Forest ground cover

[joefryfry]

In the east here, forest floors, all year, usually have plenty of leaves. I am modeling spring/early summer. I would like to know what people use for forest floor cover. I suppose real dirt, or fake dirt would work, but what about leaf litter? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[nachoman]

I have heard of people grinding up real leaves in a blender. My thought is that most leaves aren't very big, and would not be seen as individual leaves in HO scale. My suggestion would be to take sever shades of brown, fine ground foam and blend them together and spread over the ground.

[tetters]

I have heard of people grinding up real leaves in a blender. My thought is that most leaves aren't very big, and would not be seen as individual leaves in HO scale. My suggestion would be to take sever shades of brown, fine ground foam and blend them together and spread over the ground.

...and some oranges, yellows & reds for a splash of colour!

[MasonJar]

...and some oranges, yellows & reds for a splash of colour!

Usually by the spring, most of the colour is gone, and you have a matted layer of dark brown, partly decomposed leaves. I think the colour would come from new green shoots and wildflowers that poke out before the leaves on the trees completely close out the sunlight...

Paul Dolkos does a convincing "November scene" - in fact I think that's the name of one of his articles on scenicking. I seem to recall that he uses the leaves-in-a-blender approach to achieve the right texture and colour.


Andrew

[tetters]

ah...I missed the spring / summer part. I was thinking about early / late fall. Guess I should read more carefully. :oops:

[nachoman]

I once took the dried flower blossoms from a backyard tree and ran them through a blender. I thought the results were pretty good. I try to keep organic materials on my layout to a minimum. I have heard of mice chomping down a forest off trees made from local weeds, and when I was a kid, I had some kind of moths lay their eggs in lichen and natural materials I was using for ground cover. My mom never did figure out where all those moths were hatching out from . If you are to use natural materials, I would suggest finding a preservative that keeps the critters away.

[Sumpter250]

My "Ground Cover", has always been an indiscriminate mixture of various colors of foam, saw dust, and anything else I find that adds color and texture. I do try to stay away from most natural materials, because of the infestation ( moths) possibilities, saw dust is relatively safe. The greens, are usually what is left after sifting WS coarse turf.

[jim currie]

have used organic material for years and never had a problem with it , but the first thing i do with anything from out side dirt , sand , twigs or leaves is a 2 or 3 hr bake at 250 to 300deg in the oven , kills and thing that might be hiding in it and any seeds or spore in it. then i pass a large magenet to pick out anything that a motor magnet would attract.
jim

[Saltwater Cowboy]

I use real leaves also and here is my method. In the fall take your leaf blower and put it in reverse and suck up a pile of leaves. The vacuum will chop 'em up into small pieces. Spread your chopped up leaves on your wife's cookie sheets while she's at work. 3 hours in the oven at 250 degrees. Remove from oven and let cool for a half hour or a beer or two. Run a powerful magnet over the top of 'em to be on the safe side. Instead of the blender which I found to be a pain, use the food processor and fill it about 1/2 full of your baked leaves. Keep hitting the pulse switch until your satisfied with the fineness of your leaves. Store your new ground cover in a container and take it to your work area and return to the kitchen to clean up the cookie sheets, food processor and the debris you spilled on the floor and counter.

As far as dirt goes: A couple shovel fulls get spread out on newspapers on the garage floor and then picked through for bugs, worms, seeds, stones, bits of bark and ancient Indian arrowheads. Break the clumps down with your hands. It is better to harvest your soil if it hasn't rained recently or been covered with 5 foot snowdrifts as it is now. Now, wait again till your wife pulls out to go to work and retrieve the same cookie sheets you used for the leaves. Crank up the oven to 250 and bake your dirt for as long as it takes to become as dry as the Sahara desert. 2 to 4 hours depending on the moisture content. Remove from oven and let cool while you frantically run around the house vacuuming, putting away laundry, emptying garbage cans, dusting the entertainment center and everything else you were supposed to do that day instead of playing the culinary railroad game. After the dirt has cooled significantly do the old magnet trick again. This time there is no need to dirty up the food processor or the blender. Instead break out the handy dandy flour sifter and a glass cake bowl. Sift your dirt over top of the bowl. A very fine powdery almost dust-like substance will fall through and into the bowl. This is now your HO or N scale "dirt". There will be a bunch of dirt that no matter how many times you sift it it will stay coarse and just lay on the bottom of your sifter screen. Don't ditch it! This stuff makes excellent talus and rock debris. Now, store your dirt away and go clean up your mess! The sifting process will certainly have left it's presence known on the counter, sink, cupboards and every nook and cranny of your kitchen! Don't forget to thoroughly wash the bowl ,sifter and cookie trays. ("hi honey I'm home!".....) Well, gotta go!!!

