desert foliage

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

So I decided to get some ol’ west in my spare bedroom. I will be laying a desert scene surrounding the room. Nice lengthy project. Anyways, I wanna find some cactus and acuall deset shrubs… Not just Lichen painted and glued next to my track…Too hoaky. I’ve seen other layouts with them and I cannot find a maker of this. Does anyone know where to get some…Since making them by hand is next to impossible for me. I have the perception of scale like forrest gump. Throw me a site or address to contact if ya can…Thanks!

P.S. This is a HO layout by the way. Sorry I forgot to mention that.[:I]

Jeff in Tucson

2

There was a great desert layout in MR or CTT a while back. It was in g gauge! I think they used painted watermelon seeds glued together to make cactuses,cacti?
There was some other good ideas for desert scenery as well. Maybe you can do a search for the article on the home page.

3

Practically all of the model cactus I have seen are pretty dismal, ranging from unpainted pewter castings that are supposed to be Saguaro, but every one looks exactly alike and cactus don’t grow that way; to plastic prickly pear cactus that are too big for HO scale, not to mention the terrible slick plastic glare.

Cactus doesn’t seem to be something that people like to model. We have some Saguaro made out of green pipe cleaners on the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club’s HO-scale layout that were made for us by a 9-year-old boy that look better than the commercial stuff.

4

I have experimented with fake fur dyed with a product called Dye-na-flow for making bushes and high grass

The fake fur if it is dyed and sprinkled with fine turf it resembles sagebrush. I cover my initial experiments at:

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/fur_grass/

I am still working on cactus.

Hope that helps[:D]
Harold

5

Jeff,

In the December 1983 Model Railroader, there is an article titled “Modeling the great American deserts” by Mark Junge. In it he talks about making various desert plants including Cacti, Ocotillo, and Joshua Trees.

Dan

6

thanks all for the try. I guess if a 9 yr. old can figure it out so can I. Well Happy new year and good luck with all your layouts. If anyone wants to join me in designing a good desert foliage with cacti and such, lemme know and we’ll market it and make millions!!! Just considering that 1/3 of our national rail roads traverse thru the gosh darn deserts. P.S. Dan great job with the sage. I well most likely try it out. Good luck.