anyone have good tips for making a forest? if so tell me what materials i can use to make groundcover and pines for a hungarian forest. pls help
ian

Ian, I would recommend using bragdon enterprise branches for making the pines. as for ground litter, i would mix chopped up mosses and different grasses. If you remind me in messenger I will link you to an article for it. Cheers Kevin

Ian, if you check under the Flora & Fauna section of this Dio forum you will find a recent one by Major Goose on a beautiful pine he made. There are also several excellent ideas by some of the other guys here including a feature on making pine.

I may be able to help you a bit, I hope, on the ground cover though. There's usually not much undergrowth especially in a dense pine forest unless there's a clearing or several trees have fallen. This is because the needles have a chemical that inhibit grass growth. Instead, you will find lots of brown pine needles which you can simulate using the herb, Dill. Cheap and easily availabe. Add PVA glue: water to ground and sprinkle. When dry, dry brush with a bit of grayish brown.

In a clearing you will get grasses, fallen logs and small young pine trees. If you go to a dried flower shop, ask for the flowers of the grass known collectively as Sedges. Its a grass usually found in wet places. The flowers are about 3-5 cm high and resemble small pines.

thanks for the feedback guys...i have a pretty good handle on the pines, just things to fill in under pines...do you happen to have a pic of these "sedges"? any ideas for some woody bushes and etc .... ferns? tell me of any others plant types that grow in the forest and have a way to model it. cheers
ian

Sorry Ian, no pic on the sedges but it shouldn't be too difficult for the shop to point it out to you if you mention you are looking for sedges or the flowers of sedges.

Honestly not much grows immediately under pines especially the heavily wooded ones, except a heck of a lot of pine needles and cones. You get the odd grass clumps that can withstand the chemicals from the pine needles and the occasional young pine. It's only in the clearings that you get lichen and moss on fallen trunks, grass and baby pines. Ferns usually found in wet places like near streams although it can tolerate shading as under pines. I have a pic of some ferns I managed to preserve in my gallery.

By the way, hardwoods like pines are not too difficult to preserve if your'e interested. You can preserve the shape but not the color. But you could always paint them over. You can dry them or preserve them with glycerin:water as I did below. Mixing time and instructions are found with the pic in my gallery.

thanks for the feedback all. i know that the acid created by the fallen needles dont go well with plants but in wyoming where i visited, it is heavily wooded and still has grass bushes etc... although in the areas right below pines would be a circle of pine needles. im just trying to find some filler plants i can use to cover the ground other than the common day stuff u see in the majority of dios (static grass, WS field grass, and oregano trees)
cheers
ian

Well, you've done 1/2 the work - you've gone and seen 1st hand what you're trying to model (always a good idea if it can be done.)
I'd take a trip to Michaels or AC Moore and go to the dried flower section and sift around and see what looks like what you saw.

I know Jackhammer did some great pine needles in his last dio using cut hemp twine.

ok ill go try that...but does anyone know a easy to find houshold product that might help?
cheers, ian

Like I mentioned in my first post Ian you may want to try the easily available household herb, Dill. Its sold in bottles (the brand was McCormick)and looks pretty close to a pine needles.

Over here I found another cheap source of readily available herbs in a shop that sells cake making supplies. Was over there with wife (one of my more useful grocery trips) and came across cheap herbs. I'm not sure if the cake supply shops at your place will stock "1:35 leaves" but you might want to try it out.

thx...yeah ive been looking at herbs in the local safeway for a while...although for me the herbs are too irregular in shape and jagged. and i think the best for pine is either finely cut hemp twine and/or brown static grass because dill is pretty long fibres. thanks for the tip anyway
ian