Lodgepole

A pine the wind has bent

The subject is a conifer with a crooked trunk and an irregular crown, of the kind that grows on poor soil, on scree and in windy positions. That is exactly why it looks convincing where a straight grown tree would seem out of place: above a stony slope, at the edge of a worked-out quarry or in a strip that is only now returning to green.

Two trees of different height

The package holds two pieces, one measuring 10.2 cm and the other 12.7 cm. The difference in height is deliberate, because a little group of equally tall trees gives away at once that these are models. Stand them close together with a slightly different lean of the trunk and the gap between the crowns immediately reads as natural.

Where to put them

The pair comes off on the edge of a drop, by a mountain road or as a divider between meadow and forest. In deep growth they are lost; denser conifers are better there. Fallen needles, that is a fine brown scatter, and a few stones belong under the trees, so that the foot of the trunk does not end on a bare surface.

Fine-tuning the color of the crown

On a model the needles have a uniform tone, whereas a real pine tends to be darker inside the crown and lighter at the ends of the branches. A light dusting of a lighter green around the edges brightens the crown and the tree stops reading as flat. The trunk, in turn, gains depth when a dark glaze is rubbed into its grooves and the surplus wiped off.

Setting them in and care

The trunk is pushed into a pre-drilled hole and secured with glue; with a plaster base a drop of cyanoacrylate glue in the hole helps. The free ends of the twigs can be bent carefully and reshaped, so that the crown is not symmetrical. Blow the dust off the crown with compressed air from a short distance, as a brush would tear the foliage off it.