What’s The Best Way to Grow Redbud Tree’s?
Visions of strolling under arching branches cloaked in pink blooms. That’s why I winter sowed a tray of redbud seeds in the winter of 2021-2022. The results weren’t what I expected. Let me show you how it’s done:
The first time I tried to sow Redbud (Cercis canadensis) seeds I thought I had failed miserably.
Instead of using the jug method I sowed them into a cell tray, covered with screen to keep squirrels and the like from interfering, and then checked it regularly like I did with all of my jugs.
Spring arrived, the jugs were sprouting. And… nothing from the Redbud seeds. I wondered if the seeds were dud’s. Did I mess up something when sowing?
Luckily for me, I am a lazy gardener and a busy mom, and often take awhile to get around to finishing a task or cleaning my gardening projects up. I stashed the tray in my garden bed with promises to dump the soil but didn’t.
The first week of June, a month after our last frost date, I noticed sprouts. Probably weeds I thought, but a forever hopeful gardener, I didn’t do anything. By June 9th they had the distinct heart shaped leaves appearing and more new sprouts had appeared!
Mid June I had 9 seedlings growing from the 24 seeds I had planted. The germination rate was much lower then I expected, under 40%. The germination timeframe was much longer then I expected.
Unfortunately I potted them all up into bigger (recycled) containers that failed to have any drainage holes and between drowning in the rain and being left out to the freeze-thaw elements in the winter, all the saplings died.
Since I want that alley of pink, I winter-sowed more seeds the next winter (February 2023). This time in jugs to see if that changes the speed and quantity of germination. All duds. Not one sprout. Learning from my first attempt I left it all season long to see if something would sprout and nothing did.
Now in February of 2024 I find myself still attempting to crack the code on redbud germination.
This year I soaked the seeds overnight before sowing. None floated, so in theory, all are viable seeds. Half of the bunch were placed into jugs for traditional winter sowing. The other half I am potting up inside to see if my warm home and grow lights have better success.
Fast forward a few months and none of the seeds that I started inside grew.
Winter sowing again looked like a flop. I left the jugs that appeared to have failed in a pile of scrap logs, under a very mature spruce tree, with a promise to clean them up… and like normal, I did not. Come October 2024, I finally cleaned up that area and to my surprise I found 3 lovely baby Redbud trees in the jugs!
That then prompted the building of new beds and led to the planting of nearly one thousand spring bulbs and the 3 Redbud saplings. Even though it will take a few years for these saplings to get established before they ever bloom I know that Spring 2025 is going to be magical!
If you want to dive into the reason Redbud trees fail to bloom, you can do that here.
This is how I started our redbud seeds using the winter sowing jug method:
If you want even more details, I’ve gone more in depth on the topic of winter sowing in Ontario in this blog post.
It is my goal with Buying Thyme to connect the community to nature and practice sustainability practices so we can better our patch of the ecosystem. Our flowers invite you to slow down, savor simple joys, and celebrate the beauty of the seasons wherever you take them, but our blog teaches you how you can apply everything we have learned, on your own property! For our Southern Ontario specific gardening tips make sure to peruse our other blog articles here.
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