tallow

[Guy]

does anybody here have any experience with chinese tallow tree--next spring I will try to collect several suckers that came up a few metres from the parent--and was wondering how good were my chances of success

[bodhidharma]

G'day Guy, i am ground growing some as i speak for cultivating later on . The Chinese tallow wood (Sapium Sebiferum) has lovely small heart shaped leaves and is supposed to have wonderful Autumn color which mine has not produced as yet. A slow grower, i have had mine in the ground for 5 years and is only 1 and a half metres tall. We will see what the future brings. It should be a good specimen but i have yet to see one (in the flesh) as a Bonsai.

[MattA]

Guy, I have tried to dig chinese tallow several times over the years all to no avail. The last being spring 09, a friend who was with me at the time told me to not bother as they are very finicky about having there roots disturbed. Sure enough it also died.

Bodhi, they do have spectacular foliage even up here in newcastle so I am very surprised yours have not coloured up down where you are. It seems you are the only one who is working with them so spill...have you done any root work on them before or since going in the ground?

I have a self sown one in the garden that I would love to turn into a bonsai purely for the fall colour. But would rather just let it be a full size tree than spend years growing and training only for it to die when I dig it out.

Matt

[kcpoole]

They are used a street trees in Baulkham Hills and at the moment are all Colouring up to a bright Red
My Dad has one one in his yard just south of Newcastle, that colours nicely too. Seems like they will give good autumn colour where other trees do not do so.

I have heard that the leaves do not reduce very well, an that they are prone to lose branches for no or little reason.

Mainly these reasons why I have not tried one

Ken

[bodhidharma]

Guy, I have tried to dig chinese tallow several times over the years all to no avail. The last being spring 09, a friend who was with me at the time told me to not bother as they are very finicky about having there roots disturbed. Sure enough it also died.

Bodhi, they do have spectacular foliage even up here in newcastle so I am very surprised yours have not coloured up down where you are. It seems you are the only one who is working with them so spill...have you done any root work on them before or since going in the ground?

I have a self sown one in the garden that I would love to turn into a bonsai purely for the fall colour. But would rather just let it be a full size tree than spend years growing and training only for it to die when I dig it out.

Matt

G'day Matt, Yep, i am surprised to. I procured it totally for its Autumn colour and, so far, have not seen it In America these are classified as weeds and are on the get rid of list.Maybe we have a different cultivar here as mine does not spread. My plan is to grow it on in the ground and develop some trees on the branches and then aerial layer them off and, hopefully, avoid the problems associated with digging them up. Maybe they wont be so finicky that way. The first one i tried to dig up also died within two weeks. Ken is right in the fact that they suffer dieback on their branches for no reason.i hope it is a nutrient problem and can resolve it in a pot. Why am i doing this I dont know

[Asus101]

branches are also very brittle.

[thuynguyen001]

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hi Guy,
i too love chinese tallow wood very much for their lovely foliage colour and aged old looking bark that i decided to grow some myself.
These littles ones are 1year old grown from collected seeds.Right now, I just let them grow freely on themselves to get some trunks first and enjoy
their beautyful autumn colour.
anyway,if you love it-just give it a go.( you'll pick up ideas along the way)
cheers
Thuy.

[kcpoole]

Sweet Thuy and Bodhi
Keep us up to date with what you find

I would love to work out a way to use them, 'cos as you mention the colour is reliable here, and the bark is nice too

Ken

[Bretts]

I have been mucking around with Chinese Tallow. Our town is also littered with them as street trees and they are a very beautiful tree. Exquisite bark with graceful branching and leaves. The Autumn colour is to die for. I often look at the trees through town and wish I could just plonk them in a bonsai pot as is. with the muscling twisting trunk.
There is a guy down the road that does an amazing job of pruning his trees on the curb and they are rewarding him with amazing ramification for a street tree, maybe even some leaf reduction. This year though they have been affected by the same Fungus I have had issues with. One severely but all to some small degree!
I bought one of the cheap table of some nursery a few years ago and after finding ugly roots on it I designated it to grow out as a feature tree for the garden but after some great growth in ground with some pruning It started to interest me as a bonsai specimen so I uprooted it and plonked it in this pot that I made.

tallow.jpg

It was growing well so I am disappointed that this is the only picture I have of it.(just thought that I may have it in a group picture I will search later) Anyway this was the year I was selling at the markets and as I had collected heaps of seed from the town street trees I had several growing out in the ground and decided this should go on the for sale table to be replaced by better in the future.
I remember telling the guy that bought it he had made a great choice

My Mate Pol has a fairly advanced tallow that he is working with and he complains of the branch dropping that KC states. In fact it was one of my favourite trees in his collection a few years back but is now nothing like I remember it. I keep telling him that I hope different horticultural techniques of mine will have a different outcome and I do hope this is the case as this species would make amazing bonsai.


From KC's Comment and Pol's experience it does seem that branch die back is a problem to be solved. Although I never got to refinement stage with mine to deal with branch die back I am of the opinion that as I don't see any branch die back in the street trees then it must be an issue we can solve

I lost a couple of my biggest ground grown Tallow's to the fungus after taking them out of the ground this year so I have been set back a year in my experiments with them but I am ever eager to experiment with them is Bonsai.
There is the odd sapling around with Autumn colour. One uncared for one I can think of has the top of the scale purple colour. I will check tomorrow to see if it still holds it leaves.

[Guy]

thank you blokes muchly for all the posts and info-----looks like it could be problematic----I reckon I will leave any decision for a month or so.