Sedum plants

Here are some of my experiments with sedum and homemade ground foam.  I really like this stuff.  I get my neighbors to let me "harvest" theirs in late fall/early winter.

Fred

Very impressive, to say the least. Proportions are good.

mikeg

I bind them together with florists tape that i buy at a local craft store which i then paint a mix of grey/brown to make the trunks. Also by mixing three or more colors of ground foam together the trees are more natural looking. i usually spray the branches with 3M adhesive and then dip into a bucket of ground foam, repeating the process in different buckets until the desired colorings and density is achieved.

I use 3M adhesive spray as well. It holds the foam a lot better than hair spray! For the trunks, I wrap the sedum stalks in masking tape. Then I coat that with white glue and add a fine coating of sand. when that's dry, I paint it. The sand gives a nice bark texture.

Seedum seems to work best, IMO, for an inexpensive group of trees quickly.  Most of these trees on the Mercer Junction Train Shop layout were done in one night.

We find it along the road and walkways here in Ohio. You harvest it in the winter after it has dried out . You can get a garbage full in no time! It is brittle but you can trim it to whatever you need for trees and forests. You can dip it into scenic cement and drop it in a bag with ground foam or clump or leaves .Use your imagination to create your trees. 

Frank

thanks for all the information and the trees made from them are so much better than the ones we have purchased years ago pre-made!

$oo

This may be a little minimalist for you modelers and hirailers, but it works for my tinplate toy layout.  I just hit these with 2 shades of green spray paint, no ground foam or other additives.  Funny thing is, they look exactly like mahogany trees, if you've ever seen a mahogany tree.

I've used lots of sedum trees on my layout but I try to arrange them so the bare stalks don't show. Sometimes all it takes is to lay a few "trees" on their side so they fill up the space where undergrowth is found. Just for kicks I built a sedum tree this afternoon by hot-gluing the florets to an old stick. It took way too long for mass production, but I'll probably make a few more for foreground trees.

Sedum is a great plant for the layout.  I just cut back the current crop from the yard yesterday.  Who knows why, but this past seasons crop did not yield the muli-branch "trees" like shown in the picture here.  Current crop will be best used cut down to the foilage and used as low shrubs and ground cover.

Sedum is great for trees BUT over the past few years I have also been using an invasive reed found here in Michigan.  It is everywhere and free.  It is called "Phragmites" or Tall Reed.  I usually cut it in the fall when it is in full tree form and then spray it with green spray paint and sometimes add a little fine turf to it.  I have put over 500 natural trees on my layout and they all are holding up great.  I also use sedum as well a lichen and golden rod.  A few of my pine trees are sticks with torn up scotch bright pads on them or I paint furnace filters green and rip them up and place on sticks for pine trees.

here are a few pic's of the raw material as well as the finished product standing alone and also in a forest of mixed trees of various spray painted colors.