My take on easy trees

[TrainNut]

EASY TREES

I want trees and lots of them. I don’t however, have the patience to sit down and meticulously construct one tree at a time. I also don’t have the budget to buy box after box of Woodland Scenic’s ready mades. They needed to be cheap, quick and easy to make.
I experimented with three different alternatives…

Tree type #1
Mediterranean Garden - D03 328185
Some sort of manufactured floral accessory
Available at Michaels (an arts and crafts store)
Price - US $4.99 per bunch. Each bunch yields 30-50 trees.


Tree type #2
Candy Tuft, Natural - 402202
Appears to be dried, authentic weeds of some kind
Also available at Michaels (an arts and crafts store)
Price - US $4.99 per bunch. Yield will depend on how big you make your trees – 20-50 trees.


Tree type #3
Yarrow - a common weed in the northern hemisphere.
Make sure you use the dead, dried version.
As per Wikipedia,
A description… Achillea millefolium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A picture in its natural environment… Image:Achillea millefolium.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Price - As my parents have a whole ranch of them, I can collect as many as I like seasonally for free.


As the Mediterranean Garden plants have been manufactured, they come apart at the joints quite nicely leaving you with a perfect little tree. In the past, Nazgul and I have both tried painting them darker shades of green. I won’t be doing that this time.


The Candy Tuft appears to be a dried weed, simply look at the ends of each bunch to “break off” appropriately sized trees. You can make them as large or as small as you like (within reason).


Yarrow grows on long slender stalks up to 3’ tall. All I am interested in is the top 3” or so. Again, “break off” appropriately sized trees.


Now that you have a whole slew of trees ready for the next step, we can look at adhesive and foliage.

Adhesive…
Quite honestly, when I was looking for spray adhesives, I picked this can because it had a picture of a model railroad on the front. How appropriate is that?


Foliage…
Woodland Scenics. I used a green color but you cold use autumn colors if that was the season you were modeling.


Application…
Pour the Fine Turf / Green Grass into a paper plate. I mixed a little tan in with the green for variation. Protect your hand from the spray adhesive or you will end up with fuzzy green fingers (been there, done that). As I had no gloves, I stuck my hand inside of a sandwich baggy and held the trees that way. Apply a fairly heavy coat of adhesive to the new tree. Then, rub the tree around in the foliage until the coverage meets with your approval. Take your time here as you need to be careful not to get any of the foliage onto your branches or it will look like you have green fuzzy branches (as I did on one of them because I was in a hurry). You may need to sprinkle some additional foliage on the underside or other places you did not adequately cover. If the coverage is not sufficient, spray the tree again and add some more.
Mediterranean Garden...


Candy Tuft


Yarrow


Final results…
Mediterranean Garden


Candy Tuft


Yarrow


I also tried all different sizes of the Candy Tuft.

[Daryl]

for the spray adhesive: I use the Elmer's brand,works quite well and you can get it at Wallmart

[thogan3]

Yarrow grows on long slender stalks up to 3’ tall. All I am interested in is the top 3” or so. Again, “break off” appropriately sized trees.

I've stuck these into a foam board and gave them shot of various colors of green spray paint....to that I have used an exacto knife and scrapped some yellow flecks (flowers) and red flecks (apples) onto the wet paint.....

[Eastern Roads]

I picked up something very close to the "candy tuft" you show on the thread here, from a wholesale florist supply house that was tinted a orange- ish color(I was going for a Fall foliage scene). I did everything basically the same as you, except, I spray painted the stalks with a brown floral spray before I used a spray glue on the tops and rubbed them in the ground foam, in an effort to simulate bark.
All of this stuff is available at Michael's or the closest field, just like you said. The 3M "77" and the Elmers is pretty good, as the tackiness isn't that strong, and it actually sprays, as opposed to shooting a stream like the higher priced spray adhesives will do.
I've also had mixed results with using hair spray after using the adhesives mentioned (just don't let the wyf catch your robbing the bathroom cabinet!! )

[TrainNut]

Yep, I borrowed some of her super mega hold hair spray with dismal results. That's why I went and got the spray adhesive.

[TallDude]

Great post TrainNut!!

[TrainNut]

And here I thought I had a new innovative technique. I didn't realize everybody knew how to do this already!

[Eastern Roads]

TN- what a great post! As I mentioned to Andy on his thread about the car barn, this is WAY better than you can get out of the RR mags! Lots more pics, and down to earth info. What more can a modeler hope for? (except maybe coming down and being there to help personally!)

It's one of the reasons I've been doing the freight car loads, the airplane hangar, and others, not because they're so unique (some people would say they are) but to share and help folks visualize the creation, and get the hope that they can do it too. It's a Win-Win scenario all around, and a person gets to (as joggers say..."Lengthen your Stride") .

[hoscalemodeler1967]

just a tip,,when it comes to hairspray. 1-0its a temporary adhesive,,,2-the cheaper the hairspray,,the stickier it is. good luck,have fun.