedbeds to stimulate the forest effect in the seedlings.

I would like to grow rarer species but for now need to grow to sell, to start with.

 

 

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