How to grow barberry from seeds: planting subtleties
A beautiful lush barberry bush perfectly serves as a hedge, and also gives a bountiful harvest. It reproduces mainly in a vegetative way, but if you wish, you can get a seedling from the seed. However, it is not enough to know how to grow barberry from seeds. When seed propagation, be prepared for some difficulties and even chagrin.
First of all, the seeds have a very low germination rate (20-40%) and from ten seeds you can get only 1-2 seedlings. And this is after the obligatory stratification procedure. In addition, the bushes grow very slowly. To turn a seedling into a full-fledged seedling, you need to wait at least 2 years. And they will also need to be grafted, otherwise the berries will be small, because varietal characteristics are lost. If such obstacles are not terrible for you, or there is simply no other possibility, let's learn to plant barberry seeds.
Features of collection and preparation of seeds
You can do without stratification only in one case - if you plant seeds before winter. Then nature will do everything by itself.
How to grow barberry from seeds: planting dates
There are two ways to plant seeds:
- Autumn. In early October, make beds and lay out fresh seeds, not trying too hard to back off. Less than half will rise anyway. There is one big advantage in subwinter planting: the seeds do not need to be stratified. They will undergo this procedure in natural conditions and will sprout in the spring.
- In the spring. If there is no opportunity for autumn planting, be sure to send the seeds to the refrigerator. They can be planted in the garden in April, when the soil warms up.
Whichever method you choose, if the crops are thick, they need to be thinned in the spring. It is enough to leave up to 50 cm - after all, this is not a permanent place, but a hotbed. The grown seedlings can be planted no earlier than in two years.