Flowering Dogwood trees can be easily grown from seed, however 99.9999% of the seedlings that sprout will be Cornus Florida, which is White Flowering Dogwood. It doesn’t matter if you collect the seeds from a White Dogwood or a Pink Dogwood, the seedlings are likely to be white.
The only predictable way to grow a Pink Dogwood, Red Dogwood, or one of the beautiful Dogwoods with variegated leaves, is to bud or graft the desired variety onto a White Dogwood seedling.
See this page on my website for details on “budding”:
http://www.freeplants.com/budding_fruit_trees_and_ornamental_plants.htm
Dogwood trees begin producing seeds right after the petals drop from the flowers. It’s a slow process that takes all summer. By late summer the seeds begin to turn red, which means they are just about mature. Don’t pick them too early or the embryo will not be fully developed and they will not be viable. When the seeds are fully developed they will begin to fall from the tree, and at that time you can begin to pick them.
Ripe seeds can be removed easily. If they don’t pop right off when you grab them, they are not quite ready, give them another week or two. Don’t let them fall to the ground, the chipmunks, birds and other critters love them, and usually eat them as fast as they fall.
Once picked, let them sit for a week or so, until the pulp begins to soften. At that time soak them in a pail of water to further soften the pulp. While still in the pail of water squeeze the seeds between your fingers to separate the seeds from the pulp. Once they are separated slowly add water to the pail until it overflows, allowing the water to flow over the edge of the pail slowly.
The viable seeds should sink to the bottom of the pail, while the pulp should float to the top. Allow the pulp to float out of the pail until you have nothing but clean seeds lying on the bottom of the pail. Drain the water and spread the seeds out on a table to dry. Once dry the seeds can be stored in a cool dry place. They will keep this way for some time.
Because Dogwood seeds have a very hard outer coating on the seed, they need to be pretreated or stratified before they will germinate. This process softens the outer coating so that water and oxygen can enter, initiating the germination process. There are several ways to stratify Dogwood seeds, from treating them with acid to storing them in the refrigerator. I will share a couple of techniques that I think will work the best for someone with little experience.
One technique requires that you decide what day next spring you would like to plant the seeds and then counting backwards on your calendar for 210 days to start the stratification process. Here in the north May 15 is a good target date for planting because by then we should be safe from frost. You don’t want Mother Nature to do them in before they even have a chance.
210 days from May 15 would put you around Oct. 15 to start the stratification process. To stratify the seeds using this technique simply place them in a plastic bag with some moist (not wet!) peat moss, or a mixture of moist peat and sand. Poke some holes in the bag, you don’t want it air tight. Store them in this mixture at room temperature for a period of 105 days.
After 105 days move them to your refrigerator for another 105 days. Don’t put them way in the back where they might freeze. You want them cool, but not frozen. After 105 days of storage in the refrigerator they should be ready to plant outside. Just time it so that you get them outside just after the danger of frost has past.
While the seeds are being stored check them weekly, if you have fungus growing in the bag sprinkle a little fungicide in. Near the end of the storage period you should be checking for germination, as soon as 10% of the seeds have germinated they should be planted out. If it’s too early, plant them in a flat indoors, just make sure they get plenty of sunlight.
To plant them simply sprinkle the entire contents of the bag on top of the soil and spread it out. Sprinkle some light soil over top. Do not plant the seeds too deep.
Creating no dig gardens on top of the soil gives you many immediate advantages over the usual garden.
While my site has concentrated on the vegetable garden, the same garden building techniques can be used for flower beds, herbs and fruit trees.
Herbs
Herbs can be planted straight into the no dig garden bed. Because of their uses, the herb garden should be situated in a sunny spot very near your kitchen. Then you can simply step out the door and make an ordinary meal into a culinary delight! If there isn’t an obvious space handy, herbs will grow very well in containers.
However, if you do have the space, there is a wonderful project called the ‘Herb Spiral’ you can build. It’s extremely space efficient and caters for the various microclimates that herbs like.
It involves building a vertical spiral, usually from rocks, about 6 ft across and 2-3 feet high. The top is quite dry and hot, the bottom is moist and there is a sunny side and a shady side. A garden of this size will need about 1.5 cubic metres of soil or compost materials.
The top is good for Mediterranearn type herbs like rosemary, thyme and sage. The mid sections suit chives, shallots, Italian parsley, tarragon, rocket and coriander. The lower, cooler section suits borage, peppermint, pennywort and lemon balm. These are just suggestions as there are many plants that will grow in your spiral.
Useful note: For those in the Northern hemisphere, the hottest side of your spiral will be facing south. For those in the Southern hemisphere, the hottest side of your spiral will be facing north.
Flowers and Shrubs
Every garden has some sort of ornamental flowers or shrubs. It’s fundamental to our concept of a garden! The no dig gardening method will allow then to thrive no matter where you are.
There isn’t the space to go into specifics here, but some simple considerations before you get started…
Fruit trees
To use the no dig garden method with fruit trees, you have to be patient. The garden will have to be 2-3 generations on before the benefits have gone deep enough for the fruit tree to be planted. However, once the hard yards are done (mostly by local worms!), you should be thinking about planting your own fruit trees.
Apples are the most popular fruit on the planet. Do you recall how the fruit tasted when you were a kid? Nothing like the stuff you get today. The disturbing thing is that pesticides can be taken into the fruit and stay there long after harvest. Then they are waxed and stored in chemical dependant environments. Seriously consider growing your own fruit.
Berry canes, apples, cherries, lemons, limes, plums, pears, oranges, there’s no end to the possibilities. Explore what will grow in your neighbourhood and plant those trees! It’s not too hard and a single tree (apple) can net up to 500 apples in a growing season.
Growing items of your own food is incredibly rewarding. Even decorating your house with cut flowers that you have grown yourself is vastly more satisfying than just buying a bunch. Gardening is a creative and spiritually nourishing pastime. Ponder your space. Imagine the limitless variety available to you. Then go crazy with inspiration!
Judy Williams (http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com) aspires to become a fulltime earth mother goddess. This site acts as a primer for all vegetable gardening aspects covering topics like how to build a garden, nurture seedlings, container gardening and composting.
In our endeavor to create a beautiful flower garden, we must first start with the soil. Soil is not just “dirt”. It is instead a composition of minerals, water, air, organic material that has decomposed and bacteria. All of these must be in the right proportions to grow the flowers and plants that create our beautiful flower garden.
We all know that our flowers and plants gather their required nutrients for growth through their roots from the soil. This means each of us, as the gardener, must be the steward of our garden soil. Our neglect and abuse can ruin the soil. Indeed, in many parts of the country our farming and ranching soil has been so depleted as to make growing crops require ever increasing amounts of synthetic chemical amendments.
If you should dig into your soil, you will see that it is divided into topsoil and subsoil. The topsoil is where you will find most of the organic material and living organisms. However, plants draw minerals from the subsoil and it is important to our flower garden as well.
Soil differs in different parts of the country based upon the kind of minerals it is derived from and the size of the particles that make up the soil. These can range from gravel to clay. For most flower gardening situations, we are usually concerned with sandy soils to clay soils. This is important to know, as it has to do with the amount of air available within your soil for your plants to access. As well, it concerns how fast water is drained away from your plants.
Perhaps the best thing one can do with any flower garden soil is to add organic material. Some gardeners believe adding sand to any soil but already sandy soil is also of benefit. But organic matter is perhaps the most elegant solution for just about any type of soil problem. Organic matter can:
- help the soil hold more water
- help it drain better
- add important nutrients to the soil
- give bacteria and other beneficial organisms “food” to work with to the benefit of our flowers and plants
- changes the structure of our soil over time as we keep adding it.
coyright 2005. Sandra Dinkins-Wilson
Looking for more information about your Flower Garden? Check out our flower gardening tips and articles at http://flowergardenlovers.com