Keep the seedlings well watered and weed free. Ungerminated seeds can have the whole warm and cold process repeated again to enable more seeds to germinate.ĭo not expose newly sown seeds to high temperatures (above 25 Celsius). It has also been found that fluctuating pre-treatment temperatures can give the best germination results and I have myself had excellent results by keeping the mixed seeds in a cold shed through the winter for the cold stage of their pre-treatment and allowing the temperature to fluctuate naturally. For larger quantities it is easiest to sow the seeds in a well prepared seedbed outdoors once the warm and cold pre-treatments have finished and wait for the seedlings to appear. Small quantities can be sown in pots or seed trays filled with a good quality compost and cover them with a thin layer of compost no more than 1 cm deep. When the period of pre-treatment has finished the seed should be ready to be planted. When the dormancy has broken it is quite possible for the seeds to germinate in the bag at these temperatures when they are ready to do so, if they do, just remove them from the bag and carefully plant them up. Next the seeds are required to undergo a cold period to break the final part of the dormancy, this is easily achieved by placing the bag of seeds and compost in the fridge at (4 Celsius or 39F) for another 17 weeks minimum. Make sure that the seed and compost mixture does not dry out or the pre treatment will be ineffective.

Write the date on the bag so that you know when the pre-treatment was started.įirst the mixed seeds need to placed somewhere warm at around 20 Celsius for at least 17 weeks. Place the seed mixture into a clear plastic bag (freezer bags, especially zip-lock bags are very useful for this -provided a little gap is left in the seal for air exchange) If it is not a zip-lock type bag it needs to be loosely tied. Mix the seeds into the substrate, making sure that their is enough volume of material to keep the seeds separated. The chosen substrate needs to be moist (but not wet), if you can squeeze water out of it with your hand it is too wet and your seeds may drown and die. Next prepare a free draining substrate into which the seeds are to be mixed, this can be a 50/50 mixture of compost and sharp sand, or perlite, vermiculite. Paperbark Maple seeds of this species have a deep dormancy within them, this requires a degree of patience to overcome.įirst soak the seeds in hot tap water and leave them to stand for 24 hours in the water as it cools. This tree will not tolerate drought conditions well. Grows well in a variety of soil types but prefers a moist, well drained soil. Best grown in an open sunny position with only partial shade. This is one of the last maples to develop Autumn colour. Through the summer the tree has dark green, three-lobed leaves that turn a brilliant orange to crimson red in the autumn. Planting position is key and the surrounding planting must be kept low to ensure that the setting sun strikes the coppery strips of bark that peel away from the main trunk to bring a rich, warm glow to the Winter Garden. This feature comes into its own during the winter months as the fan of up-swept bare branches are illuminated by the low setting sun. The shoots are densely downy at first, this wearing off by the second or third year and the bark exfoliating by the third or fourth year. The bark is smooth, shiny orange-red, peeling in thin, papery layers it may become fissured in old trees. It grows slowly into a small to medium sized tree usually between 6-9 m (20-30 ft) in height and 5-6 m (15-25 ft) wide Native to central China it was introduced to cultivation in Europe in 1901 It also has spectacular autumn foliage which can include red, orange and pink tones. It is admired for its decorative exfoliating bark, translucent pieces of which often stay attached to the branches until worn away.

Paperbark Maple is widely grown as an ornamental tree in temperate regions.

Paperbark maple tree bark