What basic scenery products are essential to have on hand?

get rid of carpet, otherwise the scenery will look misplaced.

It all comes back to the narrative, ML.

Which story do you want to tell?  If it's about a sleepy country mountain town, the scenery will be different from the dry cattle country, or Kansas Kornfields. 

Once you can picture the place in your mind, it will narrow the field and point you to the scenery products you will want to make the ground look convincing.

I'm not looking to build a scale model with super realistic scenery.  This is meant to be more of a "toy train" layout with operating accessories.  Hence the reason I'm not too concerned with the scenery looking out of place on top of the green carpet.  Something along the lines of the image below with a few less accessories and more homemade trees.  I wan't to add some interest to what I have with a mountain in the back corner and some sort of incline leading up to it.  I started building some wire tree armatures and want to add foliage to them.  I'm just struggling with making a shopping list of some basic Woodland Scenics materials to get me started with ground cover and foliage and what each product might be used for. 

I would start with 2 or 3 shades of green ground foam, coarse and fine, along with some fine earth. Clump foliage for trees, along with leaf flake. Matte medium or white glue for adhesives, as well. I really like using Fusion Fiber for a base because it can be tinted and doesn't need glue for the ground foam. You could even use it over parts of the carpet, if so desired. It adheres to rigid foam if roughed up or taped with drywall mesh, as in your mountain idea. Plenty of possibilities.The hardest part for me was just getting started. Try a little area and go from there.

I'm an absolute beginner, and my work shows it. But here are some of the products I used for this little scene.  Hope this helps. Ted

I'm no where near done, but this is a start.  Got another order from WS coming next week.  Good luck   

Edit:  order got here quick. Got the wrong size ballast. Don't make that mistake.  

We always kept a LOT of beer on hand.

One less-obvious essential is a pair of spray bottles containing a very dilute mixture of India ink and alcohol--one black and the other brown. With these, you can do light weathering on almost anything.

MLINDBERG:  If you want the general image of the layout photo you posted, then you are on the right track for a "display-toy train layout". 

Just look for trees that you think look good.  Buy a dozen trees at a time...they will disappear fast when you start "planting" them. 

I know some guys who take asphalt shingles (like for a home) and use them as material for their roads.  They lay them in place, mark them with magic marker for trimming to "road width" including turns and curves and intersections.

You can purchase plaster coated gauze to use for scenery (or to put a cast on that broken finger where you hit it with the hammer).  If you do that, pick up some latex paint in small containers (squeeze tubes and small squeeze bottles at the hobby stores)...Oh, no, not for the finger cast, for the hill side or mountain you decide to build out of a pile of newspaper and the wet plaster/cloth.  Paint it the color of "earth and grass" that YOU like.

There are lots of methods to expand your toy train/display layout scenery.  Who knows?  You may end up liking realistic scenery so much that you pull up the carpet and use real dirt with ground foam and ground cover.  I am moderately satisfied with painting the Homasote and spreading ground foam and ground cover in the wet paint so it holds it to the surface.  Granted, I do multiple layers of that...and sometimes follow up with a spray coat of "wet water" (a spray bottle of water with a drop or two of dishwashing soap and some matte medium or Elmer's glue to help soak the ground cover and to help hold it in place).

I used a lot of lichen balls for trees in HO, but they would work "adequately" as brushes and scrub trees "down in the boondocks" (That's the side of town...Uhhh...thank you Billy Joe Royal)

Let's see...advice about roads and trees and wet water spray and plaster embedded cloth and related humor about broken finger and plaster cast....1960s song lyrics...yep, that about covers everything I can share tonight.

TedW posted:

Hot Water posted:

We always kept a LOT of beer on hand.

HW, when you use your Play Grnd sand undercoat, did you wash, then dry it?

 

Did not bother to "wash" the sand, as there was really no need. I obtained about ten 5 pound coffee cans, and kept adding & mixing sand from the bag (damp) to the various cans, then put the dried sand in 5 gallons buckets to work out of.

I think this layout looks fine. My 5x8 layout is 12 years old. It's base is indoor carpet in a muted green. After a few years of adding stuff, you can hardly see any carpet, as the buildings and scenics rest on it as separate "modules". My only advice is to exchange large "space takers" (like the MTH firehouse) with smaller stuff (like a used car lot and diner). I have no desire for a bigger layout...however, I also have a Christmas layout as well as a small American Flyer postwar layout. 

Thanks for the suggestions.  John H, your list is what I was looking for.  

Saw Dust

Earth Tones, Brown, Gray & Green Latex Opps Paints

White Glue

Cardboard, Corrugated

Coffee Stirrer Wood Sticks

Wood Stain, Walnut

Brown Paper Bags

ML, everyone has given you great ideas. If it was me and I was going to start adding a bit of better scenery I would definitely get rid of the carpet. I start with bare plywood. I add Gypsolite ( my preference ) to the plywood, paint it earth tone with Woodland Scenics earth color then start adding my turf, shrubs and trees. Myself I get all my scenic supplies from Scenic Express. I have also watch the very good how to videos Woodland Scenics has put out which helped me. And as I go along I find better ways to do scenery and new products to try. Doing scenery should be fun and what you can do if you want to is limitless.....Paul