Last night on a whim, I decided to count the trees on the mostly finished 20% of my layout. That area is rural, the town and yard come later. The count did not include pipe cleaner trees, puffball forests, or window screen background trees etc. Just individual discrete trees - mostly homemade.
To my surprise there are 152 on 90 square feet. A few places could use more. The Section includes fields, brooks, a pond, roads, rock cliffs, buildings etc as well as some forest (track too ).
This got me to wondering what the average "tree per square foot" count is for other layouts. I guess the answers will be low for city and desert layouts. Maybe we should not consider urban rail yards.
Anyone care to share some statistics?
Karl
The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open. www.stremy.net
My layouts 100 sq. ft. and I was figuring I'd have to make around 200 trees. I'm mostly making my own furnace filter and polly fiber trees. (no puff balls)
What are window screen trees? I've never heard of those.
Karl,
It really depends what you are modeling. Florida is a whole lot different from Kansas, which is quite different from Arizona. If you are modeling the Great Plains, you won't have as many trees (or the same type) on your layout as you would if you were modeling say, Maine.
The trick is to fight the temptation to "over-populate" or cram your layout with too much scenery, track, or structures. If you want to give the impression of forests or groups of trees, keep them small or isolate them to the exterior edges of your layout. The contrast between the trees and open space creates visual interest.
And, bushes, shrubs, and undergrowth also create a natural look that is different than trees. I use left over scraps of various colored ground foam to accomplish this.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
At the moment, none. (I don't model root systems down here in the netherworld, and every millimeter of track that I've laid so far is destined to be hidden.)
In the future, lots (the area I'm modeling was/is covered with a cedar forest.)
OTOH, if I was planning to model the area I live in as it was BT (before tourists) there would be very few. The Dessicated Desert isn't noted for timber production.
I wonder what some of the old-timers who passed through this valley, watching the levels in their water barrels drop and hoping against hope that they'd find a spring or ruvulet before they ran dry, would think if they could see the dancing fountains in front of the Bellagio...
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
loathar wrote:What are window screen trees? I've never heard of those.
They are nice against the backdrop if you need evergreens.
Take a strip of screen 1-3 inches tall and as long as you like. Cut out narrow and tall triangles from one long edge. Overlap the cuts BEFORE the bottom so that what results is a row of trees of various heights. It's OK to have bits of random wire edges. It makes the trees less perfect.
Then, using two pairs of needle nose pliers make a 30 degree bend along the center line of each tree and between the trees to give the screen more than two dimensions. When laid flat it will be about 1/4" thick. Spray paint if you like.
Spray with adhesive and sprinkle on dark green ground foam. Repeat for more texture. Optional - Seal with hairspray. Voila! A row of background pines. This photo doesn't show how they are made but it's the best I have handy. Look at the right rear. They are a nice gentle transition to two dimensional mountain backdrops. I think of them as fractal trees.
Edit: I found a photo. This was after the first application of foam.
I have exactly three trees. I built them as an experiment. Once the weather forces me back indoors, I will probably build more, along with more ground cover, people, detailing of building exteriors, weathering of cars...
The lsit never ends. I would like to get more scenery done by Christmas. My first great grand child will be here and I want to have it look pretty for her!
Life is simple - eat, drink, play with trains!
Go Big Red!
PA&ERR "If you think you are doing something stupid, you're probably right!"
I'm modeling a heavily forested area and I have a lot of trees in a 2 x 2 area I have about 60 trees. I will have about 6 times that when the 4 x4 area this town is in is complete. These are sedium.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
I model Northeastern PA, lots of trees. I have about 125 or so descrete foreground trees. If you count the puff ball trees covering my ridges, at least a thousand, and I'm about half done.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
My layout is a 12'x12' L in a corner, still under landscape construction. My current count is about 350 trees(evergreen & deciduous). I am modeling northwestern Montana.
Good luck.
Have Fun.... Bob.