Matt

[tetters]

I use real leaves also and here is my method. In the fall take your leaf blower and put it in reverse and suck up a pile of leaves. The vacuum will chop 'em up into small pieces. Spread your chopped up leaves on your wife's cookie sheets while she's at work. 3 hours in the oven at 250 degrees. Remove from oven and let cool for a half hour or a beer or two. Run a powerful magnet over the top of 'em to be on the safe side. Instead of the blender which I found to be a pain, use the food processor and fill it about 1/2 full of your baked leaves. Keep hitting the pulse switch until your satisfied with the fineness of your leaves. Store your new ground cover in a container and take it to your work area and return to the kitchen to clean up the cookie sheets, food processor and the debris you spilled on the floor and counter.

Matt

I almost spat coffee all over my laptop when I read the fourth sentence in this paragraph from laughing.

What I want to know, is how many of you guys have done this and been caught. hock:

[MasonJar]

I bought an old used blender for the grinding, but I have yet to equip my train room with an oven and cookie sheets...!

Andrew

[Saltwater Cowboy]

Here's how I got caught... I was working on the layout all day while I was off. I ran out of dirt around 2:00pm. (my wife gets home around 5:00pm). So I decided to speed up the process and cranked the oven up to 500 degrees and after it preheated I put in the cookie trays full of dirt. In about 1/2 hour the dirt was dry and ready to be sifted, but during the baking process I must have spilled a little bit on to the stove elements and an awful foul smelling smoke was pouring out of the vents. I was in the basement doing something else and when I came up the steps I could immediately smell that something was wrong. The entire house REEKED!!! Well, I opened doors and windows, lit candles in every room and emptied 2 cans of air freshener. It did not help one bit. Wife came home and the first words out of her mouth were "Hi! How was your.....What the #@$&^% is that AWFUL STENCH!!!!!!" Well, I had to confess as to what I had been up to and boy was she ticked....for a week. Of course she had to tell her parents, my parents, her co-workers, her sister and probably reported me to the State Department as well. Now everyone I know thinks I am a complete loon....Oh well....
The other day I needed some cheap unscented hairspray to affix ground foam to trees and since my wife was on her way to the grocery store I asked her to pick me up a bottle. Well, she took her sister with her. In the hair care aisle, my wife picked out a generic bottle of spray and put it in her cart. Her sister asked "why are buying that junk?!?" My wife replied "It's for Matt..." (I am almost bald FYI). Her sister's comment was " After the baked dirt story I am not EVEN going to ask what for....Nor do I even WANT to know!"

Matt

[P5se Camelback]

Damn! Matt! Now I have to go and break out a fresh pair of boxers ... I've been laughing too hard!!!

I once baked a fresh paint job on a brass locomotive at 200 degrees for 1/2 hour in our oven and when my (ex) wife got back from the mall it was just like your dirt story.

We also had a problem with slugs getting into the tomato plants. I had heard that slugs liked beer (who doesn't?) so I took a cookie sheet with a low rim, poured some beer in it, put it out next to the veggie garden and in the morning I had a half dozen drowned slugs. I was so proud on my ingeniousness! She saw the slugs in her cookie sheet and vowed no matter how many times I washed it, she would never bake in it again!

Somehow we have to learn not to mess with the hand that feeds us!

[Sumpter250]

For leaf litter......after using a teabag, open it, spread out the tea leaves to dry, and save them. They have already been ground down to almost HO scale leaves, and are about the right color.