Building Cedar Trees

Southwestern Ontario is typified by its unique mix of deciduous and coniferous trees, especially its mix of cedars, pines, spruce, maples, oaks and birch trees. For my n scale NES model railroad, I wanted to create the look of a low-lying cedar bush, so I needed to find an inexpensive and quick way to create cedar trees. After a few experiments, I found the following technique allowed me to make a great number of trees at minimal cost and with great speed.

The key to making these trees was finding natural plant specimens that closely suggested the shape of a cedar ‘ I found a suitable solution in an abundant roadside wetlands grass commonly referred to as Pampas Grass or Pampas Plume (Cortaderia selloana). The ends of this grass are made up of dozens of feathery plumes that closely resemble the conical shape of cedars.

I first removed a small plume from the plant, and loosely wound it around some fine wire; the individual plumes are far too flimsy without the added rigidity of the wire. Once I had prepared 5-10 plumes, I gave each tree a quick spray of flat brown spray paint and immediately sifted on some fine green ground foam. I followed this with a few pumps of cheap hairspray and then applied a second coat to ground foam to fill in any gaps/imperfections, as well as create greater density.

I let the trees dry for about 10 minutes, and then planted them in the foam scenery base. Using an awl, I punched a small hole in the Styrofoam, and using some tweezers, pushed the tree down into the hole. After I had planted a few trees, I used an eyedropper to soak the base of the trees with some 50/50 white/glue mixture. In an hour I was able to build and plant about 25 trees, which covered an area of about 16 square inches, at a cost of about $0.05 a tree.

Looking back, the texture of the trees is perhaps a bit coarse for the look of cedars, however en mass they do effectively suggest a cedar bush. Hence, I’m happy!