Friday Fail - New Scenery Over Old

It's strange how the Model Railroad Muse behaves sometimes. I've gone for months (if not years) avoiding certain aspects of the hobby - scenery and airbrushing in particular - and then, AllOfASudden, The Muse strikes and I can't imagine doing anything else. That explains a bit why I jumped into scenery a bit last Sunday (I'll cover yesterday's airbrushing in another post). But sometimes jumping into the deep end of the pool isn't always the best way to get started.

Case in point: the team/bulk track at Somerset. I'd done the first pass of scenery in this area 8 years ago (almost to the day, as I discovered), but I hadn't ballasted/covered any of the track.

Somerset - 11/27/2009

So - 8 yrs later - I figured I'd start finishing this area by "ballasting" (actually, adding dirt to) the siding/bulk/team track. Unfortunately, it turned out that I didn't have quite enough of the dirt material I needed, but I put down what I had left, soaked the area with 70% alcohol and then added 1:1 white glue:

Tuesday, 11/21/17

Unfortunately, it looks like that may have been a mistake. I should have done all the scenery at the same time 8 years ago, because the previous scenery and "new" scenery ain't matching...

Friday, 11/24/17

I took the photo above this morning, 3 days after soaking/gluing the area. It doesn't look like it, but it's actually all dry. But it obviously doesn't match - it's like I added a great big watermark to the area(!). What did I do wrong??

Lesson learned - do all scenery in an area at the same time, or else risk that it will "weather" differently and you won't be able to match it in the future.

So now the question is - What do I do about it? Any suggestions?

• If I had more of the dirt (which actually matched the old stuff in color and texture), I'd cover the dark area and just leave it loose without soaking/gluing it.
• I could try going over the dark area with PanPastels/chalk to try and match the color of the surrounding area (at least the texture is the same), but I think that'd look just as obvious - I won't be able to match the subtle gradations of color of the prior scenery.
• Alternatively I could go over the entire dirt area around the siding with some pastels/chalk to try and at least blend it all together.
• Last resort - I could spread some glue over the entire dirt area and add static grass.

That last idea would certainly kickstart my static grass practice, but talk about jumping in the deep end of the pool! I'm afraid that just might make things worse. Problem is - I don't know what I don't know - and certainly don't have the experience to know what to expect from these different options.

So I'm asking for any suggestions/advice on how best to proceed. What would you do?