My railroad: Planting a forest

Описание: This project took a little over a week of hobby time. I didn't get down to the basement every evening, but I was able to put in some extra hours one day when work got cancelled. I'm really happy with the way this area turned out, although if I did it again, I might plant the trees just a little further apart on the front edge so as to hide the train less.

Most of the trees used are completely scratchbuilt from basic materials. For complete details of how I make them, check out the links below.
Conifers:    • My railroad: Making conifers from furnace ...  
Deciduous:    • My railroad: Making deciduous trees from f...  
I also mixed in some "Scenic Express Super-trees", but there are already enough super-tree tutorials on You-tube (some better than others) and my methods are nothing new.

You may notice that I didn't plant trees all the way to the right end of the benchwork. No, I didn't get bored with the project. When the stage-2 benchwork goes in, the backdrop will extend about 6" behind the current section, so I need to leave space for installation.

The tallest trees on the layout scale out at just over 100', but there are many more smaller trees. Unless modelling an orange grove or a Christmas tree farm, there needs to be trees of all sizes. Every hundred-foot tree was once a ten-foot tree, and before that, a two-footer.

I now have about 8 linear feet of "finished" scenery, which is a first for me (I've never had any scene on any previous railroad even remotely approach the "finished" descriptor). I'm not sure if I'll actually leave it alone just yet. Right after taking the final pictures for this presentation, I added a whole load of additional small trees and shrubs around the truss bridge. I also need to come back and pour another layer of water. I used a water-based product from Woodland Scenics and it doesn't stand up very well. Even wiping off the dust mars the surface. I'm planning on adding Envirotex-lite over it, but I'm still running tests to make sure that won't ruin the scenery completely.

Anyway, it's now time to get on with something completely different - let's see; National Widget still isn't finished...

I'll probably keep adding to this description over the next few days, so check back later.

As always, I welcome your comments (even if it's only to point out that the sound quality is crap - I know, it's a really cheap mini-cam).