Model Trains Introduce a Lively Touch Of Whimsy Into a Garden

Busse trims dwarf Alberta spruces so they look like a fir forest. There are a lot of miniature and dwarf conifers that grow only 1 to 6 inches a year, including false cypresses ( Chamaecyparis ), junipers and pines. Also, boxwoods come in miniature varieties that are extremely slow-growing. Plants that lose their leaves in winter can be trimmed to create a deciduous forest.

Rock-garden plants such as mountain madwort ( Alyssum montanum ), sea thrift ( Armeria maritima ), dwarf coreopsis ( Coreopsis auriculata 'Nana') and John Creech stonecrop ( Sedum X 'John Creech') can add color and texture to a railway garden.

The point is not to try to create something that's exactly to scale, but to establish what Busse calls a "scale illusion." Normal-size objects tend to disappear into the background, just the way a mountain range might simply appear as part of the landscape in the distance from a real train.

Like their real-life counterparts, garden trains tend to be relatively impervious to the elements. "If you can tolerate it, the trains generally will," Busse says.

Because the trains are relatively heavy for their size, small obstacles such as leaves tend to get knocked off the track. But there are some environmental hazards. Busse recalls that once when he was running trains, a locomotive started across a bridge and abruptly stopped. He thought it was broken, but when he walked to it he could hear it was still running. When he looked more closely, he found it had run over an acorn, and the nut was just large enough to keep the wheels from touching the track.

Wildlife can also be a problem, though maybe not as big a one as you might think. One of the funniest things Busse ever saw was when he and his crew were working on an installation that had an island. While working on the island, they startled a squirrel, which ran down the track and started across a bridge. However, there was a train coming in the opposite direction.

He thought the squirrel might panic and jump off the bridge, or turn around and run back -- or worse, that the train might hit it. Instead, the squirrel hopped onto the engine and scampered back along the top of the train, hopping off at the last car and running away.

Another caveat Busse offers about wildlife is that sometimes cats or raccoons think tunnels are "ready-made homes" for them. They generally discover their error fairly quickly.

Even a light snowfall is no problem. Some engines can be fitted with little snowplows that work just like the ones on big trains. A lot of snow would be a serious problem, though, and Nelson says that in areas where there is a lot of snow, most people just take the trains in for the winter.

Busse, owner of Applied Imagination of Alexandria, Ky., has created garden railways all over the country for individuals and organizations. The biggest display he ever installed was at the New York Botanical Garden with 1,000 feet of track and 13 trains.

The largest private railway garden he has designed included a quarter-mile of track. That layout was so big the trains actually disappeared into the landscape -- an important part of a railway garden, in Busse's evaluation. "When you don't see the train is just as important as when you see it," he says. When that train disappears around a bend, your imagination takes over.