I belive all of the above, minus the redwoods need cold stratification. As long as they are exposed to roughly 4C for the winter they will be ok. The acer and pinus (pines) may need the warm cool cycles of spring to break germination.

If you are a zone 7, in winter, you shouldn't need protection under glass for the trees. At least I would think not. You may even be zone 8. The Cork oak I'm not familiar with,as far as cold hardiness, but is probably zone 7 or 8. I think that there isn't any zone 6 in the UK except for maybe the Scottish highlands, so you are probably zone 7 at least. I wouldn't think those trees listed would be affected at all. Maybe someone else has more correct info though. My info is based on a UK zone map I looked at a year or 2 ago.

if zone appropriate ... i would do them all outside ...

i do not speak to cold stratification ... and your area ....

i would use natural logic .. if trees drop their seed in fall ... and sprout in late winter/early spring ... in soil .. outdoors ...

trying to force winter growth is trying to love them to death.. in the wrong season .... DO YOU REALLY NEED THIS CHALLENGE????

i have succeeded wildly ... when i do things as simply as possible.. trying to recreate natural cycles.. and letting ma nature do the hard stuff ... [not talking about strat]

why in the world would you complicate your life in the house.. or greenhouse.. trying to capture and perfect variables such as media indoors.. humidity ... mildews... air circulation .. drainage.. gnats.. watering .... etc ...

do your cold strat, IF NECESSARY ... and pot them up.. and put the pots outside.. and let the queen take care of them ...

do not make this an issue of turning trees into foo foo campanula-dependant plants ...

but if you are zone pushing on some.. then it is your responsibility to figure out the variables ....

i would put all of one seed in one pot ... not over sown or anything.. and in a year or two ... separate them out appropriately ... maybe two pots.. if i wanted to check the odds on disease ... i did this with chestnuts.. and squirrels usually do it with acorns in my pots.. by the end of season one.. or two.. you transplant to individual pots ...

i thought you learned this year.. that you cant be personally responsible for every plant on acreage ... try to figure out the easy way .... yes.. you wont get top results... 99% success ... but crikey woman ... you have other things in life to work on ...

to repeat.. dont make trees foo foo.. most of them replicate themselves by windblown seed.. and cover half the face of the earth ... no greenhouse involved ... dont you think ... the ONLY VARIABLE you need to figure out.. is.. what the easiest way to do it ...

ken

ps: if you dont get a winter recovery period... you will be suicidal by mid next summer ... you need some down time.... in winter ... insure you take some.. perhaps but for watering ...

mmmm, Ken, I suspect you have not quite grasped how very rudimentary my greenhouse is. At the very least, any freezing going on outside is freezing in the greenhouse too, since the door is always open and there is not a smidgeon of heat - there is going to be no forced growth here. The greenhouse, as a propagation set up, is mainly to store smaller pots which are going to be trampled on by the aged Lila....or knocked over by lumbering offspring trying to get their bikes in the garden. I don't use lights.....or heated propagators....or gibberellic acid or orange juice or peroxide......I put seeds in a nice fine, gritty mix and simply wait.

'i would put all of one seed in one pot ... not over sown or anything.. and in a year or two ... separate them out appropriately ... maybe two pots.. if i wanted to check the odds on disease ... i did this with chestnuts.. and squirrels usually do it with acorns in my pots.. by the end of season one.. or two.. you transplant to individual pots ... '

This is exactly what I am doing.

Naturally, being something of a slacker, it is always my inclination to keep things simple.....but trees, even though they are still seeds....are a bit out of my comfort zone (apart from Sorbus) because I have not had any space apart from fruit cordons and the like so it is all a bit new to me. And I would much rather keep stuff out of the fridge and all that stratifying stuff.
I fully expect a good two months of total idling....because I know for sure that stress levels will probably go through the roof when everything starts to germinate next spring.

