Choosing the right plants

[fungus]

Whenever I visit a garden centre I've been keeping an eye open for plants that fit in well with a 00 garden railway. These have mainly been classified as alpines, and I have found a few good ones and many not-so-good! I am in the process of preparing an illustrated write-up of what I have found so far, in the hope that it will be of use to others and will stimulate others to publish their own findings, which will be of use to me!

Here's my first example.

Arenaria balearica is a low, spreading plant with tiny leaves. It flowers on short stems in early summer, and retains its leaves all year. It likes well-drained soil, sun or part shade, and is drought-resistant. It is ideal for providing ground cover close to ground-level trackwork, reducing the chance of earth splashing over the rails when it rains.

[mick]

An excellent idea for those of us with ground level layouts. I had a similar idea to record useful plants when I first built the Selby Garden Railway but other tasks overtook all that. There's some useful plants resident in my garden here but I'll have to correctly identify them before posting details.

[traingeekboy]

Since my layout is eye level I tend to go for vines. The leaves are completely out of scale, but the colors are always real.

On my to do list is to cut some holes through the ply and grow rosemary plants in pots from underneath. Although your plant would be ideal even on a eye level layout, if one cut holes in the ply and then set pots in from the top. The plant would spill out of the pot onto the layout surface and give a nice green look to the layout.

I like the Herbs like rosemary because they make a very tree like structure and you can cook with it. I'm quite fond of pasta with butter and rosemary.

http://www.1001artificialplants.com/prodimg/m_8816dd5191.jpg

[Bill Davidson]

Sounds good to me, but you're making me hungry now lol