What You Need to Know About Growing Trees from Seeds

These days even vegetable gardens are often grown from store-bought seedlings instead of seeds. So, the idea of growing trees—all the care and patience it can take—hardly seems to be a consideration for most budding gardeners. Why go to all that trouble when there is an option, a small price to pay, to skip it.

It’s understandable. Home gardeners are looking for harvests, not necessarily the rewards of nursing something for years from seed to tree. That kind of effort seems better relegated to tree nurseries, which are in the business of producing trees rather than fruit or nuts or a beautiful landscape.

While this arrangement is convenient, it comes at a cost, both for the consumer and for the environment. Buying a young tree is far more expensive than planting a seed for one (often free). Furthermore, most of the trees sold come from large-scale nurseries with no qualms about using questionable chemicals to get their product—your future tree—on the shelf.

To the point, if one should want to grow a tree from seed, how could it be done? Is it as easy as putting it in the ground? Yes and no.

Source: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni/Youtube

Not All Trees Work the Same

As with veggies and other plants, not all trees have the same requirements in terms of germination. Some require scarification, usually accomplished by sanding (as with sandpaper) the outside of the seed and soaking it in hot (not boiling) water for up to two days. Others need cold stratification to mimic going through cold winter conditions, and others like warm stratification, which constitutes a controlled warm period before cold stratification. Before attempting to plant a tree, it’s important to know what its germination requirements are.

All of this scarification and stratification are necessary to mimic natural conditions so that seeds can germinate. Then, we can plant the seeds indoors and control the conditions to maximize germination success. We can provide seeds with optimal soil, drainage, irrigation, and temperature until they are established and ready for planting in the garden or orchard.

Source: The Survival Gardening Channel with David The Good/Youtube

Doing It with Nature

All tree seeds can germinate naturally, which of course, is why we have vast forests that require no people at all to cultivate them. The issue with letting nature handle the situation, i.e., planting seeds outside, is that the success rate is far less. Weather events happen, floods and cold snaps, and dry spells. That’s why trees produce their seeds so prolifically. The overwhelming majority of them will never make mature trees.

When we choose to plant seeds outside, allowing nature to do the scarification and stratification, we have to wait through the seasonal cycles to see if anything grows. Plus, we have to plant many, many more seeds to increase our chances of getting a tree out of it. Then, we have to hope that those trees can survive weather, pests, and diseases as they develop into trees we can use for landscape or food production.

Source: Gold Shaw Farm/Youtube

The Pros and Cons of Each

With each method comes pros and cons. When indoor planting, scarification, and stratification speed up the germination of tree seeds. The ability to control the conditions and make them ideal means that more seeds will make it to trees. On the downside, this method requires constant care and attention to create and maintain these optimum conditions. Moreover, because these trees have been coddled into development, they are often more susceptible to the natural challenges they’ve not yet faced.

With outdoor planting, the seeds take a long time to germinate, and many never actually do because natural elements can thwart the process. However, it means that those trees that do sprout are the most resilient of the bunch, and by the time they become small trees rather than saplings, they are geared for survival. This is also advantageous because the tree is suited to the exact micro-climate of your yard, homestead, or farm.

Source: Burnt Ridge Nursery/Youtube

Not All Seeds Work the Same

A final but all-too-important note for those hoping to grow fruit trees from seed is that seeds are not all the same. Some fruit trees, like peaches and apricots, can be grown from seeds and provide similarly delicious fruits as the parent plant. However, others don’t work this way. Apple seeds, for example, will not offer the same variety of apples as they came from. One apple can provide seeds for several different types of apples, likely crabapples.

In other words, for food production, it pays to do a bit of research to ensure you are fostering a tree that will provide the right fruit or fruit at all. For example, avocados grow “true to seed” and are a fun project for planting trees by seed; however, they need very specific conditions to produce fruit. Usually, outside of the few regions with these conditions, they are avocado trees, yes, but with no avocadoes.

It Can Be Fun

Cultivating trees at home can be a lot of fun, and within a couple of years, an enthusiastic grower will likely have more trees than they know what to do with. Do it inside, do it outside, and remember that whatever the results, more trees in the world are always a better thing!

Related Content:

• The Basics of Growing Apple Trees
• 7 Berries That Grow on Trees for Big-Time Harvests
• A Guide to Growing Edible Seeds
• 7 Winter Care Tips for Fruit Trees
• What Are Nitrogen-Fixing Plants and Why You Should Be Growing Them
• Planting Trees in the Fall: How, When, Which, and Why You Should!
• 7 Winter Care Tips for Fruit Trees
• 10 Unconventional Fruit Trees for the Backyard Orchard

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