| Stratification is also a process which occurs naturally - the seed is chilled (and possibly frozen) over the winter months and, presumably, the outer covering of the seed breaks down and allows germination to occur. In the wild, the seed will fall during autumn, be subjected to the cold over winter and germinate in the spring. Gardeners who do not live in cold winter areas have to resort to providing the seeds with a fake winter in the fridge. I have a number of hellebore which seed quite readily but germination does not occur until after the second winter. I was curious about the stratification length of dogwood so I looked it up. This site has some fairly detailed instructions for growing dogwood seeds in a plastic bag of peatmoss - 105 days at room temperature (autumn?) and a further 105 in the fridge. There may not be enough winter left for successful stratification to occur (don't tell me we have another 105 days of winter left) and I wonder if your seeds will come up next spring. You might be looking at germination the following spring. Have you collected your seed locally? If so, you might try some more next autumn. Find a few patches of ground where you can leave them more or less undisturbed, or use pots, and scatter the seed over the top. Don't cover or mulch over winter. If you bought your seeds, you might try the fridge technique. The little dears will think it is spring whenever they come out of the fridge, regardless of the real season. You might have to provide extra care over the first winter - but you would probably do that anyway. |
Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.familyresource.com/lifestyles/22/123/
