Red Bud Trees

Has anyone had really good luck with starting Red Bud Trees from seed. My mom has one in her yard it is loaded with seeds and I'm going to try to start some. Some people have told her that they can't be started from seed. Why not? They grow wild in the forest here in California. So therefore they had to come from a seed right?

Right. They are not impossible from seed but I wasn't successful at germinating it the one time I tried.
Fall planting could take care of their double dormancy. The seed coat is impenetrable and the embryo is immature. So they need scarification, either forced by you or by microbes in the fall soil followed by a period of cold stratification - that being winter. Hopefully by spring, something will come but in any case, patience is the thing. Then there is always the baggie method in the fridge too.

What I did was put a small handful of Redbud seeds in a coffee cup and with a covering of water in the cup, I microwaved to 190 degrees F definately under the boiling point , which is I believe boiling is 212 degrees Fahrenheit. After the 30 to 45 seconds or so in the microwave, I put them outside for the Winter cold stratification and planted them in the Spring and several came up. I used a cooking thermometer to be sure of the temperature.
Anyway, that whats I did to diminish the double dormancy of the impermeable seed-coat. Its either do something like that or wait 2 years or more outside with no treatment to the hard seed-coat. Acid can also be used but I much preferred hot water scarification myself.
I read that in my Dirr's Propagation of Woody Plants book.
If your just now trying it, you might wait till next year. And then I don't know about the California Redbud or cold stratifying it, though it does mention a longer cold stratification period for Calif. Redbud.
http://www.nsl.fs.fed.us/wpsm/Cercis.pdf - In this PDF article scroll down to Pregermination treatments and germination tests.
Will

Interesting. I didn't know you could control the temperature with the microwave but I don't read those manuals either. As long as the cheese melts, the popcorn pops and the potatoes bake, you know?
Do you have enough winter left in California for the cold stratification? If not, you might as well use the 190 deg water method and then use the baggie method (germinating and / or stratifying seeds with various damp media in a ziplock bag) in the fridge while your waiting for next season. Will's link has nice information on germination temperatures which the Dirr's book lacks.

I'd definitely be careful with the microwave approach--I always microwave my bird seed to keep it from germinating if the birds drop a few of them on the ground so it's definitely got the potential to kill your seeds if you're not careful.

Well, you could just heat the water up pre-boil, either stove top or microwave, stick in the thermometer in and add the seeds after the fact. That is how I would do it.

Hey, its worth a try, come to think of it if there is still Redbud seeds on the tree, they may have already been cold stratified right there and maybe you could just do this coat softening and plant them this Spring.
Yeah, Loretta has the idea, that sounds like a safe way to do it, heat and check the temp. of the water first.
Just curious, how does Calif. stratify anything over the Winter? From what I hear its quite warm there, regardless of it being 2 people per sq. foot!

Depends on where you are in California--if you're very close to the coast there's not much cold, but you get inland a little bit and there's plenty! Probably still wouldn't seem cold to you, but where I am we get temps near or slightly below freezing quite often and that's probably enough for the stratification (unless it's raining, there tends to be a big swing in temperatures between night and day...we'll see temps in the 60's or sometimes even low 70's during the day, but then it's down to 30 at night on a pretty regular basis). It's also very possible that the western redbud doesn't require as much cold to germinate as the eastern one does.

It gets cold here. Yesterday morning it was 31, today it is 42 but it has been raining

I have heard that you can eat the 'pods' on red bud trees?
Is that true?
I suppose that means you could eat the seeds as well?

I'm too chicken to try though, lol