Many modelers pride themselves in the fact that they have to drill hundreds if not thousands of tiny holes in their diorama base to insert strands of tall grass. I would like to know why they bother spending all that time and energy doing it? Most of the time results are not very convincing since real grass doesn't really grow in symmetrical clumps coming out of ground every couple of inches.

I would like to introduce to you a new and improved IMHO method for attaching grass to the base. It is called...get ready for this...WHITE GLUE method. Simply put you cut a clump of tall grass, dip one end (the one you would normally shove into a whole) in white glue (not too much just enough to keep all the grass blades together and to give it some adhesion) and stick it onto your base. Once the clump is on the base you can but don't have to separate the blades touching the ground a bit to give it an illusion of grass coming out of the dirt in several places. Repeat this process as many more times as needed to cover up the base. Advantage of using white glue is that it dries clear so it is basically invisible after the dio is completed. I used this technique in my Ruined Farm feature.



Results are very realistic.

I agree with everything you said. Drilling so many holes is just a waste of time! What do you use for your grass?

Here's another idea that I have been waiting to do to my dio. Just put the glue on the ground in the shape you want the entire clump or area to be, as regular or irregular as you want. Then take an entire round bunch of your material wrapped in a rubber band and place it over the glue. When the glue dries, only the material where you glued will have the "vegetation". The rest will fall and you can retrive it for later. No holes, no one clump at a time, no holding, no waiting. I'm lazy.

Sealhead

I basicly did the same thing for my Ferdinand dio. Only difference is I put down a layer of static grass first and used super glue to attach the tall grass.

hmmmm.....I never thought about that. Thing is, I spent about 5 minutes drilling holes, but white glue sounds good, I'll try it next time.

yeah im thinking of using hemp rope fibres for grass....just superglue them at the bottom and viola....the scragly nature of em will cover up the glue.
ian

I have used hemp rope fiber with pretty decent results. I cut it to length ( a variety of close lengths) and put it on the display / dio base where I wanted it. Then I went over it with diluted white glue. After it dried I went over it with some brown and yellow ocher washes. It does a good job of representing mid to late autumn prairie or marsh grass.