Making Trees from Hydrangea?

it works very well. The only issue is they tend to be a bit fragile.

farwest, here's a bush I have, it's a kind of hydrangea, even though the flowers are more of a spire than the pom-poms that other hydrangeas have.  It'll make a different shaped tree of course, but the process should be the same.

It's best if you don't deadhead your flowers in the fall, and leave them to dry on the bush during the winter.  Even this time of year, there will still be some few petals hanging on that you'll have to carefully trim off.

Here are some of the blossom clusters that I clipped off, on the workbench, I've gone over them and trimmed off any remaining blossoms and other stray stems.  

Where you cut them from the bush makes a difference: you want to try to get the straightest stems you can: one of these has a curled stem and I won't use it.

I set up my workbench area with two separate areas covered with newspaper.  One is a "wet" area to spray the blossom clusters with glue.  The other is the "dry" area to dust the sprayed clusters with fine ground foam.

You don't want to use the same area for both, because when you dust with the foam, you will have a lot of waste on the newspaper, and you want it to be dry so you can put it back in the canister and re-use it.

The wet area will get pretty soaked, you might want to spread a garbage bag flat on the table under the newspaper in case any soaks through.

I use Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement.  It's just a water-based white glue the right consistency to spray easily.  I spray the clusters thoroughly, from the top and also from the bottom.  Then, over the dry newspaper, I dust them heavily with Woodland Scenics finest ground foam - this canister is Blended Turf.  Dust them from the top, turn the flower over and dust some more from the bottom.

With these, I sprayed them again after dusting, and then dusted a second time: this increases the amount of turf that the blossom retains.

Between each tree, I crease the dry newspaper and pour the extra turf back into the canister to use again.

Whatever natural brown shows through the foam, is all to the better.

Here's a group of a half dozen of these that I put around this tinplate American Flyer station on my layout, they came out okay, and make a different shaped tree from some of the other garden plants and weeds (like Sedum) that are often used.

Have fun!

I put these right into holes in the layout as I made them; if not, you will want to have something ready to hold them as they dry.  They want to be standing and not touching anything as the glue dries completely.

I would add that although the dried blossom clusters are fragile when you first pick them, and must be handled with care not to break off all the little branches, the process of covering them with glue and ground foam actually adds strength, so that by the time the glue really dries, they are somewhat more sturdy and resistant to breaking.

Your trees look really good, hojack.  I've made some from some kind of weeds myself, but they didn't come out as good as yours.

TrainsRMe, thanks for the compliment!  I think things always look better in photographs, you know?

The ones I made look a little "thin" compared with commercial trees, but I remember what someone on the scenery forum said once, that given how varied nature is, you can always find a prototype for anything, and I guess there are trees that look like this!  Regardless, after using a lot of commercial trees, I am coming around to the sense that making my own trees, even if they are a bit goofy, is much more rewarding.  I really LIKE these trees, and that's what puttering on the layout is all about...