#cold stratification

[oakenroots]

I planted 40+ germinated acorns today. I would like to say I planted "oak trees" but they're literally just acorns and will need to survive the blistering hot Georgia summer and the daily 40° F swing (Today was 85°- last night was 45°) to earn the promotion to "sapling" in the next year.

This past fall, whenever I was playing with my dog in the yard, I would pick up acorns and toss them into a terra cotta planter I put outside for the purpose. I didn't know if they would cold stratify on their own but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. I ignored it all winter and today I found 42+ germinated acorns in the planter. 36 of the 42 are indoors because they were tiny sproutlings with roots only as long as my finger but the 6 largest went in pots outside.

Hopefully they adapt to the separation and the dematting of the acorns well and the majority of them make it to sapling stage. I've got 25+ acres of wetland to reforest with native trees, so they're barely a drop in the bucket of what we need but they took close to 0 effort to get this far. They will hopefully live 75 years+ in their new homes once they're transplanted to their final location. They're southern red oaks, which are native to the area but have had their populations severely cut back by human advancement since they're usually a wetland species.

The best time to plant a tree that takes 50 years minimum to mature is 50 years ago. The second best time is today, and the third best time is tomorrow.

[growingwildgardens]

Winter Sowing 🥶🍀🪻

Winter sowing is the act of planting seeds, particularly native northern plants and those that require cold stratification, in mid-Winter, rather than waiting for warmer weather 🌬🌧❄️

Winter sowing has several benefits ☃️✅️

-Best way to awaken dormancy from native/northern seeds that require 1-3 months of cold stratification and moist soil, especially those that need a false spring and then return to cold (as we're likely to have several of these in Zone 8b)

-Allows early germination and success of the strongest seeds most suited to your local environment

-When done in jugs or some other type of mini-greenhouse increases the temperature, and increases how early and vigorously seeds germinate

-Allows you to have many of your flowers, bushes, and fruit trees planted very early (mid-January to early March) so you can focus on annual food crops as your yard or greenhouse warm up

It's also a pretty easy process, mostly done with recycled materials! ♻️

The easiest way to winter sow seeds is to save excess plastic jugs - milk, juice, even vinegar bottles - anything with clear or slightly opaque plastic 🫙

1. Rinse out your jugs, use a wood burner/heated screwdriver/whatever is easiest to poke holes in the bottom

2. Cut them roughly in half, leaving a good amount of space in the bottom area

3. Fill with soil, ideally deeper and with slightly more starting nutrients than a typical seed mix - this will give you flexibility to let things grow in and not need immediate up-potting

4. Scatter your chosen seeds - prioritize wildflowers, native bushes/trees, fruit trees, and anything that says it requires cold stratification. Avoid hot weather annuals like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that will suffer in the cold nights

5. Cover very lightly with soil and water deeply, since this is a pretty closed system you'll only need to water about once a week until real growth or warmth sets in

6. Label inside and out, then use tape to reconnect the two halves. Put lids back on to retain heat and humidity, if can't be found can use styrofoam, aluminum foil, or plastic wrap rubber-banded on

Winter sowing is an easy process that let's you get a headstart on planting, increases germination rates in native plants and wildflowers, and uses recycled materials to grow more food 🌱🫐🍎🪻🌿

Message me for any questions, I'll discuss troubleshooting and alternatives later this week 💚

[ID: Two pictures; the first shows 3 1-gallon jugs, half full with dirt, and labeled things like "oregon grape" and "juneberries." The Second shows a long line of these jugs of varying types lined up against a garden fence, each closed and labeled.]

[untamed-mi]

I just started seeds I collected growing wild in my garden last year.

Today I started some Horseweed and Catnip in my plant room, and then I put Motherwort, Queen Anne's Lace, Yellow Rocket, and Bittersweet Nightshade into my fridge for cold stratification.

The Motherwort should be ready to come out in 2 weeks.

Welcome to my blog!

[jackburnsgrass]

An air prune bed(5’x3’x12”). Constructed with hand milled red maple. Hardware cloth bottom and covering. This bed was able to fit 485 Chestnut seeds and 100 Hickory nuts densely planted. (March 16, 2025)

Chestnuts harvested from local trees made for excellent eating last winter. The rest were cold stratified in buckets with holes. Half filled with wood chips then husked nuts added and covered with more chips. The buckets were then buried up over the tops with yet again more chips.

[solarpunkani]

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A post shared by Mr. Bloom (@sfinbloom)

Cool new way to guerrilla garden?

