Persian Walnut Trees Sprouting

This summer I developed an interest in walnut trees and, walking around my neighborhood, came to realize there are many walnut trees growing around here-- I just hadn't recognized them as walnut trees before. However, I didn't know how to determine exactly what kind of walnut trees they are. I am sure most of them are common English Walnut trees. And there is one which I am sure is a Heartnut tree (AKA Japanese Walnut) but, after chatting with the property owner for a while, even they didn't know what kind of tree it was. It had been there when they bought the property--over thirty-five years ago! Apparently, the only way to know for sure what kind of walnut tree you have is to either buy a plant from a nursery, or get some seeds of known type and plant them yourself. So that is what I did.

Earlier this month (October 2019), I ordered and received some Persian (AKA Carpathian) Walnut seeds for planting from Grimo Nut Nursery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. I wanted Persian Walnuts because they are supposed to be the most cold-hardy. The nice thing about Grimo Nut Nursery is that they seem to take their business seriously, offering various strains of Persian Walnuts and listing the features of each strain. It is nice to know exactly what kind of tree I am planting. So I specifically ordered the most cold-hardy strain of Persian Walnut tree available. In a few years, they will be moved up to northern B.C., so I hope these strains are hardy enough.

I received twenty seeds, a mix of the most cold-hardy strains available from Grimo at the time. Here is a photo showing the variety of nuts I received.

Walnuts have to go through a cold temperature stratification process before they sprout, so I have put them in a pot, covered it with soil, and put a mesh on top of it to deter squirrels. This upcoming spring, I will move them to individual little pots and, as they germinate, move them to individual bigger pots. I plan to update this post to track the growth of the trees.

Update: 15 March 2020
Today, I transferred the walnuts into individual 5" peat pots. Spring is in the air, and we have a few days of clear sunny weather so I thought it was a good time to move them. In fact, several of the walnuts have already sprouted, so I could have actually done the transfer a week or two earlier. Here is a photo of one of the sprouts:

The part that comes out first is the tap root which grows quite a bit before the leaf follows. So, walnuts that were already sprouted were put into their individual pots with their tap roots pointing down. Of the different strains of walnut seed I planted, a high proportion of the medium oval walnuts have sprouted (the Combe strain.) A few of the large round nuts (Young's B1) and the medium round nuts (Dooley Hybrid) were also sprouted but, of the few that were, they were much further behind than the medium oval nuts.

I am glad to know the nuts are successfully germinating and look forward to seeing the first leaves poke above the ground in the coming weeks.

Update: 27 April 2020
Here is one of the first Persian Walnuts to poke above the surface, at about a week old:

This one comes from a medium oval nut (the Combe strain.) This strain seems to be a fair bit ahead of the other Persian Walnut strains.

4 May 2020
Here it is at about two weeks old:

18 May 2020
Here it is at about four weeks old:

5 October 2020
Here it is at about five months old:

The stem of this tree is about six inches tall. The leaves are about to change colour and fall off, so this is about as much as this tree will grow in its first year.

12 April 2021
One of the older Persian Walnut trees is on the verge of leafing out. The bud has not yet burst, but it is close. This is surprising; I had expected the Persian Walnut tree to leaf out before the Butternut sapling, but it turned out to be the other way around.

19 April 2021
In the week since the previous update, this tree has leafed out and grown significantly.

23 May 2021
The older Walnut tree (about six years old) has flowers on it. Only three, but this is the first year it has produced flowers. It is still a bit young; I wasn't expecting to see flowers for a few more years, but this is a welcome surprise.

21 September 2021
The tree still has a couple walnuts on it (the others disappeared soon after appearing.) The one high on the tree has burst open, and looks like the walnut is on the verge of falling out. There is another nut, on a lower branch, but it has not burst yet.

Butternut Trees Sprouting

Earlier this month (October 2019), I got some Butternut seeds for planting.

When the trees get older they are beautiful and the trees, themselves, look extremely similar to Black Walnut trees--but there are small differences.

However, there is a big difference in the appearance of the nuts produced. The nuts of a Butternut tree are milder than both Black Walnuts and the common English Walnuts usually sold in stores: sweeter and more buttery tasting. In terms of appearance, Butternuts are oval instead of round. And once the husk is removed, the nut is rough and pointed. See the following photo.

I picked these off the ground from a grove of Butternut trees. I think I was about a week late in picking them up; the husks apparently start decomposing surprisingly fast.

