How To Start Maple Seeds

**Swamprat1958** · 08-08-2010, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by your_comforting_company

Lost all but two of them to the heat (I guess). They were in partial shade, watered every morning with collected rain, but they still wilted away.. If these two make it I'll be happy, but 10 would have been real nice. I could use some more "habitat" for wildlife around here... my mouth is watering just thinking about the squirrels.
on a positive note, my portulaca is doing really well and scuppernongs will be ripe in another day or three.
Any idea how to start those from seeds? I'd really love to have all four types of wild grapes growing in the yard. (got pics of the scupps.. gotta get them up!)
Bullaces, Muscadines, scuppernongs, and the smaller wild grapes. Muskies and bullaces will be a few months still before they are ready.

Don't count them out yet. Some hardwoods will look dead sometime during the first growing season, and the stem may even die. But keep watering them; the roots may still be alive and will sprout a new stem the next growing season. I never consider a seedling or an entire planting dead or failed for at least 3 to 5 years.

I plan to plant Muscadines and peaches here in about a month or so. I have a couple of 15 gallon landscaping pots that I will fill with potting soil and compost. I plan to put both the Muscadines and peach pits in the pots about three inches deep. I will keep them moist until we get in the wet season and then again the next year. Once they shoot up seedlings 12 to 16 inches tall I will transplant them into smaller individual pots and continue to water and fertilize them for another year before planting.

**your_comforting_company** · 08-08-2010, 07:06 PM

great info as always swamprat. thank you for sharing your knowledge. I'll save a few on the vines and let them go to seed (If I can help myself.. yummy!) and follow your preps.

My kinnikinnick died back, but I kept watering it and the stem is turning green again. I'll keep the maples going and see if they come back.

**Swamprat1958** · 08-08-2010, 07:58 PM

Keep them watered all the rest of this year. Watch them close next year to see if they send up new growth. I have had trees die back 2 or 3 years in a row, then take off and grow 5 feet tall in one year. They are growing roots the whole time the stem is looking dead. I have a friend who actually cuts his trees off about 4 inches above ground level for three years then allows them to grow after that. I know it works well because his trees do better than most others.

The trees I plant are paid for by federal programs and this method is not allowed. If I were planting for myself I would do it that way.

**Chris** · 08-11-2010, 08:57 PM

The squirrels planted a walnut in my garden last fall (apparently). It sprouted into a tree this year. But then again the squirrels at my house at expert gardeners.

I thought great, potted it up and thought I could give it to someone, but the squirrel came back for his stash, and dug down to get the now-sprouted nut, and ate what was left of it.

It is funny, sometimes, how easily trees can grow when you're not trying to grow them. But when you specifically try to germinate them, they don't grow.

I had a maple volunteer come up a few years ago and transplanted it, now it is about 6 feet tall, that one was a success.