this is nothing more then Sedum> I don't know what the range is for growing it. In my yard I started with three plants. They grow quickly and after splitng I have 5. Simly let the plant dry until spring and harvest. You can then paint , flock etc to your hearts content.
Bill D
model in O. the Western NY and Ontario Railroad
I won't buy manufactured trees, I'd rather make my own. I'm cheap.My layout is 30'x42' and I just can't afford it. These are all goldenrod painted and then coated with a foam mix.
Terry in NW Wisconsin
Queenbogey715 is my Youtube channel
I'll have to check out that book. Thanks! Shawnee
Thanks, Shawnee. As to the clump foliage, I just placed it around and between the round puff ball trees. There's a few different ways to make puff ball trees. I used Dave Frary''s method in his book, "Modeling the Pennsy Middle Division". When I first started doing scenery, I used some natural materials, don't remember exactly what it was, and a mouse got into the basement and leveled them, and left a deposit in my model meadow. So now, I only use synthetic materials for scenery.
Grampys...as usual, just superb work. I like the idea of augmenting the puffball trees with clump foliage. You ought to post a how-to-do in terms of blending the clump foliage in, I'd definitely check it out and be appreciative! About to embark on puffball forests, and am guessing on how to do it.
Lee - also amazing work, Actually visited your site earlier today to check out your river/water work, which I bookmarked. I'm building a river and want to use acrylic gloss for the water, and know you did that. Any further tips you have on that much appreciated. Your river is excellent.
Think I'll skip the WS canopy, and stick with my puffball plan. Thanks guys.
Shawnee
You have to remember that the key to successfully using Woodland Scenics products is to make sure your Wallet Vac is set at full power. I don' t know how much they charge for their "forest canopy" but it doesn't look like it covers more than a square foot or so. Those definitely look like sedum flowers, which you can grown in your yard for free (in much of North America, anyway) and a single plant will provide you with twice as much material as WS provides, and do so every year! Now granted, this will take a while if you're just planting them this spring, but I've got three of these plants going full tilt now, and they provide more than enough tree stuff.
I break up the stems and re-glue them into more realistic tree crowns, and I get very satisfactory results.
Here's my recipe...
Now use that money you saved to go buy some freight cars!
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Hi Shawnee: IMHO, I would pass on Forest Canopy. I think there are much better alternatives. I used "puff ball trees", but to eleminate the "eggs in a crate" look, I added WS clump foliage to them. Depending on how large an area you have, I like Super Trees and "bottle brush" evergreens and lately, deciduous trees. Judge for yourself.
I'm thinking things like forest canopy are over rated.Its kinda like ballasting, one has to put up with some tedium in order to get the proper effect. I think puff ball trees will work OK but one has to mix colors and sizes of foam to catch the different species in a forest, even throwing in a few conifers in bunches for effect. Get some photos and work from that. Its a highly effective way to model.
I tried a box about a year ago - here are the results.
For preperation, it would be best to dip them in Glycerine, and or a matt medium to aid in long term life. The one thing I didn't like is the coverage, it seemed kind of small (this is HO scale, and about 80% of the box contents are in place. The tree shape is also wrong for most trees, so you really need to line the front of them with another product or tree (such as Supertrees).
I've been much happier with Supertrees, but a mix of products is probably ideal to represent real world changes in texture and color.
Hope this helps.
I'm trying to model 1956, not live in it.
Hi all,
I'm thinking about getting the new product from WS called "Forest Canopy" for the background trees on my layout. I'm guessing it's like a processed (dried, died, etc) Sedum flower or something similiar. But I am wondering, has anyone used this product, and does it look good and realistic, I mean, better than puff ball trees?...and how much area does it cover? Does it need extra work or is it ready to use from the box? WS doesn't offer close up pics or a lot of info on it.
Thank you!