My Ginkgo Biloba from Seeds

Greetings, everyone!

There's this plant, widely regarded as a living fossil - Ginkgo Biloba - that originates somewhere about 180 million years ago. It grows as a large tree, twenty to thirty-five meters long, and it is extremely beautiful!

Ginkgo biloba has separate sexes, with some trees being female and others male. It sometimes manifests a rare behavior of some branches changing sexes! That's probably how it survived on this planet for so long, isn't it?

When I learned about this tree from a random discussion last year, I immediately wanted to try growing one or two.

I believe I wrote before about my trip to a Botanical Garden where I knew I could find it, and I managed to get a few fruits from the grass around the female tree:

The small fruits smell bad, and people on the internet recommend wearing gloves when handling them. They also contain a toxin, and some people might be allergic to it - but for me, all this didn't matter...

At home, I washed the fruits with water, and I separated the seeds. Seven seeds was all I could find!

The seeds are covered with another toxin that prevents them from germinating so that in the wilderness, they could hold a longer time before adequate conditions could come (probably a lot of rain is needed before the toxin washes away naturally). I had to intensively wash the seeds with soap to get the seeds for the next step.

With seeds washed properly, I had to simulate a long and mild winter in order to trigger the germination process. Wrapped in a sealed bag to keep a constant humidity, I had to store the seeds in the refrigerator for three months before I could plant them.

And guess what!?

Today, I found a small surprise: from those seven seeds, the first plant popped up last night!

In thirty days, the new plants shall be about 15 cm long.
I'm so emotional about this!

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