Not fruit but I found some gingko nuts and now I have some trees.
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Couldn’t believe how stinky they were. Rancid cheese. Out of 16 seeds I got 4 trees. One is planted in the ground and 3 are still in pots. I think I’m going to turn a couple into bonsai specimens.
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Mine didn’t smell too bad but I collected the nuts in February and the fruit had already dried out and wrinkled. I was thinking about doing a couple as bonsai as well
If you get them in autumn, soon after they’ve freshly fallen, and they are retched. Stink of vomit or rancid cheese.
A neighbor of mine has one as a bonsai and it’s gorgeous. Seeing that is what inspired me to start looking for seeds. It wasn’t easy to find a female tree. Almost all of the ginkgo trees are male to avoid the mess made by thousands of stink balls falling on the ground.
Have you read anything about the gingko’s reproductive system? It is fascinating. They are gymnosperms and unlike angiosperms do not create a fruit. Those nuts are actually naked seeds. They are more closely related to a pine than almost any other leafy tree. And the way the sperm moves within the pollen is with a flagella, just like human sperm, making them motile. They can literally ‘swim’ through the air as wind carries them to find the female tree. Gingko are really fascinating living fossils.
The new type of gingko I’m looking for is a dwarf selection. That may require some creative propagation method beyond just planting seeds. I’ve only seen one specimen and it did not produce seeds.
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That’s fascinating thanks for sharing! As of today a third seedling emerged! I happened upon female trees on a university campus by chance. I guess the smell will keep predation to a minimum but their are Asian cultures that eat the nuts. I have yet to try them but think they should only be consumed in small amounts after cooking. I also read that some people have an irritating skin reaction to touching the fruit. I was fortunate to not have any issues
It seems like loquat seedlings (and trees) and pretty much indestructible.
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I actually lost a few of my first-year loquats this winter, but only 2 of 8. I was expecting worse losses with mid-teens and tiny seedlings, though.
I know others have had trouble germinating guava seeds, but these strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum) seeds were neglected in the back of my seed drawer for over 6 months until a couple weeks ago, and looks like nearly 100% germination using paper towel method:
I waited too long to put them in soil, though, so many of the rootlets were growing into the paper and hard to disentangle. These were from Raindance seeds.
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I guess I should clarify it never gets below freezing here
Some of my Baya Marisa apple seedlings. Open pollinated most likely by Prinzenapfel, Gravenstein, Roter Eiserapfel, Reinete grise, Oberländer Himbeerapfel or.2 local old varieties. Very different characteristics so I’m expecting a lot of fun when they fruit. I will probably also keep some green leafed with a blush.
The pale green one in front is a schizandra from last year.
A bunch of cherry plums that I used for jam and sweet’n’sour sauce last year. From the shape of seed shell probably red skinned.
And two currants from last year selected by birds and found under hazel bushes. One has the brownish colour of young white currant while the other has suspiciously pink and hairy leaf stems.
Who needs lottery?
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My sourplums (ximenia caffra). I’m glad nearly all of these popped up.
Feijoa (I’m pretty sure at least) on the left and black chilean guava on the right.
Not a brand new seedling, but just moved one of my ice cream bean trees from its pot to the ground. Out of my 5, I plan on keeping 3 in pots this year to compare growth and how well they handle winter next year. They’ve definitely been the stars so far, got the seeds in January and the biggest one is probably 10 inches tall.
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A bunch of trifoliate orange rootstocks and then all started in summer-winter a range of ice cream beans, jackfruit, Mamey Sapote, lychee, sugar apple, soursop, an Imbe, an Achachairu, Lemondrop mangosteen to name a few. And more seeds yet to germinate.
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Hi @Jujube and @jsteph00921, any tips for germinating ginkgo seeds? I’ve had a terrible germination rate in my 2 attempts.
2 years ago I had a couple germinate out of about 50 seeds after 3 months in the fridge.
This year, I’ve had 0 germinate. I collected about 100 seeds in the fall, cleaned them and had them in the fridge in moist peat moss for over 3 months. They’ve been out of the fridge for over a month now in room temperature.
I read online that I may need to dry them/cure them in the fall prior to cold stratification, could that be the reason?
Might be a Pittosporum? Maybe … mock orange. Anyone have a weird tree on your street that smells like orange blossoms but has weird inedible fruit?
What do they look like inside the shell?
In early autumn I gathered the ginkgo seeds from beneath a majestic old tree. The next day I removed the seed’s stinky flesh, and placed them in a baggie filled with moist peat moss. I left that baggie in the fridge for the remainder of the fall and most of the winter, removing them in late February. I planted the stratified seeds into 4” pots, using run of the mill potting soil as my medium. I then placed the containers on a top shelf in my greenhouse. Within a few weeks 80% of the seeds had successfully germinated. Unfortunately, about half of those died over the course of their first summer. Ultimately, I ended up with 4 trees from that batch of gingko seeds. I planted one out front, by the entrance of the property, and it’s now about chest height. The other 3 are in pots as bonsai.
Are you familiar with the dwarf variety? Fantastic little tree. I first encountered it when we sold one as a special order last spring. I’d been planning to follow up with the wholesaler to perhaps get some cuttings. Unfortunately, I never got around to it.
Evidently you can fairly easily propagate ginkgo by rooted cutting. So that’s another option if you can find a tree with accessible branches. According to the sources I’ve read online, the semi lignified cuttings in mid summer work best. Cloning will ensure you don’t end up with a female tree that makes a huge mess. Of course they take 30 years to reveal their sex, and by then I reckon most of us will be gone, or at least close to it. Plus you can’t be sure what sex the tree is that you intend to clone.
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Thank you for sharing your method. I did something very similar to you and for some reason not seeing any sprouting.
I haven’t tried propagating via cuttings. It’s something that I think I’ll try this summer.
In terms of dwarf gingkos, there’s a cultivar with the name Mariken. Is that similar to what you’re describing?
They look fine, just not awake, yet. 
My aunt used to gather the seeds in a park and then germinate them to give away seedlings as gifts. She would chill the in a fridge like you did, but she said the trick was to move them to a warmer place (25-30°C) just a few days of being out of the fridge. She would put them somewhere close to a radiator.
I would put them back in the fridge for just a week and then use a heating mat or a sunny windowsill to give them more of a wake-up call.
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