Germination of London Plane (platanus acerifolia)

London Plane seedlings at approx 4 weeks old

The London Plane is a tree that I have wanted to grow for over 25 years. The reason that I did not grow it before is that I have read so many time that the germination is very poor -below 1%.

Last autumn I collected some seed balls from some beautiful trees growing in a park on a spur of the moment decision. The result as you can see in the above photo is pretty good. The seeds were soaked in water for 24 hours, drained and mixed with a little dry sand to separate them from each other to make sowing them a little easier .

They must have light to enable germination so they were sown in a seed tray on the compost surface. I made 5 short metal hoops to support transparent pallet wrapping film although a clear plastic bag would work equally well. After a day or so the water vapour begins to condense on the inside if the film indicating 100% humidity inside and the correct conditions for surface sown seed to germinate.

After approximately a week kept at room temperature signs of germination were evident. After another week or so covered by the film the edges were lifted slightly to increase air circulation and start to prepare the seedlings for life under more normal conditions

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A standard size seed tray with 5 metal hoops made from thin wire supporting a cover of thin pallet wrapping film. This is a system that works very well for any surface sown seed such as paulownia, catalpa etc.