Flower Power by Charlie Comstock
I
s your layout drab? Does it appear bereft of cheer? Are your ‘little people’ starting to complain about the ‘blahs?’ How about planting some flowers to help cheers up all the locals? FIGURE 1,2: Flower mats (top) and mat with its thinned backing (below).
Instead of scratch-building microscopic flowers, I bought a sampler pack of Sil-Flor flower mats with 4 different types of flowers from Scenic Express. Sil-Flor flowers look great but they have a problem: in HO scale they’re too thick! A good pair of scissors lets me trim their backing removing most of the bright green roots (figure 2). After thinning the backing I tear off small bits and pieces. If I’m planting FIGURE 3: Sil-Flor flower mats and an assortment of pots and planters in various states of construction.
gardens or weeds I just dip the pieces in a small puddle of white glue and set them on the layout grouping them with bushes and static grass. FIGURES 4-7 (right, top to bottom): You’ll find wildflowers growing nearly anywhere. All it seems to take is water and dirt. I planted mine mixed with grass and weeds for an unkempt look and white-glued them in place.
backing trimmed to reduce thickness Page 47 • Issue 4 • October 2009 • The Scenery Scene - Flower Power, page 1
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