As for foo-foo - well hostas, here in Blighty, are the domain of the very careful, precious few - the very definition of foo-foo, grown only by those with a full arsenal of lethal mollusc death and unlimited inspection time. I believe Flora will back me up on this - our hostas, those of us not in total servitude to (ahem) leaves, are a sad, chewed disaster.

But hey, I love your truculent posts, Ken - nothing like getting a ticking off from another garden obsessive (don't even try to deny it).

After stratification if necessary, in controlled environment (yes, an extra fridge) mine are all started into cells in the late winter to early spring in a greenhouse, primarily because I can control the environment and do a better job about protecting them from RODENTS. They're nothing but liner stock at this point and they are very susceptible over/under watering outside and more rodent browse. They stay in a greenhouse situation through the spring, until early summer when it's difficult to control the heat. Then they may go out to a protected gravel area with shade, near a watering source. They may not if they are still small. I pretty much don't stick any stock outside until it at least is large enough to go into a quart pot inside a large tray. They are again moved into a greenhouse for their first winter and spring where I can cull them, stake them if needed, and prune if needed and they again spend the second summer outside. I'm bumping them up as needed through the whole process. Some are ready to go in ground at this point and some aren't. If they aren't, they go into an overwintering g'house situation, with little or no heat.

Good moning Campanula - I'd leave them all outside unless the dog and the squirrels turn awkward. In which case the cold greenhouse would just help keep off the animals and heavy rain.
Re hostas... you can say that again. Here's my one and only hosta last year. Foofoo in the extreme in slug and snail country. (Apologies to those who've seen it before.)

But hey, I love your truculent posts, Ken - nothing like getting a ticking off from another garden obsessive (don't even try to deny it).

==>>> i wont deny it.. but you know well enough ... that my point was.. is ... do you need another urgent care project ...

figure out how to do it as simple as possible ... and it will be enjoyable ...

i thought.. unless i am confusing you with someone else.. that you had a post or two in august or so ... where it just seemed like a long summer.. on a huge new property ... living in a truck w/o a transmission .. and .. well.. you just 'seemed' ... reading in between the lines ... that you were tired ...

so i suggest easy.. and a recovery period.. so you can hit the garden again .. in spring ... what we over here.. with a football term call ... FULL CONTACT ...

i usually sum this up .. by saying.. think outside the box you are already trapped in ....

regardless .. though you say you love the truculence.. i do apologize ... for the ticking off part ... that is never my intent ...

rest up.. its going to be another long year.. next year ....

ken

Mmmm, we are facing a huge storm ('the biggest storm for 5000 years' - according to the more dramatic of our media types) where the fate of tree seeds has faded into insignificance, given the distinct possibility of an aging poplar (widowmakers, according to arbourists) getting a direct hit (on truck). We will know the outcome in around 6 hours. Hope your wood is OK Flora....and you too.

Hi Campanula - complete non-event here. Just a bit blustery in the night. Very likely something came down in the wood (I haven't been to look) but it happens all the time due to the geology and the slope. No biggie. Hope all is well in East Anglia.

Easy really does work. A few years back I took a little gallon pail of (red oak) acorns to the woods and dumped them out in the middle of the path. The squirrels gleefully gathered them all up. Squirrels eat the blunt end of red oak acorns, but leave the bitter embryo end and bury them for later. Perhaps they hope the spring rains will leach the bitterness away if they are forced to eat them. Most of these acorns grow, producing a very small tree the first year. The following year, they make normal growth. I have oaks all over the place, both sides of the path, and as I find each one, I put a spiral mouse guard on it before winter so the rabbits don't eat them. Sure is an easy way to get lots of oaks, assuming you have a good acorn source and don't mind if the squirrels do eat a few. Elms work the same way, go to the woods in the late spring with a pocket full of elm seeds and a hoe. Hoe down to mineral soil, scatter seeds, hoe the litter back over them to hide them............and pop up all the little elms to spread them around when they start to crowd. it might work for some of what you have too. Got any neighbours who have tried different planting methods?