The Garden Railway: A horticultural Interlude.

This idiot's knowledge of plant's could easily be summed up on the head of a pin, i.e. two letters spelling uh!


So far at Diss-Arster station, which includes a small flower bed as a compromise of course. I have only planted what looks right, a couple of small conifers and what looks like heather but I have some elevated baseboards and the uprights need hiding.

Here.

Here, no that post is not cock eyed it's the camera.

Here, on the incline from Diss-Arster.

And here, at the currently not so good looking main station!

Now let's go back a couple of year's and compare the photos of the main station above. It's the light green plant were interested in. 

The dark green plant is in a pot and separate to the what I know to be Baggeson's Gold or Lonicera Natilda to give it it's correct name, yes I looked that up. It's a fast growing Honeysuckle and was already here when we moved in. As can be seen by comparing the above photos, it has grown and extended very quickly but the downside is, it needs to be kept in check.

Online Information on this plant is somewhat erratic, as in taking cuttings (never done before by me) and when to plant and when not to plant so this is a bit of an experiment. To learn a little more about it, try here: http://www.findmeplants.co.uk/plant-lonicera-nitida-0145.aspx 


About 10 years ago Mark Found made a TV programme for Discovery Channel, called The Garden Railway. It covered building a garden railway from start to finish and he has recently put the whole series on YouTube for all to see, thanks Mark. Episode 13 covers plants, specially this one and can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5WQbcTT3Bg 


You only need the one plant to get going  From this one bush (if you can call it that!), I took three cuttings as a test. Two in mid summer, one of which died and one in November.

The one I took mid summer last year, I have planted today.

Fingers crossed it survives and now it's in the ground, flourishes. The late November one is growing well in a small pot in the shed and I intend to try at least another 5 - 7 cuttings this year.


So this is how I intend to hide most of the elevated trackbed but this plant is not just only good for that. It's also great for creating small trees for the outdoor railway, by simply keeping it trimmed and stunting it in bonzai fashion.