[pgkevet]

C'mon, have a go.. save a chestnut or three, save the stones from a pack of nectarines, the seeds from a  pomegranate, crack an almond or two.....You'll find any info needed on the web but a lot of these need a cold spell to trigger gemination as simply as a pot of soil outside..or a jamjar in the fridge. Yeah pomegranates are harder to grow if not in the south UK.. but shouldn't be impossible in a pot/greenhouse.
I've got 4 chestnut trees doing well from nuts sown 4 years ago.
Some stuff is perhaps going to far... I have failed in the past with breadfruit and lychee (well the lychee germinated but a frosty night crept through the double-glazing enough to kill my seedlings) and face it- breadfruit really is too big for the greenhouse - unless you have a big greenhouse. Bananas I have grown just once... yield not so good from a pot specimen but I had a client who successfully grew coffee and harvested her cherries. And there's always a pineapple top you can plant.....

[pgkevet]

A great link to almonds (similar for nectarine except you have to eat the nectarine first and save the stone)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8WsGISimjM

[Fleecewife]

For me it's more important to plant native trees to plant out around the place, rather than exotics which will die.  Maybe not such fun, but more use, and food for wildlife.  Quite a few giant older trees came down in the recent storms and they all need to be replaced 

[Terry T]

We created a little tree nusery bed in our veg garden.
Trees don’t stand a chance of regeneration on our smallholding because of the grazing pressure from rabbits and deer but do appear regularly in our veg beds which are fenced off. I transplant to a nursery bed and plant out on the smallholding with a gaurd when they get to 3-4 feet tall. I get around 20 trees a year this way, hawthorn, hazel, oak, rowan,  field maple, alder, grey willow and crab apple.

[pgkevet]

For me it's more important to plant native trees to plant out around the place, rather than exotics which will die.  Maybe not such fun, but more use, and food for wildlife.  Quite a few giant older trees came down in the recent storms and they all need to be replaced 

To me it's important to reduce our dependance on imported foodstuffs. Sweet chestnut, walnut, filberts are all long lived trees that do well UK...

Fruit trees such as traditional apple, pear, sweet cherry? Surely you don't have anything against them being grown here.. so why not widen the spectrum with varieties of peach, apricot and thers including those on my first list.

By your argument I could challenge you against growing potatoes.
I get slightly miffed when i find we're importing nuts we could happily and efficiently grow here and that's before we get to the less common (but available as cold hardy types) such as hickory and pecan. Wales has the right climate for monkey puzzles and they have edible nuts too.
I wasn't suggesting whole forests of my varieties but suggesting we folk with a bit of spare land could help - and frankly i would like to see areas like the new forest being planned on reclaimed pit land to include chestnut and walnut and some fruit trees.. if only to encourage folk to go into that woodland.
Anyone who wants native tree seedlings that's prepared to come to mid-wales is welcome to the hundreds of self-seeded stuff all over my fields at the moment. Too much back-ache for me to go lifting them. Last spring there was one ash tree with several thousand seedlings under it.
The greatest insult of all is importing 'native' seedlings and disease.
Finally... native is relative as to how far back you go in history.

[sandspider]

I do this most years, and have finally managed to plant out some of my own seed raised trees. A good feeling.

I have however found it much quicker to buy saplings from nurseries (local, guaranteed provenance etc.) and plant those out!

[pgkevet]

I do this most years, and have finally managed to plant out some of my own seed raised trees. A good feeling.

I have however found it much quicker to buy saplings from nurseries (local, guaranteed provenance etc.) and plant those out!

But then you have to pay for them
I must have bought about fruit/nut 60 trees for my place..perhaps more. Certainly the apple/pear/stone fruit for known varieties but having bought and lost 3 almond trees (all planted in different locations) I'm going to try to raise a dozen or so from seed. My first peach suffered badly from curl and I dug that out and scrapped it for one of the new resistant varieties.. had it's first peach this (second) year and it growing well even this late. Success (limited due to late frosts) with my apricot have stirred me to try nectarines too. Sadest for me is the failures I've had with mulberry trees and no local tree to try cuttings from - it's an unappreciated fruit but doesn't travel well.

[sandspider]

This is true!

