This is a picture I promised of a spent Crape Myrtle bloom made into a tree. It's taken in my garage on a small range of hills I'm making on the work bench so it doesn't look as good as I'd like but it will give you an idea of what can be done:
All it takes is finding spent blooms that have a good tree armature shape. Tear off the little balls left behind by the blooms. Trim it until it has the size and shape you want. Get one of those 99 cents disposable turkey cooking pans at the grocery store to use to catch excess material. I use Duro spray adhesive but any kind of spray adhesive will work.
Spray the whole surface of the bloom, except the lower trunk, over the pan. I use a combination of WS Blended Turf and WS Fine Turf to sprinkle over the branches. The nice thing is the excess is now in the pan along with the excess adhesive. Use your fingers to make balls of foliage and stick them om the ends of each branch. Use any left overs to cover where the trunk meets the branches. Finish up with small pieces of WS Clump Foliage to add more body to the tree where needed. Have a piece of foam standing by that you can now stick the completed tree in and let it dry for a day. The adhesive stays tacky for about a a day so you can press any stray hanging pieces back onto a branch before it finally dries.
The entire cost is the WS scenic materials, which is less than $20. The blooms are free and, once you make a few, you can turn out a complete
tree in about 10 minutes. I think the results are as good, if not better, than most commercial trees, and you're not paying five or six bucks a piece. I'd guess you could make about 150 trees with the WS materials I've described so your cost would be about 13 cents a tree. It works for me so, if you are in an area where Crape Myrtle can grow, plant a few and you'll have all the tree material you'll ever need.
All it takes is finding spent blooms that have a good tree armature shape. Tear off the little balls left behind by the blooms. Trim it until it has the size and shape you want. Get one of those 99 cents disposable turkey cooking pans at the grocery store to use to catch excess material. I use Duro spray adhesive but any kind of spray adhesive will work.
Spray the whole surface of the bloom, except the lower trunk, over the pan. I use a combination of WS Blended Turf and WS Fine Turf to sprinkle over the branches. The nice thing is the excess is now in the pan along with the excess adhesive. Use your fingers to make balls of foliage and stick them om the ends of each branch. Use any left overs to cover where the trunk meets the branches. Finish up with small pieces of WS Clump Foliage to add more body to the tree where needed. Have a piece of foam standing by that you can now stick the completed tree in and let it dry for a day. The adhesive stays tacky for about a a day so you can press any stray hanging pieces back onto a branch before it finally dries.
The entire cost is the WS scenic materials, which is less than $20. The blooms are free and, once you make a few, you can turn out a complete
tree in about 10 minutes. I think the results are as good, if not better, than most commercial trees, and you're not paying five or six bucks a piece. I'd guess you could make about 150 trees with the WS materials I've described so your cost would be about 13 cents a tree. It works for me so, if you are in an area where Crape Myrtle can grow, plant a few and you'll have all the tree material you'll ever need.
Last edited by a moderator:
