Growing acers and hellebores from seed

[ElleDubloo]

Along the theme of money saving, I've decided to try and grow some acers and hellebores from seed. Has anyone had experience of doing this? Any advice/recommendations? Both are extremely slow to germinate and grow, and involve things like putting them in a propagator for x months followed by a fridge for x months. Would be good to hear whether others have been successful or not.

I have some hellebores that self-seed around nicely - they're H. foetidus
rather than the Christmas roses, but it might be an easy one to start off with by leaving the pot of seeds outside to germinate. Good luck!

My hellebores self seed like mad, my back garden is full of them. They do take a long time to grow though.

Acer is also very slow to eastablish and grow. How long have you got!

Guess it depends on the acer. I picked some seeds off a tree in a local park a couple of years ago and did the shock treatment followed by plonking them in a tub of soil and the germinated no problem. We now have a few young trees (plan is to cut them at 2/3 years old for the young wood).

I'm guessing you're thinking about the fancier japanese acers or the like?

Lidl have Acers currently at £6.49 each . Is that too expensive ?

Thing is with hellebores, it takes years to find out what colour the flowers are going to be.