Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Today is another transition day.  After some paint additions (and subtractions) on the area between the track and the backdrop, I got my tree-building materials out for what will be a relatively long slog around the turn of Mud Run.  I'm going to place some small to medium "detail" trees in the areas I "pre-seeded" with "brown stuff" just above the rock wall and above the tracks.  The brown stuff would be the leaf bed of the forest, and (you may have guessed it), my detail trees will be the forest proper.  My detail trees start their lives as dried pyramidal hydrangeas (minus the flower petals which I carefully remove).  The little see pods are great for the adhesive to sit on and leaves to adhere to, and you can snap portions off for smaller trees.  If you want a conifer, just use the top section.  A spreading deciduous tree?  Lop off the top...

   

I spray them with a bit of spray adhesive I picked up at Ollie's Good Stuff Cheap.  The stuff I bought is OSI Adhesive primer, but I'm betting most spray adhesives will work.  I then dip the sprayed hydrangea segment in one of three different color combinations of ground foam/SuperLeaf Scale leaves in plastic serving trays and shake the extra off, 


       

dip the end in some wood glue, poke an appropriate sized hole in my scenery base and mount the tree.  Rinse and repeat until the forest is a forest.  I'll also periodically install some ground cover under the trees to simulate undergrowth.  I started at the northwest corner of Mud Run curve, working from the areas closest to the puffball trees with the taller trees planted closest to the tracks (once again to give the illusion of more depth of field than there really is.  The scene below has 6 of these detail trees.  Another 150 or so to go!