Flowering Foliage™ Purple

A purple flower changes a whole scene

A flowering bush is a rarity on a diorama, and that is why it draws attention at once. The purple tone suits a lilac by the wall of a country house, a heath on a rocky hillside, a band of lavender along a road and a climbing plant growing over a fence. For that very reason it pays off to be sparing with it: two or three places in a view do more than a continuous flowering area, which in nature looks like that nowhere.

How the material behaves

The material is porous and soft, it can be torn into tufts of any size and squeezed into the shape of a crown. Tearing by hand is better than cutting, because scissors leave a straight edge that never arises on a plant. The area of 464 cm² given will do for dozens of bushes if small pieces are taken from it.

Use step by step

• Tear off a tuft roughly a third larger than the finished bush is to be
• Loosen it in your fingers, so that gaps arise between the clumps
• Set it onto a frame of wire or straight onto glue on the terrain
• Fill in under the bush with fine material, so that no glue shows through anywhere

Purple gets on well with rich green as well as with faded grass, but it does not stand up to being overlit. If you light a view with cold light the flower turns gray, whereas in warm light it stands out. Anyone building a scene for a display case with lighting of its own should try the placing of the flowering bushes out before gluing them down for good. Half an hour of playing with dry tufts laid in place saves the later scraping of dried glue off finished terrain.