Kentucky Coffee Tree Seedings And Limelight Hydrangea Cuttings Update - April 2024

A few days ago, I posted photos of the latest trees that I planted via acorns (and Chestnuts) in my annual backyard tree nursery project to grow trees from seeds.  I've been at this a few years now and started with Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds in 2021.  In 2022, I cultivated some Catalpa trees from seed.  And tried to root some Hydrangea cuttings.  By 2023, I had a number of small seedlings of different varieties that all needed to be potted-up.  And, most-recently, last Fall, I opted to go for just ONE species: Regal Prince Oak trees.  And, a couple of Chinese Chestnuts.  With those potted up (at least some of them), I thought it was time to dig-up the inventory and see how things are going with the existing seedlings.

As I've done the past few years, I buried the nursery pots in the ground in hopes that they'd handle the cold Zone 6a/5b winter a little better in the ground.   Here's how things are looking now - but most haven't leaf'd out yet, so I'm not sure what we have *just yet*.

First up, are what I'm pretty sure are the Kentucky Coffee Trees:

There's also a tray of pints that are (I think) a variety of Oaks from 2023:

Here's the bud on a 3-year-old Kentucky Coffee Tree seedling:

And last is a Limelight Hydrangea.  This was started in 2022 from a cutting, so it is 1.5 years old and about 15" tall:

I'll move these to a spot where they can be shaded from the sun and get watered-in this Spring.  I also need to think about moving some of them to larger pots - as the roots are escaping from the bottom.  With the 14 Regal Prince Oaks and 3 Chestnuts, I'm going to be close to 30 nursery plants this season.