Garden Railway Forum

Note:Before I start i'll say I am no horitcutural expert, and my advice comes from my experiance of sticking plants in the ground and hoping they grow!
I'll start off with looking at a few alpines that are growing in the large border of the ANLR, where the line climbs round a headland.

This is arenaria caespitosa, a ground hugging plant with light green foliage, and the nearest I have found to 16mm scale grass. It prefers moist, but well drained soil, and can be used in full sun or part shade. Needless to say it is not looking its best this time of year, although in the summer it looks great.

These are a pair of saxifriges. There are many varieties of this plant, most if not all are suitable for garden railway, but some are better than others. The ones I have all are red, white or pink flowers on masses of low growing green foliage, but some have flowers that grow on tall stalks but others have much lower stalks and look more in scale. They flower at different times too, as you can see one is comming into flower here, whilst the other is still recovering from the winter.

Finally, here are 3 nice plants. The right hand one is phlox douglasi "ice mountain", a plant that is very suited to garden lines, growing to 10cm tall with a large spread. The plant in the middle is sedum hispanicum "Glaucum". This has very good spreading abilities, and is also very good for taking cuttings of, indeed from cutting it back to stop it spreading onto the line, the plant has spread right around my line. This means form one pot, i've got several free plants! It grows in any well drained soil, and prefers full sun. Height 5cm. The third plant is a type of dwarf Juniper, although I cannot remember exactly what!
Finally, a few other pointers. When you buy plants, check the height and spread to make sure you can give it space to grow, especially for miniture trees. After all, if you get it wrong, it can become expensive if you have to remove something because it is taking over. Also follow advice on the lables, if you don't follow the instructions, the plant could die. Finally, keep the lables, even particualy if the plant dies, it will remind you not to buy that plant again (this has happened to me too many times )

Very interesting, "arenaria caespitosa" the top one is my faviroute, I'll have to keep an eye out for some.

Good idea about keeping a record of 'failed' plants, Ive had a lot of those over the years

I've used a plant commonly known as 'Mind your Own Business' or 'Babies Tears'. Its great for covering embankmenks & track but doesn't interfere with train running, unlike moss. Do you know the proper name for it Laalratty ?

Yes i do know the proper name, but I can't remember it! I'll try and find it. Many people say it is imposible to kill off. However guess what? I've managed to kill off the pot of it I planted! I think the frost got it
*Edit* I've found the name, its called Soleirolia soleirolii I found it in the garden centre indoors, in a section called foliage rather than alpines where you might expect to find it.

Right, thanks.

Thoght it was time again to look at some more plants found round the ANLR, including a couple of miniature trees.

This is a variety of Campanula "Mrs Resholts". It grows to a height of 15cm, and perhapes has leaves and flowers a bit big for a garen railway. However, I think it looks great at a border edge, as used here tumbling over the railway sleepers and breaking up the harshness of them (you can see it coming through one of the holes in the sleepers). This is the plant that I would like to use in the bed created by the new wall by the greenhouse. It does prefer a sunny poisition in well drained soil.

This is Sedum spathulifolium Cape Blanco, one of my particular favorites round the ANLR. Its colour makes it look great around slate, and it is also pretty hard to kill off, a real bonus! This means it can be separated and spread round the garden, giving you more plants for your money, another real bonus! It has a height and spread of 5cm by 30cm, and prefers full sun although I have got patches in light shade.

The forest at Afallen is made up of many types of small conifers, most of them are types of Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana, most of these make great trees for garden railways, usually the ones to look for are those that have "Ellwood" somewhere in the name. Examples here include Ellwoodi, Elwoods golden pillar and Silver threads.

Finally, here are 2 more Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana. On the left is Elwoods Pillar, and on the right is Elwoods Empire. The pillar grows to about 45cm in 5 years, whereas the Empire grows to double this, 90cm, in 5 years. They both tolerate full sun and partial shade, but do require moist peat working into the soil when planted. There is no denying though that the plants make this a great location for photos

Your small conifers are lovely! I have a few dotted around, I must get some more! I am not good on plant names, so wont be much use for giving names for my plants, but heres a couple of pics of mine...



Lavender (I think) growing in the rockery ontop of the tunnel, along with lots of Saxifrage around the curve and some Conifers.



I think I went a bit mad with the Saxifrage... this lot has gone rampant and grown into giant mounds of colour!!! Even surrounding the small Conifers!



A plant I have lost the name of, it is THE perfect scale tree in my opinion. I have two of them, and I'd like more but not seen any since I got them.

Many of my plants aren't really scale, but as long as they're small, delightful and have smallish leaves, they tend to suit my line. I like colour, it adds to my scenery!

Small, delightful and have small leaves should be a the basic starting point for any garden railwayist looking for plants, well thats what I looked for when I started. Must say, the saxifrage looks a bit strange surrounding that conifer, although the colour is very nice, and replecates heather to an extent. Looks to me like there is a sedum atop your tunnel as well, between the lavender and the saxifrage. If you do remember the name of that small tree do post it on here, I like the look of it

Still no French Marigolds, . All the plants look lovely in all pickies though I'm more of an annual flower person myself rather than alpine and evergreen despite the coverage and scale bonuses.

some of my favs are starting to come into flower now

The first one is rather nice Pauly, I also quite like the look of the yellow(?) one in the background of the purple one's photo.

SillyBilly wrote: I also quite like the look of the yellow(?) one in the background of the purple one's photo.

I tried putting one of those yellow ones in round the ANLR twice, however both times it died, with what looked like terminal destruction by slug or snail.

well you can have some of mine! spreads all over the joint and has a habit of derailing wagons.