Garden Railroads

I didn't get a garden railroad for Christmas; I didn't even ask Santa Claus to bring me one. Actually, before the thought of writing this article entered my head, my only exposure to garden railroads was just a few photographs that I saw in a magazine.

A lot of my articles have been about the history of garden design, I felt like taking a break from all of that research.

There is a lot of information up on the Internet about garden railroads, but there doesn't seem to be much about how to integrate these toys into a garden. The best webpage on the subject that I have come across was created by Paul Race about his garden railroad; it also contains plenty of practical information such as the best size gravel to use.

The most common approach seems to be just laying out railroad tracks in a garden and having your toy train run below the blooms on your roses and dahlias. There is really nothing wrong with this approach. Why not edge your flowerbeds with railroad tracks? There is a basic honesty in not pretending that your garden railroad is anything more than a toy that you play with in your garden.

It is possible to plant a miniature landscape for your train to run through. This sort of garden would be a lot of work to maintain, but really no more work than a collection of bonsai or a rock garden filled with alpine plants. The website of the San Diego Garden Railway Society features a number of articles written by Carol Westover about plants which are well suited to creating miniature landscapes.

Rock gardens and rockeries are better suited to garden railroads than rose gardens. Most alpine plants are low growing with small leaves, and rocks of any size can be in scale with the trains. You should avoid stones which are smooth and round because such stones are usually rounded by the force of water; rough stones will look like large boulders next to the toy trains.

Paul Race has his railroad tracks running around a small rock-edged pool in his garden. He insists that none of his cats have been electrocuted by drinking out of the pond while standing on the track at the same time. He grows aquatic plants in his pool, but I would avoid them because the leaves and flowers most aquatic plants would be out of scale with the size of the trains. He also surrounds his pod with rather small flat stones, most of which he found on his property. Irregular stones, like those surrounding the Japanese inspired pool in my garden might not look more natural, but they would be a bit more dramatic.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic