How to add grass and bushes to your train layout

In a previous article I explained how to make mountains and valleys. Click here to view that article. Once you have them you need to make them come alive. You will have to add ground cover, grass and brush or bushes. Otherwise all you have is a big white plaster mountain!  Unless you have rolling hills you need to start thinking about clifs, boulders, & rocks. We will cover rock outcroppings in another article but they should be dealt with before adding your base ground foam to the area.


First realize that grass grows on flat or near flat surfaces. So leave it off of verticle clifs. Weeds or vines like to grow up vertical surfaces. Bushes tend to cluster at the bottom of rocks or trees or around other bushes or berms. I strictly use woodland scenics “ground cover” products for all my landscaping needs. That is not a commercial trust me they aren’t sending me any checks. They just make some great stuff.

Start with the finest turf material. You will need some grass, weeds, dirt. They have different shades of grass for instance; I would get them all and then use what you need where you need it or blend it for a custom look. Also get yourself a shaker bottle. You are going to want to mix the ground cover together like a painter does on his pallet to make the colors you want and then you can simply shake it out over the area you are working on.

I like to layer the darkest colors on first which is usually dirt and then work in the lighter colors on top this way the dark bleeds through where you want it to if you only go over it lightly with a top coat. Once you have your grass/weeds down you have to start thinking texture. They have medium and rough grades of the turf ground cover so you can shake on some texture, don’t forget to use different colors to contrast the base coat.  All the same color is boring.

Use bits and pieces of their Foliage clusters to make the basic shape of your bushes. Cluster them together or around other objects for realism. Then you can shake on some fine or medium turf to give them some depth and or color.

Use their straight foliage to create viney bushes or vertical hanging weeds or even underbrush. This stuff comes in a mat form that you can pull and stretch how you like. I Use this stuff a lot for various applications.

Once you have this stuff in front of you and work with it for a while you will be able to mix and match the products to get all sorts of different feels and looks to your scenery. Remember the world isn’t perfect and contains lots of colors and textures.

You are going to glue all of it down with a typical carpenter’s wood glue. Dilute the glue enough to be able to brush it on thick for your base coat. You can use it straight to glue on your bush clusters. Then dilute it to the consistency of milk to put it in a spray bottle to go over the entire area to lock things in place.