Teloxsys plants

Ken,

I planted seeds once (a late planting in July!) and the plant looked like the dried "SuperTrees" upper portions, only much smaller. As the plant grew, the "branch" structure remained lacy and the stems began to grow longer. About September/October, the plant took on a reddish hue. After the first frost, the plant became more "straw" colored.

Give the plants some "love" and be patient. As long as the upper portion of the plant looks like it should, then you're good to go.

Sorry, I didn't take any pictures at the time.

Respectfully,

Tim Moran

Another take on growing Teloxys aristata (Seafoam)

Found this page via Google.  As the original is in French I am including the full Google Translate link:

translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.model35.fr/t_zeeschium.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.model35.fr/t_zeeschium.html%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DDOp%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official

Alan

corrected link to google translate

Here is a working link:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.model35.fr/t_zeeschium.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.model35.fr/t_zeeschium.html%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DDOp%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official

correct link

Thanks Bill, it works if you paste it (or did for me).

Alan

I don't mean

to derail this thread, or to criticize, but I can't see the reason for wanting to try and grow a plant designed for living above the arctic circle.

Now don't get me wrong- I see the advantage of 'growing your own', and as a potential business venture, and as an amateur bonsai cultivator (I have a Maple group that is now 7+ years old, and a Cedar coming along nicely after surviving its first winter...but all other attempts over a 10 year period have failed), I understand the challenge of trying to grow these plants from seed...but wouldn't it just be easier/quicker to just buy, leaf and install?  If I needed a hundred super-detailed trees sure, MAYBE, but isn't there a better way?

Just askin'..

cost

For me, quicker and easier are often superseded by cheaper (less expensive) to produce.  Plus, if you let your plants go to seed and are able to grow more next year, you've got a potentially endless supply for yourself and perhaps your local club, friends, etc.  I guess it depends on how you define 'better'.

Galen

Cost

Yes, cost is the most common motivator for growing your own super-duper-trees.

I bought seeds to plant but that's as far as I have taken it so far...

Grow a number of these plants to maturity and you will have a lifetime supply of seeds to start new plants from.

Much cheaper.

Super Trees are very expensive.  For the cost of one order of SuperTrees, if successful, I can get 20-30x the amount of trees. And that includes building the greenhouse!  If I exclude the cost of the greenhouse, then I can get 100x+ more the number of plants. 

As for only growing in the Arctic Region, though they are originally from the Gobi Dessert, they will grow in any dry environment.  Scenics Express gets their Teloxys in the southwestern region of the US.

Ken L

How-to guide?

Can anyone offer tips on how to get started growing my own Teloxys?  I'll need a pretty fair number of trees for the layout, so this sounds appealing.  Where can I get the seeds/plants to start, and what should I expect to pay?  Is a greenhouse necessary, living in Iowa?  Indoors or out?

I could see this being something I may be able to talk my wife into helping me with, especially if it means saving a few hundred bucks in Super Trees.

What little i know is...

...the plants like a dry sandy soil. They will grow in either cold or hot climate.  But being DRY is essential.I went and bought a cubic yard of the same type of dirt they use for baseball diamonds.Very sandy, very loose. 

I bought my seeds from http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net   HOWEVER, i am NOT certain if what I ordered is the actual correct plant.  This is why I posted this topic.  Whatever seeds I planted is what is growing out in the greenhouse, but i am not certain if it is the Teloxys plant.  So far there is only very thin green leaves, no indication of any kind of flowers whatsoever. 

We shall see.Maybe the flower buds come later in July or August.

Ken L

An alternative

Have you considered harvesting the blossoms of Smoke Bush trees? These are pretty common in side and back yards of older neighborhoods. Towards the end of June and through July you should be able to harvest the blossoms easily. I've knocked on doors and asked permission at many homes and retail places and have never been turned away. I've seen these plants in western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia, so I suspect you will see them around Buffalo. Blossom color can range from a light tan to purple-ish. I've picked a few blossoms that are as long as my forearm. The trunks may be skinny, but the blossom can really look like a forest canopy.

