Thanks guys it’s good to be back but haven’t we done the lumberjack a couple of times before? Like the Irish arborist said - two’s company, trees a crowd. Yes Erwin apart from the two conifers they’re all deciduous, the 1936 shots taken in winter prove it. And agreed G (and don’t call me Shirley) foliage is probably the most difficult part of dioramas to make realistic – the Grasmaster solved grasses for me but they haven’t invented a Treemaster yet….hmm maybe that’s how I make my next billion. Anyhow if it all goes pear-shaped I guess I could always saw the garden right off the base & call it Op Ant Toon







The green stuff was wrapped round a bunch of flowers, a tough fibrous kind of paper (I don’t know its name) which I scrunched up before gluing its edges to the foam. Just the right colour & uneven texture, roughed up with a fine wire brush it might even serve as a closely mown lawn (over a dark green base, being somewhat transparent) but here it’ll be mostly hidden so no point. I’ve been sporadically buying foliage options over the past couple of years from craft & hobby shops, maybe US$40’s-worth so still budget-friendly considering the area to cover (Total project cost to date: US$ 1,150)…



Next the curved wall – it may have been bare brickwork in reality but again hardly visible in this diorama so I took the easy option, concrete panels…









Sieved sandy soil mixed with dilute white glue was enough for the paths. Tempting to add some graffiti to the walls, instead just some basic weathering with dry powder paints because…







Just test-fitting there, at 1 metre long the Francheville (“Moss sheet ribbon green” on the label) strip’s not quite enough to go all around the curved wall but that’s OK, with some pruning I need to keep half of it for later – not too shabby for hedges/creepers though, even if it is shedding already.

Next: the garden beds, some wall-hugging weeds and lastly (gulp) the trees

Nice start on veggietown . I like the solutions so far! I did cringe when I read the price tag to date. Man o man.
Either you have a very understanding partner or you must've been a long serving politician with ample practice in hiding illegal budget expenditures.
J

Looking good Tim! Watch with interest.
The more I look at this, the more it reminds me of an intersection with 2 levels in Arnhem, just in front of the bridge over the Rhine, looking towards Nijmegen. An oasis with the traffic above. Trams and Trolley Busses, cars and all other means of transportation. A little park site with flowers, bushes, trees and some benches.along a lane, (close to the Music Sacrum).
Keep them coming!

Well, I can edit my post. or just add some more information. I think Prague and Arnhem have a lot in common. Cities with a very nice old part, surviving WW! and thrown in to modernization after that. Both cities are build on multiple levels with all kinds of pedestrian walkways, separated from traffic that moved on higher levels. Arnhem is like a little park town, Prague too. Modern city, for that time, mixed with 19th century buildings. International allure with 'a boulevard theatre for the chique'.
Sometimes I miss Holland.

Your bushes are coming along nicely, but then again: Aussies are experts in bushes ...

Did you plant your bulbs yet, so they will come up nice and colourfull next spring?

Thanks Jerry yep you can see why I only do an audit once a year! Slightly more bearable (and defendable) to divide cost by elapsed time – around 38 bucks a month so far. I spend more than that on…never mind, but I still have quite a few figure sets to buy
Thanks RJ that’s good to know, so if all else fails it could morph into A Bridge Too Far – now that really would be a triumph of dio-cycling. And thanks Erwin, well I was hoping Glenn would mail me some micro-seeds...

Well, at that time, they had trams too (now trolley busses) , so be carefull what you hope for

Good point Erwin that would most definitely be a Tram Conversion Too Far…but those two figures in 1/35 would be real handy. Meanwhile here’s how my bushes grew…













https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJlpoybKk8c

…had to check 49 times what kinda mushrooms I ate last night too, what a doozy. So I was thinking about spraying a slightly darker green on the bushes because they’d tend to shout in full sunshine, but they should be shaded by the trees & the corrugations on the leaves are only visible close up, considering how little will be visible it should all be OK. As for the trees…









Happy with this first trial although layering needs more practice/refinement. Equally happy with the low hours/cost input: twigs (US$ 0), spray adhesive (US$ 12), green gauze (donated), “leaves” (US$ 2 per jar) all easily sourced & barely blip the overall budget. The only issues may be about the organic material fading over time, and maybe weevils? If the former occurs the trees will be removable so could be given a rejuvenating green spray, if the latter…I see they don’t like bay leaves so I’ll shred some into the mix. Next time – forest clump

Nicely done Tim , looks great . I like the overall layout a lot !!
The parsley flakes look like they'll do the job .
What no oregano , smellavision .... Italy herbs .
By the way is the word innuendo Italian for Preparation H ?

That first overhead shot could easily pass for a real drone shot. Nice. I love the broadleaf bushes as well. I have a flowering bush like that in the front yard. Common type but the name escapes me right now. ( very common thing lately).
Looks great man.
J

Nice Shrubberies you have there... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSMPjMVnAU

No really... I only would try to make the grass in front of the bench more scuffed...

Thanks gentlemen, actually I used mixed herbs on an old Normandy Sherman & it had its own fragrance for years until it met its demise in the little-known Operation Cook-off. Fear not Erwin I have not yet begun to cultivate the grassed islands but the edging will look like the flower beds’

Hi Tim,

Your garden is maturing nicely,...unlike the rest of us, ...really looking forward to seeing it evolve, .

Cheers, ,

G

Hi Tim,

Excellent effort on the park area and the trees.

