Model railroaders know the challenge of finding suitable trees at a reasonable price. Trees are abundant in real life, but filling your scenery with believable and affordable trees is difficult. I have tried commercial trees, but they are generally expensive and not very realistic. In an earlier post I described how I make background foliage from large clumps of lichen I pick up along the highway. The lichen is cleaned, dipped in a solution of hot water and glycerin, dried, sprayed with adhesive and colored with ground foam. This works well for background, as is seen here.
In cases where the trees are in the background or partially blocked by buildings, this gives a really nice look. But if you are looking to put trees in the foreground, you need something more than a clump of green. You need trunks and limbs that look like a tree. I have purchased trees at train shows that are made from spyrea, a kind of weed commonly found in marshy areas of the east coast. While they are not bad for trees away from the edge of the layout, they do tend to look like the truffela trees in Dr. Seuss children's books. Here is an example of truffela trees.
As you can see, these trees have puffy clumps of foliage on long spindly branches. The trunks don't look all that realistic either. So I am always on the lookout for new ideas for making trees.
Recently I was walking around the yard and spotted something on the ground I had never noticed before. It was a cluster of small seed pods in a very tree-like configuration. I picked one up and looked it over. The branch had the shape and fullness of a tree. The tiny seed pods were open and flared out, giving it all the appearance of a tree in shape, if not in color. Was it possible I had stumbled over a new source of trees for the railroad?
It took me some time to figure out where these branches were coming from. Then I noticed a type of hydrangea next to the patio that was full of broken branches with these empty seed pods hanging from them. The local wildlife had feasted on them over the winter. Here is what the branches looked like when the hydrangea was in bloom.
The greenish little berries turn brown and drop their seeds in the fall. Here is what they look like when I pick them in the backyard.
And here is the hydrangea that they came from. In this photo you can see lots of these little tree-like branches broken by squirrels and birds, just ready for me to pick.
The branches are easy to work with. I trimmed off what was left of the petals and any loose material, then I sprayed them with Aileen's Tacky Spray, and held the stem while shaking green foam over the plant. I like to use Woodland Scenics medium green blended turf.
After the glue dried, I placed one of these seed pod trees next to a typical tree made from Spyrea. The tree on the left is from the hydrangea. The tree on the right I bought at a train show some years ago. To my eyes the tree on the left looks fuller and more solid. But the nicest part of it all is that I can go out to the backyard in the fall and fill several bags with these seed pod trees.
