I want to incorperate flowers into the layout. I had somekind of wildflowers, but just the stems and buds no leaves or anything. What would be the best ground cover type material to make them to look realistic in a flower bed? Thanks.
There are some commercial flowers now for HO. I found them fair. You can make great flowers with the plastic clay materials, but they take a bit of practice to get them small enough. A jewlery maker friend of mine made some wonderful daylilies, complete with leaves, but has not offered to make any more.
WHile there are commercially available Ho scale flowers, I do this:
I seach far and wide at all times of the year to find artificial flowers at AC MOORE or Michaels that have parts small enough to snip out to make “HO sized flowers”. at A buck a branch gives you many flowers forever.
For leaves fo green, snipping bits out of green leaves and gluing them under the floweres gives teh impression of flower leaves, OR glue the tiny snipped out leaves to the stalk of your flower.
For ground cover, any dirt covering you use in your scenery should work.
Walthers has their new “Botanicals” scenery items, some of which are wildflowers. Look out for them. If you wanna make your own, try small tufts of green ground foam topped with tiny bits of colored paper - white, yellow, purple or pink.
There are some commercially available products you can try. Check out the Walthers catalog / website to see what’s out there.
However, keep in mind that, in HO scale, the average flowering plant is going to be something less than 1/4" in size, and you’re not going to be modeling a whole lot of detail at that size anyway. If you look at most pictures of flowers, all that is apparent is a field of color with spashes of green. Tended gardens have a more distinct appearance, but that’s not hard to model either.
Noch makes a ground foam (or maybe fine paper) product called “Summer Flower”, which, when sprinkled moderately over a grassy area, gives the suggestion of clover, violets, and other low ground cover-type flowers.
For more detailed areas, simply find a photo of what you’re trying to simulate then do the following:
-
Lay a bead of white glue or tacky glue about 1/16" wide on a piece of wax paper, or silicon cookie baking sheet (get your own for this purpose – DO NOT swipe your wife’s – they’re available anywhere that sells quality cooking supplies).
-
Take a piece of scenery material that simulates the plant you’re modeling (lichen, WS field grass, sedum or other natural floral material, WS Underbrush clumps, a good sized chunk of ground foam, a tuft of nylon abrasive pad in green, or piece of a pot topper), and stick one end in the bead of glue. Be careful of your scale here, because it’s easy to get the pieces too big. A 3’ high bush is less than 1/2" in HO scale. If you want leaves at the base of a stalk, sprinkle them on to the glue at this phase.
-
Let everything dry. The gently peel the flower stems off of the wax paper or cookie sheet. You can use them in strips as is, or cut them into smaller clumps.
-
Dip the other end of the plant stem (the one not stuck in the bead of glue) in the scenic cement of your choice (the WS product, dilute white glue, dilute matte medium), and sprinkle on finely gr
I made a few by dipping the ends of long ‘grass’ into paint.
I forget who made these, it may have been Noch.
Jarrell
Here is a pic the flowers i have (taken from walthers). Its just the stems and the flower part no foliage. So I would like to replicate some kind of foliage. Thanks.
hi travlar,
it might surprise you, but there are good books about scenery. People on here are rather friendly, but i would not care about “flowers” so much. A track plan first and bench work later. Planning of scenery is wise from the start, building it is the very last of your worries.
For books look at the shop-part of this site.
Track Planning For Realistic Operation by the late John Armstrong is the book to have right now, and to study. And start to envision railroad moves. You want some switching of freight cars. It might involve a large classification yard or a small “relief” yard and it will involve spurs. You want to run passenger trains through a landscape, sounds great. But realise those trains run fast, and are at the end of your layout in a minute. Doing loads of laps can be a way out…
If you knew all the questions professional designers ask you, before even starting a design… you would be surprised. Or you go through it all or you take the advise of Stein; just build a pretty nice layout out of a book first. The project layout of 2011 of MR might be a good choice. A shortened version can be fitted in your space. Lots of switching is possible, while passenger trains occasionally appear from staging.
Paul