Carpinus betulus 'Hornbeam'

[Ex. Co. Durham, England]

A slow growing medium sized tree to 30m, with a grey fluted trunk and toothed green leaves that are an outstanding yellow colour in the autumn. The green catkins in spring give rise to the small winged nuts in the autumn. Native to Britain, occurring in pure stands in some areas, also found in mixed woodland and hedgerows.

USES:

The leaves are haemostatic, they are used in external compresses to stop bleeding and heal wounds. A distilled water made from the leaves is an effective eye lotion, the leaves are harvested in August and dried for later use. The plant is used in Bach flower remedies - the keywords for prescribing it are 'Tiredness', 'Weariness' and 'Mental and physical exhaustion.

GROWING INFORMATION:

Hornbeam seeds have a deep dormancy within them, this requires a degree of patience to overcome and it is usually quite easy to get high levels of germination if the correct procedures are followed.

First prepare a free draining substrate into which the seeds are to be mixed, this can be a 50/50 mixture of compost and sharp sand, or perlite, vermiculite. The chosen substrate needs to be moist (but not wet), if you can squeeze water out of it with your hand it is too wet, and your seeds may drown and die. Mix the seeds into the substrate, making sure that there is enough volume of material to keep the seeds separated.

Place the seed mixture into a clear plastic bag (freezer bags, especially zip-lock bags are very useful for this -provided a little gap is left in the seal for air exchange) If it is not a zip-lock type bag it needs to be loosely tied. Then write the date on the bag so that you know when the pre-treatment was started.

The seeds first require a period of warm pre-treatment and need to be kept in temperatures of 20°C for a period of at least 4 weeks, it is not critical if it lasts a week or two longer than this. During this time make sure that the pre-treatment medium does not dry out at any stage or it will be ineffective!

Next the seeds require a cold period to break the final part of the dormancy, this is easily achieved by placing the bag in the fridge (4°C) for around 24 weeks. It is quite possible for the seeds to germinate in the bag at these temperatures when they are ready to do so, if they do, just remove them from the bag and carefully plant them up.

When the period of pre-treatment has finished the seed should be ready to be planted. Small quantities can be sown in pots or seed trays filled with a good quality compost and cover them with a thin layer of compost no more than 1cm deep. For larger quantities it is easiest to sow the seeds in a well-prepared seedbed outdoors once the warm and cold pre-treatments have finished and wait for the seeds to appear.

It has also been found that fluctuating pre-treatment temperatures can give the best germination results and I have myself had excellent results by keeping the mixed seeds in a cold shed through the winter for the cold stage of their pre-treatment and allowing the temperature to fluctuate naturally. Un-germinated seeds can have the whole warm and cold process repeated to enable more seeds to germinate.

Do not expose newly sown seeds to high temperatures (above 25°C). Keep the seedlings well-watered and weed free. Growth in the first year is usually between 15 - 50cm depending on the time of germination and cultural techniques and developing seedlings are usually trouble free. Allow them to grow for 1 - 2 years before planting them in a permanent position.

HARVESTED: 2020

 

APPROX. 35+ SEEDS