Hey all - This has probably come up before but I couldnt find it. Anyhow, in our garden layout, most of our plant-life will be live dwarf trees and ground cover, etc. BUT, I also have a need for some small artificial trees. There are pleny of articles, videos and web blogs concerning making artificial trees for INDOOR layouts but they are all pretty much the same thing...tree armatures or actual dried twigs/limbs with lichten or foam bits glue'd onto the tree shape. Does anyone know of a material or technique that would be appropriate for outdoor use? and/or do any of you have any experience using such a thing? Thanks in advance - Shu
Follow the adventure - http://www.croakerdiggs.com
Chuck
I tried to "fake" a forest a few years back and found it not to be worth my time and effort. I tried sphagnum moss; it quickly deteriorated with the watering done for the living plants. I tried gluing up ground foam; it took the sun about 30 days to bleach all the color out. My GRR in "full sun" as the gardeners would say.
My wife found some Miniature Hawaiian Snow Bush which is doing quite well. (The round looking one at the very rear of the "produce deliver truck".) The one in the photo is now 6 years old and gets a "haircut" every two months to maintain its 6-inch height. It has gained 4 siblings over time. The two scraggly looking tress behind the snow bush are Seiju Elm and are just the right height for the houses that now set under them. To the far left of the photo is a miniature red bottle brush from Home Depot, and it takes a serious effort to keep it in "scale". The snowbush and elm are easy to maintain.
Someone else might have had better luck in building trees for outside. I now have a bunch of those wire wrapped green things that are everywhere at Christmas time. I get them on Clearance sale after Christmas and they only go out t the layout when the Christmas tree cutting crew arrives at Rosebud Falls, a ceramic wagon full of Christmas trees with crew and horse. Obviously it only appears during the "season" and gets stowed away in the shed for eleven months of the year.
Tom Trigg
Ttrigg - Thanks for the info. I've already been to Home Depot scouting my future forestation plans but I wanted to find some miniature pines to 'plant' near the background mountains for forced perspective. Maybe 3-6" or so. We'll see what happens once we start populating the area with buildings and such. We get full sun also, hoping to get a good ground-cover thats small scale foilage and can withstand full sun, and 25 deg winter, some snow. I like your Christmas tree crew idea - Shu
Try "Little Jamie"
With 3 "haircuts" a year they can be kept to ~5 to 9 inches. They did very well for 3 years untill we had an abnormally hot winter. These little guys like a cool to cold winter, I'm 2 USDA Zones too hot for them. You should have better luck in Northern Cal. I like them because they look like "Pondorosa Pines", but alas, they dont survive welll here in full sun.
Thanks Tom - They look great, pretty much what I am looking for - Google sez they are Atlantic White Cedar (chamaecyparis thyoides) http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=chth2 - I like the looks as they do mimic our Ponderosa Pines. Did you buy these on-line or something I might find at Home Depot / Lowes? I picked up 6 dwarf spruce's the other day at Wally World - Wonder if I can keep them small with proper trimmin...Shu
I got them from my favorite "train store", Walter Andersons Nuresery. Their supplier is a "grower nursery" (?) in Whitier. Their trade name (the growing nursery) is Little Jamie. It is just a tad bit off from being a true AWC like Google says. Try a large (very large) nursery in your area that is willing to special order. The ones I had were "factory tagged" with the name of the nursery and the price of $17.00. HD/L/&WM never have anything this small, at least here in SD county they don't.
If you are looking for fake plants try some of the arts and crafts shops like Michaels. They have fake plants for indoors that you might be able to use outside. For small live plants try dwarf juniper there are several varieties check your local nursery, you can also get regular size they can be pruned like a bonsai.
JIM
We tried Michaels but they discontinued their artificial plant at the store near us - I think we'll just concentrate on live plants for everything - including dwarfs and ground covers - We have a smaller nursery not far from us, they may have a suggestion for our climate etc. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and input - great as usual. Shu
Shu,
I tried keeping dwarf alberta spruce stunted by keeping them in their pots. Unfortunately about 15 out of 120 didn't make it through this winter due to lack of water. They freeze dried.
I do plan to trim these trees to look like pines and I will use the dead trees in the forest as well.
Rex
Rex - Freeze Dried.....Wow, thats a new idea! I like the look. Is their size due to you keeping them in pots? How old are these in the pcture? Mine are about 18" +/-. I need to find smaller ones like yours. I'll check with the nursery or maybe on-line - Shu
Freeze dried is not a good thing. Some of the trees could not get enough moisture from the snow etc because they were still in their pots so they didn't survive their first winter. They are about 10" tall and I got them from Lowe's and Home Depot for a sale price of $5 a tree. Keeping them trimed down will keep them small.
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