Hello and greetings from Edgewood Washington. I absolutely love Maple Trees, and I am very happy to join your Group! I have searched all over the websites for Acer discolor seeds or starts with not much luck. If you have a few you can spare I would love to increase their population. . Is anyone interested in setting up seed exchange? I know I can contribute! (See my pictures of maple seeds sprouting in my lawn) want some seeds?
Unfortunately, I don't think they ship to the USA (not to mention the customs regulations), but for those who live in Europe, let me remind you of this address in case you are looking for A. discolor too: http://www.florama.fr/florama/0/boutique/34655/acer_discolor.htm#.U2nrP1fJFRp
Hi Sterling, and welcome to the forum! I wish I had some discolor seeds for you, but alas... I'm not where I can get at my reference materials at the moment but I wonder if discolor is dioecious, I don't recall ever seeing seeds on the market. My own plants haven't yet flowered. One idea would be to contact (as Alain just suggested) Jacques Urban at www.florama.fr, he has been growing discolor and may be able to point you in a direction for seed. He still has young plants but sadly these cannot be easily sent to the US. The Maple Society has been doing a seed exchange but I'm not sure if it happened last year; still I hope this will start up in the future again. You should certainly join the Society if you're not already a member, I find the newsletter is always interesting. Ze must! (as we say in Fraance.) I've gotten some very interesting seed from the exchange. Many of us love growing from seed, I think it's one of the most fun things, you never know what you'll get! My seed from this year is out of the fridge and in trays, but has mostly not come up yet. I have maybe 20-ish up in last years trays (I always let the trays go 2 years for just this reason) and far too many older seedlings that I'm growing on; almost all last years seedlings made it through the winter, and then there are the older ones, etc. cheers, -E
Ok! I am excited. I ordered and received a nice discolor from the Forestfarm nursery in Oregon the other day. I am still looking for discolor seeds! I tried to translate the Florama web site from French to English.Hoping see if seeds are available for sale and shipment to Washington State. I have just bought a pack of purple ghost seeds and it mentions stratification before planting. Is it necessary?
Yes, for Acer palmatum stratification is absolutely necessary. There are some threads on this board discussing techniques if you need more info. I have never tried Acer discolor seeds, not sure if they need the same stratification.
If it gets reasonably cold (some frost or close to it) you can let nature stratify for you. Sow the seeds into trays in fall, then leave them outside all winter. Over the next two years, you will get lots of fun maples (if the seed is any good of course). This works as well or better than 3 months in the fridge in sand and peat AFAIK, but the down side is that your seed may be preyed upon by mice or other beasties. I lost a whole year's very good seed this way, so now use the fridge for safety and sow into trays in April or sooner if germination begins. I don't know for discolor either, but I do expect stratification is necessary as for other section pentaphylla. You probably know this already but the seed from purple ghost will not necessarily come true, and your seedlings will not be the cultivar (if that's a cultivar! :)) cheers, -E
