Early Light

Broadleaf growth in the color of early spring

The three finished trees carry pale, only just opened foliage of the kind a broadleaf stand has in the first weeks after budburst. The shade mixes yellow-green with a cooler green, so the crown looks translucent even against the light. Every piece is painted and planted separately, so neighboring trees do not look like two castings from one mold.

The size and what it matches

The height runs between 7.62 and 10.1 cm. In the railroad scale of 1:87 that matches a tree roughly 6.6 to 8.8 meters tall, so a younger birch or ash by a field track. On a diorama in 1:35 the same piece will be more of a mature bush or a fruit tree behind a fence, and in 1:72 a lone tree at the edge of a garden. The package holds 3 pieces, each of slightly different growth.

Placing it in the scene

The flexible slender trunk takes being shaped into a lean, and the branches can be opened out into an asymmetric crown, which keeps a trio from looking mass-produced. At the bottom there is a pin that drops into a hole drilled in the base. The small disc supplied lets the tree simply stand and be moved again while the composition is taking shape; a permanent seating is secured by a drop of PVA glue in the hole.

Combining the shades

Spring green stands out beside darker crowns in shade and beside conifers. It works to set the trees in irregular groups of two or three and fill the gaps with lower growth, so that the step from lawn to crown is not abrupt. A pale crown also works well in the foreground of a scene, where it catches the eye before the darker mass of the wood behind it.