SFinBloom’s Instagram caption below

Here’s a fun way to plant seeds. Not sure what to call them. People get so excited about planting in spring when they see all the spring blooms. Spring blossoms need time to germinate. Seeds not only weather the cold well, some seeds actually require it. Many plant seeds require being cold for a period of time, or cold stratification, to prevent seeds from germinating before winter sets in. Here’s a fun and easy way to cold stratify your plants while making them easy to plant. Its like seed bombs but with ice instead of mud or clay.

[antimony-ore]

Native Plant Update 4/25

I'm tired of putting the amount of information I'm putting into these posts so this is a lazier one.

Rose Milkweed all pretty died except one which is doing great, these things happen. Plus last year's batch is coming back:

Common Milk weed, I got like 2-3 left 🤷🏼, I definitely killed both of these with one care mistake:

5 Buckwheat are very much going to survivr into adulthood, this plant is tough 💪:

I pulled the new batch of Showy Tick Trefoils from the other source off the heat mat after a week so they didn't die this time and they are growing the same as last years so those must have been the right kind of trefoil seeds too. If those come back up these are just extra now:

The Milfoils are still doing great as expected, last year's are getting pretty big too after fertilizer (need a new progress pic):

The Burdock has started sprouting after 1 month stratification and 2 months in the starter tray:on the heat mat. They all have come up upside down, uprooted themselves, and had to be manually reinserted. I planted the seeds sharp side down, which I'm assuming was the wrong way then:

Speaking of uprooting themselves, that's what happened to many of my Tall and Marsh Gayfeathers last year randomly. Like last year, the Tall variety had a high germination rate, and they do seem to like the heat mat as predicted. Last year's all uprooted themselves or died when they started growing true leaves 🤷🏼:

And the daisy fleabane is dying, likely because of the heat mat. The one bugger polyploid is looking rough, i will call TOD soon. It did like the heat mat more than the others though. The "regular" variety, mostly has died, but a surprise second wave of tiny sprouts has started emerging so I'm letting them ride for now:

Bonus some adult fleabane coming back up, in case you missed it, this might be a plant to let self sow:

[julcheninred]

Jules Tries...cold stratifying native seeds! Okay, so, the State Butterfly of New Jersey is the Black Swallowtail. I have a certified butterfly garden and I’ve wanted to plant things to draw Black Swallowtails. Many websites will advise gardeners to provide host plants in the Apiaceae family such as fennel, dill, and parsley, but these are not native to North America. The native Apiaceae that New Jersey’s Black Swallowtail evolved with was Golden Alexander. I found and bought Golden Alexander seeds this year. Native plants can be idgy to start from seed if they haven’t been properly roughed up by several months of winter. I’d intended to try winter-sowing the seeds, which involves putting them outside in a covered dirt-filled plastic container for a few months. As January drew to a close without much typical winter weather here, I doubted the seeds would get two months of proper cold outside. Plan B was to stick them in the fridge in wet paper towels according to these instructions. I hope to give these seeds the best chance to sprout happily in April. If all goes well, they’ll thrive in the garden spot we’ve planned for them, and they’ll flower in their second summer and be appreciated by many butterflies! What is this series?

[balkanradfem]

The plant lady has her special way to germinate fruit seeds; she puts them in a wooden box, covers them with damp sand, then covers it all with moss to preserve the wetness. I've seen her germinate 200 plum seeds like this! Also she collects moss for this purpose all the time; we'll be taking a walk and she sees a mossy tree or a rock and it just draws her in, she returns home with her arms filled with green.

The non-tropical fruit seeds like apples, pears, plums, grapes, peaches, cherries and berries, need to be cold-stratified before they will germinate. That means they need to be exposed to a period of cold or freezing weather conditions; they're programmed to wait for winter, then wait for winter to pass, then sprout at first signs of spring. You can leave them outside in the winter, or fool them by keeping them in the fridge for a few months.

I've been collecting fruit seeds for a while now; I'd love to be able to grow at least a few little fruit trees in cups and pots, so by the time I get the land to live on, I can just transplant them out immediately. I'm trying my own experiment in germinating them thru the winter. I got a plastic cup with an airtight lid, and I'll put the seeds in, mixed in a wet forest soil, and then keep it all closed so nothing can dry out.

I'm going to close this and keep it in a dark corner of my balcony, then check for germination as soon as it gets warmer. My only problem is that I absolutely cannot differentiate between apple and a pear seed, and nothing is labeled, but we'll deal with problem that when we get to it. Hopefully this gets me some trees growing!