I managed to collect some A. pseudosieboldianum seeds from the Japanese park in Tallinn. I kept these seeds some months in a dry place and sowed these seeds in February into containers, with peat, sandy soil and horse manure mix as a growing medium. Today I found that seedlings are just starting to emerge from the soil. Should I wait for first real leaves before I transplant from sowing container into single plant containers? I have no former experience with growing oriental maples from seed.
Hi Sulev, IMO I would wait until until you have two pairs of leaves before lifting and potting on. Then ease the compost away from each seedling and gently lift out by holding a leaf. This is what I have done over the years and have had really good success even with some rare difficult to germinate trees. So much so that I had to give away a lot of young healthy specimens. Hope that's of help.
Thanks for quick response and good advice! I read, that these maples should need cold stratification and most instructions suggest plastic bag and refrigerator as suitable method for sprouting these maple seeds. And then each sprouted seed is transplanted from the plastic bag into separate container. Therefore I thought that I should maybe separate these seedlings as soon as possible. But as seedlings of a A. platanoides are pretty easily separable (their roots are not usually tangled in early growing stages), then probably A. pseudosieboldianum alike, and I can wait for a month or so. My germination method (sowing into container, keeping it in chilly conditions, 0°...+10°C, sometimes with short freezings, for about a 50 days or so) seemed to work ok, but now it looks, that my containers will soon be overcrowded, because as these seeds were tiny and did not look viable at all when I picked them, I was not expecting good germination rate of them, so I put too many seeds per container. The germination rate seems to be way above 20% I was expecting based on literature.
Hi Sulev, yours have done well without the need for stratification in the fridge. If you are worried about over crowding then thin some out. But IMO don't pot up the ones you want to keep until at least 4" high. When thinning out be careful not to disturb the roots of the ones you are keeping. Good luck and hope you will post some photos of them on the forum at a later date. Have fun, it's great to see seedlings pop up.
"Natural stratification" works well for Acer palmatum (and cvs) and Acer buergerianum. So now I sow them in freezer trays. They're not very deep, but out of the many that sprout, when you repot them there's a good chance at least 6 out of 10 will make it. anyway, when you get dozens of them, you must select some, esp. if there's one that looks a bit different. I've already repotted a few 'Atro dissectum' and 'Phoenix' but I didn't have many seeds, I think if I get 10 or so of each it will be fine. ---- 'Ryusen', 'Sango Kaku' and 'O-sakazuki', ready to be put in individual pots. At this stage, some bonsai enthusiasts even cut the roots leaving just the white part of the stem/root with a shap cutter to get a spreading set of roots : For other maple species, that's a different story... And if the photos are a bit blurred, it's because of the 60km/h wind (35 mph) after heavy rain. And it's going to be like that for at least 3 or 4 days.
Here is a photo of my A. pseudosieboldianum seedlings in the largest container in the centre of the photo. One A. platanoides is laid on top for comparision. The other seedlings, separated or not, surrounding the container of maples are pomegranates (Punica granatum).
Hi Sulev, if you are asking whether to separate those in the photo, then don't yet. They need to be about 4 inches tall at least and have two pairs of leaves. Keeping my fingers crossed for your success.
Thank you, Acerholic. I will not separate these seedlings soon. Just posted a photo of them, as you asked. I had to separate these pomegranates, as their germination substrate is only one or two centimetres thick (initially their seeds were uncovered at all in the cake box, but later I added some soil).
Hi again Sulev, if you have any photos of your acer trees there in Estonia, they would be great to see on the UBC Maples 'cheering ourselves up' thread. We are getting postings from all over the world, it's really fantastic.
I have only some rather large A. platanoides trees here, and they are still all bare, without leaves. Nothing cheering yet. I tried to grow Japanese maples ca 25 years ago, but unfortunately the winter next to the spring, when I planted those, was especially cold, we had some weeks with -30°C and my maples died. This winter we had only some days with temperatures below -10°C, so I am starting to experiment again. This spring has been rather chilly though, but it looks like it will soon turn into warmer side. I like photos posted in the 'cheering ourselves up' thread very much. For photos I should maybe visit the Japanese garden, but as there are those Corona restrictions, I have limited my visits to Tallinn.
Hi Sulev, glad you can at least see the lovely photos on the cheering ourselves up thread. There are some wonderful maples and lovely gardens to see. Hope it warms up for you very soon. Great to hear from Estonia.
One year old seedlings that will not be separate until next year. This way saves me space due to the crazy amount of seed I germinate.
What a nice seedlings you have got, LoverOfMaples ! I can't possibly keep my maples in these containers for years, because these containers are very small and it would be hard to maintain proper moisture level through the summer. These containers tend to dry through in summer heat within couple of days, but I like sailing and l need to leave my plants for up to couple of weeks unattended.
