It is finally time to make a lot of trees. I will be using various plant items from our garden and our trip to Arizona. There are many opinions on what to pre-treat the wood with to help preserve it and make it less brittle. I have tried Acrylic paint and clear flat poly. Both sort of work.
Question??? - What have you people tried and how did it work? Do you have a favorite? Did you try something that did not work, especially after a year or so?
30 plus years ago a glycerine solution was state of the art for plants like lichen. It might work for your plants. Are you using just the stems and applying ground foam, or are there buds and leaves that you want to keep?
Hi BigBoy. I will be using both in different applications.
My thinking is that the “woody” parts don’t really need much of anything. They will be brittle when they dry, but depending on their thickness, they shouldn’t be too fragile.
You might want to spray the leafy and flowery parts with paint or a sealer.
I tend not to use the the leaves or flowers. The yarrow I’ve picked usually loses the buds, so I just cut them off first then dip the ends of the stem in white glue, and then in ground foam.
Bump - I still would like some of your opinions, unless no one else is using natuarl weeds and bushes for your tree armatures.
I’m beginning to wonder about that myself Art. Synthetic materials seem to be all the rage.
I use the blossoms off of the Smoke Bush. I pick them in August (northwestern PA) and hang them upside down in my attic until late fall. The reason I hang them upside down is that they will dry without the blossom limbs sagging down.
Now when I am ready to begin making trees I get them ready by removing any leaves and any other debris and then paint them a green color with cheap Wal-Mart spray paint. I then hang them upside down for a day or two to let the green paint soak into the woody parts of the blossom.
After they are dry I spray them one at a time with Scotch Super 77 spray glue (nothing else works as well as the Super 77 – and I have tried them ALL!). Then I just pour the fine ground foam all over the tree. And I mean I pour the foam (dump would be more like it) and then shake it off. Again I hang the tree upside down to let the glue dry for a day.
Once they are dry I take them down and plant them. Once they are planted I then use hair spray (purchased by the gallon at a Beauty Salon supply) and spray the trees and then sprinkle the trees with various different colors of Reds, Yellows and Oranges (I am doing Autumn) and shades of Green to give the trees some variation.
I will also use the tops off the Golden Rod weed and Sedum blossoms after they have dried. There are other flower garden blossoms I am experimenting with and the wife just loves it when I am glad to go to the nursery with her! But I am there trying to find potential new TREES! And I will make suggestions that we should get this flower or that flower but in reality I am just trying to find a new blossom to use for trees
BOB H – Clarion, PA
I use 1 part vegetable Glycerin mixed 2 parts with distilled water. Heat the water and then add the glycerin. If you want, you can also use fabric dye or food coloring to the solution. Put the plants in the hot mixture as soon as they are cut for quicker results and deep enough to cover the whole plant. It can take anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks of soaking, depending on the plant used anyhow dry it is. I suggest doing a test by soaking a few plants and remove one a day at a time and allow to dry on a thick mat of newspapers. Done right, the foliage should then last indefinitely. However, since you live in a dry climate, you may have to give them a light spray of solution if they get brittle after time.
Now for the WARNING: The dried natural plants will be flammable just as they would be if left unpreserved.
So far I’ve done about 4 cubic feet of lichen. Since the plants are very dry, it takes a week of soaking. I used Rit liquid dye and the dry stuff. Both work well but I had to use two packs of dry per quart of solution or half bottle or more of liquid to get the depth of color I wanted. You need to stir the solution daily to even out the color. Otherwise the plants touching the bottom will be darker or deeper in color than the plants at the top.
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That’s because mice don’t eat them and mold doesn’t turn them white. I’ve had both happen several times on natural scenic material, which is why I rarely use it.
Good timing on this post Art. I’m within a week or two of forestation myownself.
Welcome back from AZ by the way.
I used to do the boiling “glycene” method for lichen and other natural plants, but now that scenery products are getting better and better ( they now beat the heck out of painted sawdust and lichen itself) all i do is give the natural plants a good coating of tan or gray paint…i use the bloom of the crepte myrtle to make oak trees because i model a part of the world that is nothing but oak trees and just painting them works well for me…chuck