Most of the pasture consists of grass and weeds, but the stream is lined with bushes to such an extent that it often disappears. A couple of years ago, after reading Gordon Gravett’s books, I ordered a small square of rubberized horsehair from Treemendus. When it arrived, along with a small shank of postiche, I remember thinking I would have to place a second order before the layout was finished. Now I’m not so sure as both products yield a lot of scenery for the size of the original material.
The rubberized horsehair is a finer, denser, more flexible version of the furnace filter material I’ve used to make hundreds of conifers for my friends’ western Canadian layouts. Indeed, I was about to jump into the attic to retrieve my stash of furnace filters, when I was seized with laziness and decided to dig that modest sample of rubberized horsehair out of the scenery drawer.
The mat that came packed in a padded envelope from Britain is about an inch thick, and I cut two squares to make rough cubes. Then I started to pull it apart. Like the furnace filter material, it likes to separate into layers, and I pulled each of the cubes into about a dozen pieces, which I then tucked together to make bushy shapes. I sprayed the bushy shapes with black paint and then sprinkled them and rolled them in coarse ground foam.
In the photo, some of the bushes are freshly-glued in place, and still need some coiffing and perhaps additional foam to be considered finished. However, they definitely read like bushes, and I’m pleased with my decision to stay out of the attic.
Pembroke:87 
Looks like it can be easily manipulated into genuine Washington-Oregon-BC blackberries.
Oh yes, this stuff looks exactly like blackberries.
If ever there was a photo that rewarded zooming in and in and in it’s this one. I’m excited to practice new techniques in scenery textures. Thanks for the link to Treemendus. Growing up on a diet of British model railway magazines “plumber’s hemp” seemed such a common media but I could never quite visualize what it was like so I could envision how it could be used.
-Chris
Thanks Chris. We need a mail-order store in Britain just that translates from British to Canadian. Blu-Tak defied me for years until I went there and learned it was just poster putty.
Absolutely! Term to term translation services and then suitable substitutes. Them just plugging in Shopify to bring us lashings of Blu-tac, plumbers hemp, scatter, and Copydex.
I’m in.