Quick method for hedges
But by lack of an apple tree any other shade will do as well of course, as well as balconies and public parks instead of a garden.
On Waimes there are several fields surrounded with hedges. One of these is at the Faymonville end of the layout and the hedge runs parallel to the railway along a field acces road. This meant that a length of about 1.5 m hedge was required.
I have used several methods for hedges in the past. One of these is cutting strips of scouring mat and depending on the hedge roughness either coat these directly with fine ground foam or first apply wool to make it more voluminous and than coat it. I tried that again with a strip of scouring mat, but this time I didn't find the result convincing. This because the available scouring mat was actually too dense and didn't tease well to make it more open. Therefor I decided to try a different method using the same filter wool as used for the bushed area, but you can use sheep wool too for identical effect.
The first step is by cutting strips of plastic card that will be used as core for the hedge. To make the strip less visible I used 0.8 mm black card about 6 mm wide and 15 cm long. Alternatively if you don't have a quillotine cutter than white Evergreen strips treated with black and green Edding 3000 viltscribers can be used for quick replacements. To camouflage them further the strips were painted with dots of green and pale brown acrylic paint. Then the strips were coated with clear plastic glue (Velpon type) and filterwool was teased out into long narrow strips. These wool strips were pressed into the still tacky glue after some initial drying. Both sides were coated with a strip of filter wool. After being completely dry the strips did get a haircut leaving about 2.5 mm wool on three sides. This was done with curved scissors for easier access. The lower edge was completely sheared off to assist planting. You then arrive at something on the photo below:
A strip prepaired for coating with ground foam. Along the track beneath is another strip that still needs its haircut.
The next step is good dose of hairspray and sprinkling fine ground foam with a tea sieve. The finer the foam the better. I redid the hairspray and sprinkling 2 to 3 times to get a good full coverage. The results looks like that on the next photo:
The same strip coated with ground foam. The used ground foam here is Woodland fine turf in a mix of most likely green and green/yellow.
The strips can be easily bend to follow curves in horizontal plane and follow slopes by making incisions with a side cutter for undulations in vertical plane. But for following steep bends and curves in both planes the scouring mat method will be much easier to apply because of being much more cooperative.
Of coarse unkempt hedges can be made by teasing out the wool much further into irregular structures and even assisted by using profiled strips instead of straight parallel ones.
hedge planting day on Waimes
copyright: Henk Oversloot
date: 30 July 2020
