There is another village close to Kepekli. It’s on the east. A dirt road, approximately 1060m long connects two villages. With Project Rising Sun, I’m targeting to cover both sides of the road with Horse Chestnut trees.

Aesculus species are very showy. Foliage is very attractive. Even the tree form is beautiful on winter times and spring blooms are wonderful. But there is a problem. Although this genus grow natively in Turkey, there is no sapling supplier in town of Biga. Prices in internet is high. That’s why first step of this project is growing young trees by myself.

Last autumn (October 2017) I collected around 100 Aesculus seeds. Half of the seeds belong to white flowering species (Aesculus hippocastanum). Rest were red flowering species (Aesculus x carnea). Planted all the seeds into plastic bags and now waiting them to germinate.

There are five groups in above image. Each group were sown in different time (but all sown in October 2017). Aesculus hippocastanum is white flowering tree. Aesculus x carnea is a hybrid and its flowers are red. Seeds from a hybrid may or may not have the properties of its parents, but Aesculus x carnea seeds mostly come true. That’s why red flowering tree seeds are less in numbers. Also A.carnea is a smaller tree than A.hippocastanum. I’m planning to sow A.hippocastanum trees of the southern border of the road. That makes a nice shade fall on the road during hot summer days.