Making tress from Sedum

[Anonymous]

I have heard or read that satisfactory trees can be made from dried Sedum plants. What do you do to prepare the "stalks" so that they do not deteriorate?
Thanks for any help.

[wxtoad]

On my last layout, I made dozens of trees from sedum, ranging from towering ones to small shrubs. All I did to make them was to spray the "trunks" with brown or gray paint; then I sprayed the tops with various shades of green and dipped them into containers of ground scenic foam. If I do say so myself, they looked pretty good. Check 'em out for yourself at:

http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ewxtoad8/index.htm

Under "model railroad topics", choose "my biggest model RR" and scroll down through the pix.

Good luck.

[ondrek]

so, where does one get Sedum?
Kevin

[Javern]

grow them in your flower beds or get them from neighbors in the fall when the plants dry up for the winter

[ARTHILL]

This is a good time to pick flowers and weeds. I hope to show my collection in a few days. I have good birch and I think one sedum will give me good pine trees. Walk in the woods or along roads, or in gardens with your railroad eye, and you will see trees everywhere.
To dry them, I hang them stem up with clothes pins until they are dry. Then a little paint and proper flocking, if necesary, and plant them. Some take more trimming than others.

[ondrek]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Javern

grow them in your flower beds or get them from neighbors in the fall when the plants dry up for the winter

what do they look like? any pics of the plant before and then after its turned into a "tree"?

thanks

Kevin

[ARTHILL]

I looked at my wife's sedum and they looked too "heavy" for HO. The shape is not bad, but the scale is off. I will include some pics later, I hope.

[ClinchValleySD40]

Sedum is great for HO trees. The best variety is Autumn Joy. If you know anyone that is into gardening, they'll know all about it. If you don't have any, ask around work and such, it is a very popular plant.

[Anonymous]

I guess I would like to see a pic of sedum growing naturally also. I live in the great white north and am not sure if it even grows here[:-^][:-^]

[DavidGSmith]

bjdoublb, I live in southern Ont. and it grows here. Lots of gardeners have it and the fools through away the flower stalks. Thats the part you want. It looks like a small tree, 8" to 10" tall with lower groud cover foliage.

[Anonymous]

Here's a tutorial I posted on another forum on how I make trees using a couple of different methods, one of which is using a weed like plant similar to sedum.

I'm working on a scenery module for my layout and am at the point to where I'm making a batch of trees, so I thought I would document that process for others who may be interested.

I make two basic tree types - one is made using a weed as the base, and the other is made using a real twig as the trunk with a leaf canopy. So, here we go.

Tree Type 1 - Weed Trees:

The weeds I use are purchased in a "bouquet" from a craft store (I got mine at Hobby Lobby) and are marked as "Broom Bloom". The package sells for $2.99 and will make a LOT of trees. The below pic show one bunch from the package, which is probably only 1/10th of the total package.



Here's a detail shot of the weed.



I cut the branches of the weeds into tree sized pieces and then stick them in a long piece of styrofoam. I then spraypainted the entire weeds with a dark brown, and misted flat black and gray primer over that. The intent is to get a believable trunk color:



Close-up of the tree trunks:



Here are the basic supplies for this type of tree. Two types of Woodland Scenics ground foam: (1) Medium Green Coarse Turf, and (2) Green Blend Blended Turf; and spray adhesive. I’ve used both the Krylon and Elmers, both work equally as well, I think, although the Elmers seems to be a little more “misty” when coming out, i.e., not as forceful as the Krylon. That’s good, because you want it misty so it doesn’t blow away the foam.



Start by taking one of the weed trunks and spread the branches a bit, since they get kind of smushed up in the package. Then, hold the trunk over a large piece of plastic (that blue stuff on the floor), spray the top of the piece on both sides. It doesn’t take much to get the foam to stick, so don’t waste it by drenching it.



Then hold the trunk over a basin to catch the excess foam. Start with the Coarse Turf and sprinkle it on both sides of the tree.



Next, spray it again with the adhesive and now sprinkle the fine blended turf on it. Give the trunk a couple of taps on the side of the basin to knock off any loose foam.



Stick the tree in a piece of foam and allow it to dry completely.



After you’ve collected some foam in the basin, you can begin dragging your sprayed trunks directly in the basin. I pick up the foam with my fingers as well and toss it into the trunk canopy to cover it good.



Here’s a finished bunch of trees. It took me about 2 hours to do all of these. It goes really fast once you get the hang of it and get going.



Close-up view of the finished trees.




Tree Type 2 – Twig Trees:

I have a large Live Oak tree in my yard that has to be trimmed several times a year because the branches tend to grow downwards. These branches have a lot of fine twigs on them that are perfect for making trees. So, after the leaves have fallen off the trimmed branches, I cut them into model tree size trunks like this:



The next ingredient for this type of tree is polyfiber. Here you can see where I have a bunch of it that I spray painted flat black. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any already black, so have to spray paint it myself. I pull it into about 1” thick pads and then thoroughly spray paint it. It takes a while to dry, so make up a bunch at once. This is some I made up a couple of years ago.



Pull off a small piece about the size of a cottonball. This stuff goes a long ways. Pull and stretch on it until you’ve pulled it into the shape of a very thin shell.



Drape the shell of polyfiber over the tree trunk until it looks right. Then, using a low temp glue gun, put 2 or 3 spots of glue in the right spots on the trunk to hold the polyfiber to the tree trunk. Warning: Use a LOW temp glue gun, not a HIGH temp one. The glue in a HIGH temp one is very HOT. And you WILL get it on your fingers. With the low temp one, you will say “Hmmm, that’s kind of warm.” With the HIGH temp one, you will yell “Oh, #$&%” while you dance around with a blister on your finger. I know.



Here’s a picture with the polyfiber canopy glued in place.



Using the spray adhesive and the same two types of ground foam used for the type 1 trees, apply the two layers of ground foam to the tree. Here’s a pic of the finished tree.



And the beginnings of a forest of trees on the Styrofoam.



The twig trees take a little longer than the weed trees because you have to create the canopy of polyfiber for them. But both methods yield nice looking trees, and it looks more believable with a mixture of types to me. The weed trees take about 2 minutes each, while the twig trees will take about 4-5 minutes each.