Growing your own trees from nuts

blue5000

I tried growing my own trees a few times, sometimes it works and more times it doesn’t. Planted a few in pots last autumn and today I have a nice walnut and a nice oak on the windowsill. Anyone else here growing their own? Any tips?

accidental forester

I'll preface this with the fact that it's my wife that's "the Grower of Trees" in our household, so I'm only passing along some of her info. You're on a good start. First thing, they should be outside. Their makeup is expecting any conditions that our weather will throw at them. Trees, especially oaks, need deep pots. Yogurt pots are a good start if they have plenty of drainage holes. I'd suggest more soil/compost, probably right up to the rim. Place the seed at a depth of approx. equal to the length of the seed. Acorns in particular need to be fresh, cracked or old ones are unlikely to thrive. My wife uses a mix of soil, leaf mould, and compost but basic soil and compost is fine, the seed contains the all the nutrients the new tree needs to start. When roots start to appear out of the drainage holes, it's time to re-pot or place in a nursery bed to grow on. Good luck with your new trees!

blue5000

Bit chilly outside this morning though. The walnut only germinated a month ago. Thanks for all the info, will re pot them soon into something bigger.

accidental forester

One other point: If you have a rooks or crows, they are very liable to dig the seeds out of the pots. At the very least, they'll pull any plant tags out, completely screwing up any idea about what's in the pot. We have a 2" mesh cage over one group of pots and just mesh over another batch.

You're on to a good thing. It's very satisfying to see trees you started from scratch grow up. We have some oaks that she started from acorns that are over 12 feet tall and now producing their own acorns (although not yet viable).

gk5000

Most larger nuts need to be planted fresh - oak, hazel, beech, chestnut, so best straight away after gathering.

But many seeds have dormancy so shall not grow naturally for several years of specific conditions

The below gives a link to "Raising trees and shrubs from seed" from the UK Forestry Commission, which is very good and shows how to break dormancy. https://cdn.forestresearch.gov.uk/2007/08/fcpg018.pdf

See the appendix on page 23, 24: So for hawthorn, keep it at 8 weeks warm, round 15ºC, followed by 26 weeks cold around 4ºC (fridge).

Finally - if you want one tree, I would plant at least 10 seedlings, so maybe 20/30 seeds and thin as you go.

gk5000

Here's a link to Teasgasc similar to the UK one above, but I haven't read it.

https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/forestry/seed-storage-stratification-and-germination-of-some-popular-forestry-trees.php

I put the seeds in small mini pots wrapped in damp tissues, then inside a lunchbox with air holes and keep then in a coolish room for the warm periods or the fridge for cold ones - check once a weeks and remoisten and check for mold.

Separately if you need heat - don't think its needed for any native trees - you can buy small propagators - like a box with a small heated coil at the bottom.

Or I made a larger one using old stlyle light bulbs (40W or 100W) in the bottom of a lidl/aldi rack style mini green house - and slabs of insulation on 2 sides - and cover the whole thing at night with an old duvet - all inside a shed.

Deub

I would love to do this if I had the space to plant them.

You can plant your oak seedling in a carton milk so the tap root can go down freely.