Michael

Many thanks & glad y’all like the artificial horticulture experiments, here’s some more…



The 3rd tree attempt & this time I remembered to take some snaps - step 1 find twig, step 2 tease out the gauzy fuzzy stuff onto the branches…



…step 3 spray adhesive, step 4 sprinkle parsley flakes, step 5 when dry prune/edit with sharp scissors…





A different tree…



…and another…



…and a variant, the live twig…





…and some test shots in the park (but not their final positions) just to see what they look like…





Several more trees & tree-lets required to fill in the white spaces - at least 6 - but it looks like they’ll work OK. There may not be enough colour variation but some light sprays should solve that if it’s a problem, & maybe the trunks aren’t thick enough but by the time it’s done I doubt any will be visible.

Tips - study trees, their branches & layered foliage and spend time getting the gauze to follow those lines – just randomly wrapping it around won’t cut it, trust me. Spray underneath and on the lowest branches first & sprinkle, then work upwards to the top branches one at a time. Successive adhesive sprays also help secure what’s just been sprinkled. It’s easy to get a blobbed effect when too many leaves clump together which is why it’s worth pruning when dry…and I can see some places where these first efforts need some more. However, as I’m discovering when clumped together the trees tend to hide each other’s imperfections.

Apart from believing it looks OK I like it because I don’t need to worry if I have enough material, don’t have to wait for it to arrive from wherever, and it hardly costs anything - these four trees took 1.5 jars of parsley i.e. 60g or US$ 3.

Hi Tim, That looks great! ... Much nicer than the old terminally ill elm in front of my home.🌳🪓
—mike

Hi Tim,

The trees are looking spot on, thank you for sharing how you've constructed them, I think I'll be borrowing some of your methodology for my next project, .

Cheers, ,

G

Thanks guys looks like you’re the last two standing in the heat – hah I blow my nose at European/North American heatwaves, try 44-46°C as we had for several days in January. Freezing our butts off right now though. Let’s see how the trees pan out G, I’m working on chopped/dried chives from the herbal counter as a green variant to mix with the parsley - if it’s no good I guess I could always smoke it

NICE!! Very convincing deciduous and inexpensive to boot! My kinda modeling!
The last "twiggy" tree was my fav.
J

Thanks Jerry just making it up as I go along & the uneasy feeling they might not look any good bunched together in situ grew until I had to stop to find out. The size of the problem…









So far, each of my trees are surprisingly heavy/top-heavy & difficult to place in trial positions in the garden. When finalised they’ll each have a hole drilled through the base with a retaining collar (3 cms deep from the level of the garden soil) so they’re removable, but if I can’t place them & play around with positions I won’t know where to drill. So I used some packing foam to make a floating raft over the flower beds…





…and pushed the trunks through it until they reached the garden surface - presto trees stand up unassisted. The obvious drawback is they’re all standing 3cms taller than they will be when properly planted, but it’s an easy by-eye adjustment to make when figuring how each will look against its neighbours, and of course compared to those photo-refs…









Results are (1) I’d intended to position them round the edge of the central island but it’s too far away from the fence, so round the garden beds they go with some more big ones needed down the middle of the island, including the two conifers if I ever find dead-straight pine branches. 2) I need to make more & taller trees than expected for that. 3) Despite heavy adhesive spraying they’re all dropping leaves with every handling & the gauze is starting to show through. At the same time they look too dense, so I need to reduce the amount of gauze to allow more gaps to show through. So it looks like the first foliation of each tree is basically a draft, and only when they’re all finalised will each get a second dose of leaves & another fixing spray plus a final prune to break up the blobs & better er interleave them. Live & learn

You have a quick learning curve at any rate. I have not yet found an adhesive that fixes the flocking on without shedding. I will be interested to see if you conquer that issue.
You have spotted for yourself all the problems I have seen so at this point just hold the reins loose and let the horses run brother! I would add that given the trees are so close together maybe look at the thing in its' entirety as one large clump,instead of focusing on individual trees? Hopefully I am making a coherent point ?
As far as the tall conifers how about using a dowel ? Sand down to a point at the top and glue sawdust to the trunk and paint that. Easy peasy.
J

Hi Tim,

Looking good, you don't do things by halves, but you do them well, . I think when massed together that you'll have something very impressive and reminiscent of the real thing.

Will you be adding any tonal variations to the trees?

Like Jerry, I will be interested to see if you come up with an adhesive solution.

Carry on growing, and cheers, ,

G

About the spray adhesive I may have a/the answer, subject to a glue-ologist’s expertise. The stuff I’ve been using is the kind found in any artists’ materials shop: “Multi-purpose clear adhesive for permanent & repositionable mounting” says the can. So it’s actually a contact adhesive - permanent bonds need both surfaces sprayed, temporary bonds only one surface. So, using it as I am with only one surface sprayed it’s not surprising autumn’s come early.

Talking about it with my railroad mate Alistair today he thrust a can of regular non-aromatic hairspray into my paw with the words “go forth and rectify”…or was that “go forth and multiply”…we were onto a 2nd bottle by then. I’ll try it out tomorrow.

Yes J when I’ve got all the trees into position the final pruning will be to get the overall look right rather than individuals. Tricky though, given they’ll be removable I’ll have to number them & their sockets and also mark what each’s orientation is to mesh with its neighbours. Re the conifers OK maybe dowel, or a stiff wire bonded to the curved pine-y branches I’ve found.

Re tonal variations G - yes I’ll be trying out a different herbal remedy to provide a slightly dustier green & some tree diversity…chive talkin’…sorry that really was a tragedy

Wow, these veggies are looking great, Ruck On Bby!