Growing trees - Teloxys aristata (Seafoam) part 8

This post is about 2 months late, but never mind!  My Seafoam was all harvested in early September.  The plants pulled out of the ground very easily and just needed a quick snip with a pair of secateurs to remove the roots.  I allowed the plants to dry on a large sheet of cardboard in the garage for a few days.

Drying Seafoam.

The plants are full of tiny seeds.  After drying, gently shaking and patting the plants caused most of the seeds to fall off, providing me with more than twice the quantity I originally received in the seed packet. Drying them on the cardboard meant it was easy to fold it in half to pour the seeds into a pot.  Plenty for next year!

Seeds!

The structure looks excellent, ideal for tiny trees.  It can be fragile because the texture is so fine.

Wonderful miniature tree structure.

Preserving the plants helps reduce their fragile nature.  I'm using 1 part glycerin to 2 parts water.  The glycerin should replace the water remaining in the plants, leaving them slightly more flexible and less likely to crumble away. A litre bottle cost under £10 and should do me for 5 or 6 years of Seafoam harvesting.

Glycerin (aka Glycerol)

 I save the bottles from my car de-icer, they're perfect for spraying a thin PVA/varnish mixture for sealing scenery, or in this case, a glycerin mixture for preserving plants.

Spray bottle with glycerin mixture.

In mid-September, the plants were sprayed heavily and clothes-pegged to a length of string stretched across the garage rafters to dry.

Tightly packed branches.

After drying, the addition of the glycerin means that the plants retain some spring and bounce, so hopefully they will work well for scenery.

Separated plants.

 The hardest part was teasing apart all the intertwined plants.  I will try and grow them further apart next year to avoid this problem.

Ready for use.

 Looking on the internet, this quantity of Seafoam I've produced would probably cost me upwards of £60.  It's cost me under £15 so far for the seeds and the glycerin.  Compost and pots have all been free, and repeating the process will cost me nothing else for the next few years. I'll probably end up paying less than 5% what I'd pay for "scenery-ready" Seafoam.  The only problem I foresee is where to store all the forests I'll be making...