Home grown Supertrees...

...or imitation Supertrees, whichever you'd like.

In the process of making the Wyatt Rd. overpass, originally I had planned to just make it a foam rise and cover it with poly fiber and ground foam to make it look like a stand of trees with only the front row or two showing trunks.

Once it had been decided to add the bridge, my plans changed a little, I was going to have to have taller trees so they'd rise above the bridge and road.

I have enough actual Supertrees but since they wouldn't be right up front I thought I try something a different and see what I could come up with.

I dug out a box of of weed stalks and small branches that had been collected long ago when we were still using our Bend Track modules.  Having more than enough I started picking out a few that looked like trees.

I did a little pruning.

What I pruned off, I kept for later use for ground cover and rip rap.

Then I tore off small amounts of the Woodland Scenics poly fiber and stretched it thin.

Then I proceeded to wind it onto the weed stalks until it took on a shape of a tree.

Once it was close, I sprayed the whole thing down with a strong hold hair spray.  This helped to glue it to the stalk and was enough that it held any fine ground foam to the poly fiber.

I started by turning the tree upside down and sprinkled some dark foam, which I think was "Soil" to give it depth. I followed this by using a burnt grass to the rest of the tree but didn't cover it completely.  Next I turned the tree upright and used a medium green color to cover more of the fiber and finally a dusting of darker green to give it a nice random color effect.  

I didn't add a lot, on some of the first ones I played with I got it too heavy and it looked caked on, so I just dusted them afterwards, this kept them looking thin and airy.

After that was all on, I sprayed another coat of hairspray to lock everything in place.  The last thing I did was to use a pinch of bright green  and yellow on the tops to simulate sun shining on the tops and another coat of hairspray.  I then stuck them in either foam or the edge of cardboard and let them dry.

Before planting them, I took a small scissors and trimmed and groomed any straggling branches of the poly fiber.  Here is a batch that's ready for planting.

 

I tried to keep the colors as random as possible for a nice variation.

Overall I think they'll pass nicely for background trees.