That's a small orchard...actually, it's not that small...in fact, it's quite large

So, I'm perusing various online sites, like eBay or Aliexpress, thinking about finding trees to improve my orchards. There's quite a bit to choose from and, in particular, I liked the look of those with fruit on them.

It's not that I don't have trees for orchards. I just don't seem to have quite enough.

Those I have, work well for somewhere like Normandy. Although, while perusing the various online sellers, I couldn't seem to find more of the same. Hence, looking at other options.

The trees with fruit had an advertised height of approximately 4cm. That's twice the height of one of my 20mm figures and probably a decent scale height for an orchard tree. That said, their exact height was not clear from some of the pictures. It may say 4cm, but that's not what I'm seeing on the ruler....

They weren't expensive and so I took a risk and ordered two bags of twenty. A couple of weeks later a very small packet arrives from China. What could this be? It's those trees, but they are small....very small. 

Technically, yes, to be fair, they are probably 4cm tall, but they did feel very much on the puny side. 

It wasn't what I was expecting. So, I put them aside in the terrain tub until I could decide what, if anything, I could do with them. Not much, it seemed. That was until I rekindled my interest in O Group and, in particular, playing it with the 12mm Second World War collection I've put together. Perhaps those small trees could work here, where, if anything, they might actually be too big? How we come around in circles.

I based the trees on strips of MDF about 150mm (6") long, with four trees to each strip. I didn't feel the need to do anything to the trees themselves and the bases were textured and flocked as per my other terrain.

When arrayed like this I started to see how they could work for my games.

The more I looked at them, the more I began to think how versatile they might actually be. Perhaps they are slightly large for 12mm, but, not ridiculously so. I'm certainly happy to use them like this. Here they are with a few of the Victrix 12mm range.

The trees are not too tall, although the 'fruit' is on the large size.

That made me wonder. Would they make good fruit trees for my 20mm figures? Well, imagine that, they actually work very well. In fact, much better than I thought. That was an unexpected outcome. 

So, could I push the boundary and have them work with 28mm figures? That seemed like it might test the friendship and to some extent it does. However, not quite as much as I imagined. In fact, I think these might work okay for a small, backyard orchard, or something similar.

Suddenly, the trees that appeared to be a waste of money, now look very versatile and likely to find a use in a number of different contexts. There's a lesson in here somewhere.