Once the blossoms are picked, it's best to poke them into a Styrofoam sheet and hang them upside-down to dry for a couple of months. Once the blossoms have dried, spray paint them with cheap green or dark brown paint and sprinkle on a ground foam mix while the paint is wet.

Scroll down on this page to see an image or two featuring a combination of Smoke Bush blossoms and Oakleaf Hydrangea blossoms used to represent a West Virginia Hillside. The trains are HO scale.

I just recently saw a couple of small Smoke Bush trees near my new home in far west Texas, so they may be found most anywhere.

Eric

I'm Lazy (and cheap)

Living in the western US, sagebrush is abundant and I use it for tree armatures. I cut the dries out branches which even have a natural texture looking exactly like bark. The sagebrush is trimmed to get the desires shape and then I use Woodland Scenics clump foam glued with a hot glue gun, or Poly fiber with the finer ground foam secured to the poly fiber with the cheapest hair spray I can find. I figure my cost per tree at under a dollar each once the sagebrush has been cut.                                                                            Here are a few examples.                                           

I'm looking to get away from the poly-fiber made trees

I am cheap as well.  If I can't make my own  "Super Trees" then I will go back to the puff-ball/poly-fiber made canopy of trees for the background. If this years crop is unsuccessful I will make one more attempt at it. Something is growing back there, I just wish I started to see some type of flower structure sprouting.  None yet.

Ken L

I'd kill for...

..someone to come up and hand me a crate full of sagebrush. I've not seen (in photos anyway) a more convincing natural tree armature.

Unfortunately, I live in Indiana, which isn't exactly famous for its huge fields of wild-growing sagebrush.

My trees come from a couple of spirea bushes in my yard. They're popular with homebuilders, because they bloom all summer and are nearly impossible to kill once established. Each December I head outside with scissors and a large bucket and harvest the dead blooms.

Tips for growing your own...

I've not tried these techniques yet myself, they are the findings of others who have grown Teloxys successfully.  I take no responsibility for your level of success or failure.

1.  The seeds germinate best with a dormant (cold) period prior to being sown.  Providing this dormant time will both speed up and improve germination.  Place the seeds to be sown, in the refrigerator or even in the freezer for 30 days before planting.

2.  The plants thrive in a sandy, well drained, nutrient depleted soil.

3. LOTS OF LIGHT!  Plant so the plants will receive the maximum amount of sunlight each day.

4.  Do not sow seeds too thickly.  Plant as thinly as possible.

5.  Keep the sown seeds warm in a heated greenhouse and keep the soil surface moist until seeds germinate, but not soaking wet.  Fine misting is OK but they prefer to be sub-irrigated.  Heavy handed watering is a death sentence to fragile Teloxys seedlings.  Sprouts should emerge in between 1 to 3 weeks depending on the conditions you have provided.  Once seedlings are established allow the soil to dry between watering to avoid damping off (stem rot).

6.  If possible start with small containers to control root structure and then transplant.  Allow about ten inches for each plant to mature fully.

7.  Keep areas weed free.

I know!  How do these ever grow on their own in nature...?

I don't know guys, the trunks

I don't know guys, the trunks seem too spindly to me. Sedum and goldenrod seem to have heartier trunks. God grows all of mine, right here in East TN, I just go out and pick em when fall gets here. Crepe myrtle branches work well too and they're pretty plentiful here in East TN..

There used to be a company called Alpine Arboretum that used to sell natural growths by the boxful at Timonium train show in Baltimore a few years back. Eric Hansmann might recall that company too, since he was a frequenter of Timonium when he lived in the Mid-Atlantic/East. 

Trunks

For large trees, sure.  Since the branching pattern of these plants is so useful, use more robust trunks from other sources and add the Teloxys/Supertree material for fine branching.  The same idea works for other natural armatures that don't always have the right shape on their own.

the trunks seem too spindly

I've always felt the same way so I had a go at fixing the problem. This is what I came up with:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/10198

It's cheap, easy and gets rid of that "tiny trunk" syndrome.