I have 6 individual trees the other 60 are puff ball
My friend Art will have over 5,000 puff ball trees once his layout is done
Like the ones in the photo
TerryinTexas
See my Web Site Here
http://conewriversubdivision.yolasite.com/
I have an N-scale layout with around 350 trees. Many are bunched together on mountain terrain. I used ‘Supertrees' by Scenic Express. A bag of their material yielded a lot of trees for my scale and turned out to be cost effective (pennies per tree). I don't have any pictures of all the trees on my mountain terrain, but here's a shot of some individual trees on my layout:
larak wrote: Edit: I found a photo. This was after the first application of foam. Karl
Karl, that is a great technique. So simple, but what great results. And it's perfect for areas with limited space. I'm going to try this method of making trees. Too good an idea not to.
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Jumijo wrote: Karl, that is a great technique. So simple, but what great results. And it's perfect for areas with limited space. I'm going to try this method of making trees. Too good an idea not to.Jim
Thanks Jim, I'm happy to share after learning so much from the others on the forum over the past two years.
And thanks to EVERYONE for your feedback.
At last count, right about 700 trees on the layout. We just expanded benchwork and track, and there are 380 trees ready to plant when the scenery goes on, but I don't think that will be enough. Best guess says it will take a total pf 1400 to finish.
It's mountainous terrain, and small pines make a nice velvet pine forest, but we use a lot of tricks to make fewer trees look like bigger forests. Clifflines that break up forests save trees. Roads and creeks save trees. Ridgelines above treeline save trees. When all else fails, we have a small sawmill, and about 30 tree stumps to save a few more trees.
larak wrote: Last night on a whim, I decided to count the trees on the mostly finished 20% of my layout. That area is rural, the town and yard come later. The count did not include pipe cleaner trees, puffball forests, or window screen background trees etc. Just individual discrete trees - mostly homemade.To my surprise there are 152 on 90 square feet. A few places could use more. The Section includes fields, brooks, a pond, roads, rock cliffs, buildings etc as well as some forest (track too ). This got me to wondering what the average "tree per square foot" count is for other layouts. I guess the answers will be low for city and desert layouts. Maybe we should not consider urban rail yards.Anyone care to share some statistics?Karl
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
0 on layout
40 Pine in bag
This is mainly due to not enough time. I'm also getting the new table so planting trees would be a bit of a waste.
Your all scaring me.
Maybe modeling Arizona would be better for me then New England!
Chris
ChrisNH wrote: Your all scaring me.Maybe modeling Arizona would be better for me then New England!Chris
You'd be suprised at how difficult it is to model the desert. You've got a bunch of different colors and rock formation to get right. The desert actually had a lot ofplant life, just not many trees. You've got to model all the mesquite, greaswood, and sagebrush to make things look real. With an eastern layout, you can always thow in some more trees and underbrush to cover a mistake but desert layouts are a lot less forgiving.
UP2CSX wrote:I have well over 100 trees and I'm not half done. There's no way you can model a railroad in the south and not have a lot of trees. The problem here is about 30% are pines, 40% are decidious, and 30% is nothing but a huge tangle of Kudzu Vine. Mixing the two tree types together at the same altitude is tough to make look right so I'm cheating by having some small hills and having more pines up there. The Kudzu is a real challenge. It's all over the place here so you can't ignore it. I'm using WS foliage mats and stretching them out to give them a vine-like appearance and running them up trees and utility poles but it still doesn't look right. Any other southern modelers out there that have a better answer?
I would think that polyfiber "pirate's beard" stuff, painted green, stretched, and sprinkled with foliage, might be a good option for the dreaded Kudzu. It's easy to stretch and make the polyfiber climb stuff just like the evil vine.
100's
I make my trees from a plant called "Forget-Me-Knots"....In the late fall after the plant turns to seed and the plant looks tree like. I cut to different hights and layout by size. I use cheap hair spay on the tops and sprinkle a green ground foam mix on. You can build thicker trees ("building on") by adding more branches. Just take smaller ones, use a pin poke a hole into a bigger trunk & add white glue. Also I like to plant them in odd numbers ( 1-3-5-7-ect) seems to look more natural.