However, when I think of the time spent collecting nuts / seeds, cleaning, stratifying, potting out, watering, potting on, planting out etc. I do wonder if it's more cost effective to buy saplings. As I said though, it is more satisfying to grow from seed collected yourself.

I've planted out about 200 trees in total over the past couple of years, and hopefully still more to come.

[Fleecewife]

For me it's more important to plant native trees to plant out around the place, rather than exotics which will die.  Maybe not such fun, but more use, and food for wildlife.  Quite a few giant older trees came down in the recent storms and they all need to be replaced 

To me it's important to reduce our dependance on imported foodstuffs. Sweet chestnut, walnut, filberts are all long lived trees that do well UK...

Fruit trees such as traditional apple, pear, sweet cherry? Surely you don't have anything against them being grown here.. so why not widen the spectrum with varieties of peach, apricot and thers including those on my first list.

By your argument I could challenge you against growing potatoes.
I get slightly miffed when i find we're importing nuts we could happily and efficiently grow here and that's before we get to the less common (but available as cold hardy types) such as hickory and pecan. Wales has the right climate for monkey puzzles and they have edible nuts too.
I wasn't suggesting whole forests of my varieties but suggesting we folk with a bit of spare land could help - and frankly i would like to see areas like the new forest being planned on reclaimed pit land to include chestnut and walnut and some fruit trees.. if only to encourage folk to go into that woodland.
Anyone who wants native tree seedlings that's prepared to come to mid-wales is welcome to the hundreds of self-seeded stuff all over my fields at the moment. Too much back-ache for me to go lifting them. Last spring there was one ash tree with several thousand seedlings under it.
The greatest insult of all is importing 'native' seedlings and disease.
Finally... native is relative as to how far back you go in history.

I knew you'd take it badly pgkevet  .  We have loads of native nut and fruit trees planted around our place, some bought as maidens, others grown from seed.  Those were not what I was meaning.  Where we are, there is absolutely no chance of nectarines, apricots, bananas, pineapples, avocados, lemons, lychees etc growing and surviving a winter, without building an orangery and keeping it heated all year round.  Better to eat native fruits and nuts which will survive outside I think.  Sadly, chestnut doesn't grow well enough here to be worthwhile, and although we have loads of hazel, we have yet to have nuts with anything edible inside.  No wonder the Scots of old lived on porridge and kale!
Also, trees such as walnuts and I suspect monkey puzzle, take so long to crop that I'll be nothing but a heap of fertiliser in the soil by the time they produce something edible.
I'm not against the fun of germinating seeds from bought fruits and nuts, I've certainly been there and done that, but I don't do it any more as it's hard enough growing crops I have some hope will survive for us to eat, without wasting time and effort on stuff which is doomed from the start.  Party pooper, I know 

[pgkevet]

FleeceW..
If no-one planted for the next generation then we wouldn't have the stuff the last generation planted.
Yes I too shall be decomposed well before my 25 monkey puzzles finally decide on their sex and the females fruit. Perhaps by then trees willl have full gender equality rights and the males will bear fruit too...

[alang]

I actually agree with FW regarding planting native trees. I regularly plant out rescued rowan, birch, alder, scots pine saplings i find growing in areas they are going to get destroyed in, such as road side verges (they get cut to within an inch of their life by the council up here. This way i am going to have a really good diversity of trees around my house area.

I have often wondered that if all these diseases we are getting with trees and flowers is because of the apparent need by people to import non-native plants

[PK]

If no-one planted for the next generation then we wouldn't have the stuff the last generation planted.

A friend who recently visited Sherwood Forest gave me a conker she picked up. I’ve planted it to begin a new Sherwood Forest. I’m a very patient person.

[pgkevet]

I actually agree with FW regarding planting native trees. I regularly plant out rescued rowan, birch, alder, scots pine saplings i find growing in areas they are going to get destroyed in, such as road side verges (they get cut to within an inch of their life by the council up here. This way i am going to have a really good diversity of trees around my house area.

I have often wondered that if all these diseases we are getting with trees and flowers is because of the apparent need by people to import non-native plants

The bigger problem is importing native type varieties from abroad with foreign disease and the movement of folk bringing all sorts of muck and disease back on lorries and cars...

PK... horse chestnut isn't native... but then Robin had been on the crusades and doubtless brought all sorts of stuff back :-)