Save money! Start your own trees and shrubs from seed
As food and gas prices continue to climb, no doubt a lot of people who love to garden will be looking for ways to save money on their favorite hobby. Some of the more well-known tips for that include saving vegetable and herb seeds from last year’s crops, making your own compost, and re-using pots and flats. But you can save even more money by starting trees and shrubs from seed and let savings extend to your ornamental home landscaping. For a lot of trees and shrubs, all that’s required is to collect seed pods, remove the seeds from the pods, remove the outer seed coat, then sow the seeds directly in soil (or a flat, or pots), leave outside, and let nature do her thing over the fall and winter, with germination usually commencing in the spring. Some of the easiest are oaks, dogwoods, loblolly pine, American beautyberry, buckeyes, maples (especially sugar and red maples), butterfly bush, and sweetgum. But others require a longer period to germinate, needing a period of warmth followed by cold. Still others need to be soaked in warm water for a day to soften the seed coat.
If you can’t find the seeds you want to germinate locally, Sheffield’s is a good source. The page for each plant has information on what kind of pre-treatment (if needed) the seeds need.