Adding Evergreen Trees to the W&Q Ry.

There are three style of dollar store Christmas trees seen in this photo.

I have spent an afternoon planting trees on my On30`W&Q Ry. module last week. I did already have a few trees already scattered around the backdrop, but there needs to be a lot more. My tree planting this fall came about when I found a bag of large evergreens that I purchased a few years ago at a dollar store. These trees are actually Christmas trees intended to be used in Xmas displays. You only find them available during the holiday season.

Here we see one of the trees in the package and one out still wearing its Christmas balls. Note the tree in the package has snow frosting that is easily covered by the spray paint. The larger trees are a dollar each while smaller trees are packaged in two`s for the same price.

 The process is simple. I begin by picking off the Christmas balls from the trees then I spray bomb green one tree at a time. I use any green paint that is available to me. After spraying each tree I shake some Woodland ground foam on. Once again any shade of green I have available will do. I prefer the darker greens for both the paint and ground foam. I leave the wooden stand on while working on the trees as it is easy to handle that way. I cut them off once dry with snips. I use pop can cardboard trays to catch the paint as I paint and a second to catch the ground foam as it is poured over the trees. The foam is reused till used up. Planting the trees takes no time at all once dry the next day. Keep an eye open at the dollar stores this holiday season and you might find some interesting backdrop trees for your own layout....George

I used a few of my trees as foreground models.

The two larger trees are both dollar store finds. The smaller evergreens to the left are N scale models that got the same treatment and look fine mixed in with the larger trees near the background.

Here we see a few different dollar store trees. The smaller one at right came two to a package. If you look closely the green ground foam does vary from application to application.