Walnuts have to go through a cold temperature stratification process before they sprout, so I have put them in a pot, covered it with soil, and put a mesh on top of it to deter squirrels. This upcoming spring, I will move them to individual little pots and, as they germinate, move them to individual bigger pots. I plan to update this post to track the growth of the trees.

Update: 17 March 2020
Today, I transferred the Butternuts into individual 5" peat pots. Several of them have already sprouted:

The part that comes out first is the tap root which grows quite a bit before the leaf follows. So, nuts that were already sprouted were put into their individual pots with their tap roots pointing down.

I am glad to know the Butternuts are successfully germinating and look forward to seeing the first leaves poke above the ground soon.

Update: 25 April 2020
First day of a new Butternut tree completely out of the soil:

Unlike the Persian Walnut and Black Walnut seedlings, which appear reddish, Butternut seedlings are green.

4 May 2020
Here it is at about 1 week old:

11 May 2020
Here it is at about 2 weeks old:

25 May 2020
Here it is at about 4 weeks old:

5 October 2020
Here it is at about five months old:

The stem of this tree is about thirteen inches tall. The leaves are about to change colour and fall off, so this is about as much as this tree will grow in its first year.

11 April 2021
One of the Butternut saplings has leafed out. The bud has clearly burst; the leaf is small and curled up, but already unfurling.

19 April 2021
In the week since the last update, the Butternut tree has clearly grown:

20 June 2021
Since waking up this Spring, the young Butternut tree has grown about twenty-four inches so far.

Black Walnut Trees Sprouting

I am making a little detour with this post, it is not on a topic related to anything I usually write about.

This summer I spent some time in the back yard, working in the garden, cleaning up, trimming, planting plants, hauling around soil and fertilizer, etc. One of the plants I am taking a particular interest in is walnut trees.

In addition to the (unknown type) walnut trees planted by local squirrels, I planted some Black Walnut trees. I found a grove of Black Walnut trees and picked up some of the walnuts laying on top of the ground from last year's crop. Since they were from last year, they had already been through the cold temperature stratification and should germinate once put in the ground. They were put in a bucket of water overnight. The ones that floated were thrown out as non-viable and the ones that remained on the bottom of the bucket were put in small peat pots or planters.

Since I didn't know ahead of time which nuts would sprout, I put the nuts in small planter pots like the following:

These ones are plastic cubic plant pots about 3-1/2" on a side. The nut was planted about 1" down.

I didn't expect much until next spring. But . . . several sprouted! And they grow pretty fast! One afternoon I check on them and there is nothing. The next afternoon, there is a young sprout coming out, bent over like a bean sprout, but red. And the leaves of the new trees look nothing like the mature trees. As soon as they sprout, they are put in bigger pots (five gallon planter pots.) They are easy to transplant; the entire plant and cube of soil slides out of the small plastic pots easily and the trees don't seem to be affected when they are transplanted. Perhaps that is because they are transplanted within a day of their shoot peeking above the ground. Following are some photos.

Here is one about one week old:

Here is one about ten days old:

Here is one about 21 days old:

Here is one about 23 days old:

It is very satisfying watching them grow. The big test now will be if they survive the upcoming winter. It is not expected to be too cold but, once they lose their leaves and go dormant, they will be moved against the house, which should provide some extra protection.

Update: 6 October 2019
I went back to the Black Walnut grove and picked up some nuts from this year. Following is a photo of nuts with and without the husk. Note that the Black Walnut husk is very close to being a perfect sphere, like a miniature green basketball. The size can vary quite a lot and so can the colour; some are very green while others a lot more yellow. Inside the husk is the nut itself. Again, it is quite round--and black.

These seeds haven't gone through the cold temperature stratification process yet, so I have put them in a pot, covered it with soil, and put a mesh on top of it to protect the nuts from squirrels. This upcoming spring, I will move them to individual little pots and, as they germinate, move them to individual pots. I hope to update this post to track the growth of the trees.

Update: 22 March 2020
Today, I transferred some Black Walnuts into individual 5" peat pots. Several of them have already sprouted, so I could have actually done the transfer a week or two earlier. Here is a photo of one of the sprouts:

Note that the leaf is just starting to come out of the nut but the tap root has already grown quite a bit. This feature is good to keep in mind (to ensure the sprouts have a sufficiently-large pot in which to grow): by the time a walnut's leaves poke above the soil, its root has already grown down significantly.

5 October 2020
Here it is at about five months old:

The stem of this tree is about eleven inches tall. The leaves are about to change colour and fall off, so this is about as much as this tree will grow in its first year.