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Weeds... lots and lots of weeds. Take a walk in a meadow or along the roadside of an industrial park and look for weed tops that could be trees. Yarrow works well, so does goldenrod with a little trimming. I've also used some garden plant's dried flower heads. Once you start looking, opportunities abound all over the place. But they really still look like weeds. I bought a gallon of dark green latex paint from Home Depot (or some paint stores) which was returned for the wrong color. $5 for a gallon. I then dip the weeds into the paint, and let some excess drip off before rolling them in a cardboard box with Woodland Scenics Ground foam (cardboard box left over from a case of beer - also free and enjoyable obtaining) One large bag of ground foam does a LOT of trees in this manner. I used at least two colors and one bag of each was enough for a 3'x11' section. Let the trees dry in a scrap piece of styrofoam (free for the asking from a construction site) For filling in a hillside, as long as you have most of the weed head covered, it is ok. Because the next step is to plant on the hillside. First, drill holes or poke in a few spaced apart. Once these are in place, you can then just put more "trees" in the spaces as long as the "trunks" aren't floating in the air. They fill out a hillside fast. For more detailed foreground trees, I take one of the basic weed trees and spray with hairspry before giving them a second roll in the foam. Also, you need to model the edge between your trees and whatever is in front. I find some fine lichen does the trick. I don't use too much ground foam for these, as the difference in texture looks good to me. Also, you'll find yourself with some broken weed heads and bits of lichen left over. I hate to waste anything. So I bought a used blender at a yard sale ($2) and chop up the weeds and lichen in it. This mix I spread on the boundary line as well and hold in place with some diluted white glue. While the glue is wet, sprinkle on a tiny bit of ground foam. Instant Cheap "Weeds". One more thing. When building my scenery, I construct some very steep hillsides in back of more gentle ones upon which I plant these trees. Cover these with lichen. To economically use the lichen, I cut the clumps in half from the coarse end to the fine end and hot glue them to the hilside. Apply from top to bottom. Some inexpensive spray paint cans then blend these clumps together. Once this coat as dried, I apply a light light coat of grey primer. These steps reinforce the illusion of distance given the steepness of the hill, the contrast between the lichen tops and the ground foam trees and the grey haze from the primer. Good luck... If I can dig out the old photos, I'll try to post them later! dj
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