The Garden Railway. (I've done the script: pictures to follow!)
No, don't switch off. This is not going to be a boring description of a load of toy trains chasing each other around the garden! Neither is it a technical account designed to have a non enthusiasts eyes water, so bear with me.
In our lives, there is always going to be the need to be able to chill out. One of the best ways to do it, is to spend time outside enjoying an environment that you have created for yourself. Sometimes, you may find that there is a need to include in your little patch of sanity somebody else's interest. It could be a sport, space to repair cars or other large pieces of machinery, a home/ environment for pets,
Potential enthusiasts at an Open Garden event
or somewhere to display large pieces of your artwork. In fact, the list is as long as there are people who have hobbies! I would say that the onus is on the persuer of the hobby to integrate it into the garden room. If you need hardstanding, it doesn't have to be bare concrete; you can get blocks that allow grass to grow, making the area look green and more attractive. Trellis can help to hide a storage area, and carefully chosen bins or mini sheds can be stained to blend in with their location. Whatever you do and whatever you use, to secret is to keep everything tidy. But then, you do that anyway, don't you?
A word about security. The Police can offer advice on how to make your empire secure. However, common sense will give you most of what you need. Do we have security? Yes, we do.
The trick is to incorporate the said activity or interest as sensitively as possible so that there is some sort of balance and integration between the two. It's also important to establish a level of harmony between all of the users of the garden! This page is about how I attempted to integrate my railway into our garden in such a way as to be as unobtrusive as possible. You can judge just how much I succeeded from the pictures.The problems and solutions that are described here are naturally specific to the railway. They do show, however, the kind of mindset that you begin to devlop in order to cope with the needs of two differing interests.
Taw ambles through the top end of the garden.
There are many ways of building a garden railway, and each has its own merits and disciples. If you are a garden railway person, you will have chosen your path. If you are not, but are interested and want to persue the matter in greater depth, then contact us for a chat. I chose to build my railway at ground level, blending it as naturally as possible into its surroundings. The vision evolved into a scheme to build a continuous layout, with a series of railway cameos, allowing me to build models, and operate in a railwaylike manner, when not engaged in just running the train round and round.... A bonus has been that the railway provides an air of continuity between the various elements of the garden, in a sense leading from one to the next. You can't see all of the railway from anywhere, but its track is silently there, passing by and going somewhere else.
So what have we got. Basically, a fairly large scale model (1:19) with two steam engines and a variety of rolling stock. The track width is such that my son can run his train of a slightly smaller scale ('0' gauge) on the same track. As I've said, the track is at ground level, and in places is difficult to discern, as it sometimes runs slightly below the level of the surrounding ground. As watching a train trundle along the track is a joy and a delight to the eye, there are one or two places where the track has been laid with this in mind.
Anything in minature is naturally going to be out of scale with its surroundings. Some people plant miniature trees, and even bonsai trees with their pots sunk. If you look at my set up, you'll find the odd small plant where I've been able to plan a planting pocket into the general scheme of things. Generally though, I've learnt the hard way that the railway has to be 'in the garden, but not of it.' That is, there have to be clear boundaries, but provided in what I like to believe are subtle and sensitive ways. Log edging has been used extensively as a cheap and flexible answer. it did, however, mean a lot of time consuming work with shears to get the tufts of grass out that the mower couldn't deal with. We'd edged the patio area round the greenhouse and one of the flowerbeds with smallish bricks. Suitably encouraged, I edged a fair amount of the track with the same. This had the advantage of giving the mower something to mow to, and allowing more of the train to be seen that had been the case behind the logs. I left the log edging in between the railway and the garden.
The other problem that needed addressing, was the problem of overhanging plants. This meant some planning thoughts, and taking note of the spread of plants, particularly in the herbaceous border. We're working towards having plants set back enough to give them enough room to spread without upsetting the train, and yet not letting the garden look empty at the start of the season. Interesting problem.
A significant difficulty with a small railway has to be keeping vegetation off the track! This can range from the odd bit of twig, to the entire leaf production of a tree. The solution was to make sure that the track area was just wider than that needed by a garden vac. Just one of the ways that you start to think! There are loads of dos and dont's. I've discovered that track under trees means high maintenance, and that apples are pretty effective at devastating small buildings! However, once you accept that doing anything outside means that you have to work with nature and its products, all seems to reach a sense of balance.
I couldn't resist this. Although it dates from 2008, it does sum up one of the difficulties that trying to run trains can have! Things aren't usually this extreme, but when they are, I rise to the challenge, go to the shed, get out the rolling stock, and find something to do that will involve staying in a warm shed! You can have magical moments in cold weather, and I've enjoyed them, but not today.....
Sometimes, as a sort of bonus,there can be a cross over between the two interests. In the case of this modeller, it has been the increasing awareness of the use of colour. Models really need muted colours to make them work, with paler colours used to increase the sense if distance. Transferred to plants, this has led to bright colours leading into slightly more muted hues, in order to increase the sense of distance in the garden. Conversely, bright colours can lead the eye to a focal point, and to create a sense of bringing things closer to the viewer.
Different hobbies will bring their own influences on the garden of their owner. My advice would be to celebrate the two, and let them develop in harmony!