How to grow Silver Maple trees from seed

alright alright guys so the first step in growing a silver maple tree from seed is going to be to correctly identify and collect silver maple seeds so as I know right here this is a massive silver maple that is actually in my backyard but it's pretty easy to identify just because of the bark pattern so we're maples have a very shaggy almost you know peels back kind of bark very easy to identify and also it has that very typical looking maple leaf so another key characteristic of the silver maple tree is its underside of the leaves so the leaves underneath are this whitish silvery color and that's where the tree actually gets its name is because when it blows and you look at the leaves you can see this silvery kind of reflection from the underside of the leaves and it's pretty beautiful so other than that key characteristics of the silver maple bar it having big multiple trunks so of course there's this main massive bottom trunk but then we see multiple huge known trunks we got five of them right here they're really big they stand out and then of course it branches off as you get farther up the tree now this is a pretty unique characteristic of silver maple most of them you see do grow like this so it is quite beautiful to see you know the five big trunks and also we know this is a maple tree because it is dropping all of its helicopters in the springtime now right now it is late April so this tree is about to be done dropping all of the telecom terse but it has been dropping its helicopters for around three weeks now so springtime is when you have to collect seeds for maple trees I believe that is all the species so that is important to keep in mind if you do want to grow maple trees definitely make sure to go out and collect in the early spring you know early to mid spring and as we can see the ground is just littered with helicopters I mean these bigger silver maples you know maples in general they drop hundreds of thousands of those seats so what we're gonna do is go ahead and collect you know a handful of the seeds I got an unlimited supply and they're gonna move on to the next step which is gonna be to husk the seeds you get out that our two shell and then work on planting them so guys now that we have collected our silver maple seeds which are still in the little helicopter case we're gonna move on to the next step which is taking out this outer more helicopter area that's like husk and then we're gonna get to just the seed now this step is not mandatory and growing silver maple and you know many other species of maple but it does help just like any Treacy that has a shell on it such as an avocado pit or a black walnut when you take out that outer shell it speeds up the growth process and the germination and it helps you know have a higher success rate even though it is not mandatory so what we're gonna go ahead and do is just simply crack this and when these are dry guys this comes off extremely easily it's not very hard at all and it should just crack right open once we take that out we do get just the maple seed now I do apologize my hands are really dirty I did just messed with a bunch of potting soil so again what I'm gonna do is just go through peel these off crack them give it a little twist try not to damage my seed and then the seed should just come right on out so then what I'm gonna do is take those seeds and pot em and plant them but guys when you are taking apart your helicopters you're gonna come across seeds look like this which are dried kind of cracked looking especially this one I don't know how well you guys can see it but it's pretty cracked and divot 'add not looking that good you're not gonna want to take the time and effort to try and grow that specific kind of seed you want your seeds to look more like rounded green healthy you know more fresh and again a word of advice when collecting your helicopters guys is go for the ones that have a little bit of green still in them I look at the absolute freshest so these ones you know they must have dropped off the tree a little bit sooner than say some older looking ones that are more dry black you know that's a that's a better that's a good tip and having you know better selection of seeds so guys now that we've gone through the process of Dee husky and getting rid of that helicopter part of our silver maple seeds we're gonna move on to the next step which is simply gonna be to pot these now me I always like to start out my seeds in small pots so I got these small pots and goes for 200 for 50 bucks off ebay they're brand new again you can use any kind of pot guys doesn't have to be super small that's just my personal preference but you can reuse you know old pots like this is an old you know gardening pod for some kind of herb I always recommend keeping all your old pots whether it be from flowers large or small you know keeping them and reusing them for any kind of project you may need the example would be like this so what I go ahead and do guys is I take my seed and I place it in my pod and I place it on its side now some people will tell you know the top and bottom make sure you do this that I always find that placing it on its side works best the tree knows you know which way to route its I'm pretty good at knowing and so I just simply place it on its side you know again take my seed drop it in like so again I dig it down probably 1/4 of an inch to just a half inch it really doesn't have to be that deep in the soil so after I go ahead and pawed all of my silver maple seeds what I'm actually gonna do is give these guys a nice watering a good soak because you always should when planting a seed and then after doing that what I'm gonna do is take these and put them inside and put them underneath my grow lights now again if you don't have grow lights at home that is not a problem you can simply put these in a windowsill or even leave them outside if you wanted to what's important is you remember to give these guys a lot of water because they're definitely need more moisture being a young seed and so they can grow and route you know correctly and have the best results you know watering is very important not over watering which is making sure they have a lot of water so again you can put them in a window so leave them outside you know just make sure you monitor your seeds and you should see them rooting and sprouting within I'd say a week to a week and a half at the latest now where I live these silver maples grow like weeds and you know they usually sprout and grow leaves and stems all within the span of a couple days you know usually it's like a day and a half to two days I'll start seeing sprouts from seeds so again that can vary you know depending on your add your temperatures and all that stuff but I'd say a week you definitely should be seeing a sprout a week and a half at the latest if not then it's possible that that seed didn't make it it was a dud you got to always factor in and your unexpected consequences and unexpected variables you can't control you know even if a seed looks good sometimes it is still bad so it's just unfortunately how it is sometimes so again guys that's gonna wrap it up for this clip in the next clip I will show you guys what it looks like after it has rooted and started to sprout a young silver maple tree since we planted our silver maple seeds and as you guys can see right here they're looking absolutely phenomenal very healthy sprouts and lease are starting to form this is exactly what you would want to be seeing guys from when you plant your maple seeds your silver maple seeds is you want to see some you know some stems forming the leaf starting to grow and nice little young sprouts I would say pretty early on maple the species of maple is actually sprout and root really quickly the seeds do like Oaks which would like to shoot down one big long route first and then they work on the actual sprout so maples do root and sprout pretty quickly so you definitely should be seeing these pretty soon and early on I did actually see these start poking up in the dirt moving within the first three days and this you know again two days later and it already has a sprout so that's just an update clip guys and I will catch you the next one which is gonna be the full sapling after around two weeks you are silver maple saplings they're looking absolutely phenomenal this is what you should be seeing when you get around a week and a half to two weeks you know exactly off the top of my head but these are looking super healthy you know great we got our second set of leaves coming in on all four of our saplings so overall this is what you should be seeing guys after you know a week and a half to two weeks so that's gonna conclude today's video on how to grow silver maple trees from seed I hope you guys enjoyed today's video and I wish you guys the best of luck in your own trial with growing silver maple trees I mean they're really not too difficult they grow like weeds like I said so okay guys that's gonna be it for today's video and I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll catch you in the next one

Channel: Green Thinking

Views: 21,434

Rating: 4.9320388 out of 5

Keywords: nature, greenthinking, maple, trees

Id: rng9h8Zphw4

Length: 7min 37sec (457 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019