Ready Made Trees

Gene      Most of the commercial tree are overpriced and too small!  There are great how-to video's on youtube .  You didnt give any description on your layout or its geographical location but a good rule of thumb for measuring trees  for your layout is to take a box car ( 40  -50 scale feet ) or a 80 foot passenger car body length 20"s . The area  I live in, white pines rang from 3' to 80' in height  some taller.  Many of the layouts I have seen on the web seem to be populated. with trees, right off a Christmas farm.    Dave

I have bought a few ready made tress. 90% of the trees on my layout are made from scratch using a variety of materials. Most ready made tree packs are about the same price. The only difference is the size and number of trees in the package. My only advice would be to look for trees in the 7 to 8” range and maybe larger. Especially if it’s a stand alone foreground tree.
The Supertrees are popular and while not ready made. They can be done like an  assembly line production and you can yield a number of trees. My one knock on them is in the end the trunk itself just looks to spindly and most aren’t that tall. They look best when grouped together. The best trees on my layout use sagebrush armatures available on eBay and branch material from Supertrees. A lot of work but the results are good and not a big investment if your doing the work.

This is before the foliage was applied.

Whenever I am in a hobby shop I buy a couple of ready made trees. Over the years this builds up and makes a difference, even on a large layout.

In driving in Maine I've noticed that roadside trees rarely are isolated, beautifully shaped stand-alones. Rather, they present an uninterrupted wall of vegetation, in which one tree merges into the next. I'm about to attempt to create this effect, thinking in terms of inexpensive value packs and scratch built trees.

Hi Genemed,

There is a great source right here in the OGR Forum!  Not sure what the correct term is but each Forum section begins with a set of topics that rarely change.  The Scenery and Structures Forum has a topic titled "The Scenery Sourcelist".  Here's a link:

The Scenery Sourcelist | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

It is IMHO the most comprehensive listing of suppliers for our hobby!  Vendors are listed by their specialty.  Look for the sub-heading:

Scenery Products: Ballast, grass material, trees, car loads, etc.

I counted about 6 different suppliers of ready-made trees or material to build your own forest!  Good Luck!

John

Thank you all for the knowledgeable info. It gives me the direction I needed.

Gene

@CA John posted:

Hi Genemed,

There is a great source right here in the OGR Forum!  Not sure what the correct term is but each Forum section begins with a set of topics that rarely change.  The Scenery and Structures Forum has a topic titled "The Scenery Sourcelist".  Here's a link:

The Scenery Sourcelist | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

It is IMHO the most comprehensive listing of suppliers for our hobby!  Vendors are listed by their specialty.  Look for the sub-heading:

Scenery Products: Ballast, grass material, trees, car loads, etc.

I counted about 6 different suppliers of ready-made trees or material to build your own forest!  Good Luck!

John

Hi John, thanks for the link.

Gene

My personal preference for ready made trees are Grand Central Gems.

-Greg

Scenic Express is a good source for just about anything scenery.   There is an on-line catalog, at one time there was a paper catalog.  Check availability of the paper catalog.

Sedum  might be a good choice for O-scale trees.

Scenic Express has reference to several (How to), scenery projects.

IMO, Mike CT.