Bare soil rarely stays bare long here in Ohio. So even if I didn’t mind my trains running through dust or mud (depending on the weather), it wouldn’t be long before they were running through dandelions and honeysuckle bushes. Not to mention that the track and equipment would require much more cleaning. So I have made several attempts to cover the dirt around my tracks and buildings, and hopefully learned a little in the process.
By definition, ground cover hides the soil. It also keeps a relatively low profile—a "ground cover" in landscaping seldom exceeds 18". In garden railroading, we try to keep our groundcovers much shorter, so they don’t hide our buildings and people. And there are some great choices out there. Often visitors or new garden railroaders are struck with the attractiveness of the thymes, miniature sedums, and other plants surrounding the buildings and tracks of established railroads. What they don’t factor in is that such plantings may have taken years to establish, and don’t necessarily provide an immediate solution to all the ground cover needs of a young layout. On behalf of the beginner or for a new garden railroad, this article briefly reviews some approaches that won’t break the bank and won’t preclude you trying other approaches later on.
Technically speaking, ground covers include lawn grass, gravel, mulch, and a wide variety of plants. Any of these solutions is better than dirt (or dirt-and-weeds) for most purposes, but they meet different needs.
An ideal ground-cover for a garden railroad should have at least the following characteristics:
If you choose a living ground-cover, add the following characteristics to the above list:
No matter how attractive any kind of ground cover may be, nothing meets all of the above needs, especially when you’re first starting out. But you have to do something. So let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of a few solutions.
Don’t laugh. If you plan to have some distance of track running at ground level, designing that stretch so you can mow up against it (or even over it, if you’re careful) can save you a lot of headaches while you’re getting things established. Many notable garden railroads have grassy sections connecting the sections with all the scenery and fancy plants. Folks who use 20’ diameter curves especially find lawn grass a reasonable alternative to landscaping or gardening all that right-of-way.
In its favor, if you choose a lawn grass that is suitable for your climate, you will find that you can easily maintain it with tools you already own, it is self-replenishing, and it reduces weed growth (not to mention that there are a host of lawn-care products available). Okay, maybe you eventually want to have something fancier, but if you are just starting out and can leave part of your lawn in, er, lawn, you may find this a viable solution, at least until you’ve got everything else under control. Obviously, though, lawn grass is not the best solution for small or raised segments.
I put these into one category because they have several similarities. For example, they both require you to haul them in, and they both do the best job of reducing weeds when you install them over plastic sheeting. If you use the sheets with microscopic holes in them, you can even use the combination effectively around desired plants like miniature conifers. Unlike plants you have to nurture and wait to grow, gravel or mulch looks as good as it ever will the day you put it down. We have a saying in our house, "Mulch covers a multitude of sins." If you have a big stretch that you haven’t gotten around to landscaping yet, a few cubic feet of mulch (maybe interrupted by a few K-Mart dwarf or low-lying conifers) will give an amazingly finished look to it in a matter of minutes. I like to choose mulch that is finely chopped so it doesn’t look like piles of logs next to my equipment. Also, cedar mulch tends to stick around longer and withstand wood-loving insects better than hardwood mulch. So consider cedar if you expect to leave the mulch down a little while or if you’re working against your house’s foundation.
Both gravel and mulch require replenishment eventually, because they discolor or work their way into the soil. Gravel is more expensive than the same volume of mulch, and it doesn’t outright decompose, so I restrict its use to places I expect to keep in gravel for the foreseeable future or where it is a natural extension of the ballast and roadbed, say at a junction. Neither gravel or mulch will keep out weed growth indefinitely, even combined with plastic sheeting. Sooner or later, the wind and rain will dump enough dirt on top of the plastic to give weed seeds a place to sprout. But weeds rooted in mulch are generally easier to pull. So on the whole, gravel and mulch are extremely low maintenance and easy to install in a hurry. In addition, mulch can be as temporary or as permanent as you need it to be.
Eventually most garden railroaders try to get some low-lying plants to represent grass and bushes around their tracks and buildings. Here is where the gardening part of garden railroading comes in, as well as a certain amount of frustration. Let’s face it, plants are a whole lot less predictable than mulch or gravel. Keep your eyes open and a notebook handy when you visit garden railroads and garden centers in your area; ask a lot of questions. But don’t spend a fortune on miniature plants before you’ve tried out a few different kinds and find out what works for you in your yard.
There are many choices available, but three basic kinds of living groundcovers that have worked best for me are: thymes, sedums, and junipers.
Ordinary thyme (vulgaris) grows several inches tall and has leaves up to a half an inch, but many tiny varieties are now available. Several that are labeled "creeping" thyme get only two or three inches tall and have tiny leaves. Even more useful if you’re trying to represent grassy strips, etc., are "woolly," "elfin," and a number of other varieties that seldom exceed an inch or two in height. The downside to thymes is that they can be slow to get established, and they occasionally die back for no apparent reason. Worse yet, the lower the profile, the "touchier" the thyme seems to be. So if you use thymes, experiment with a variety so you can swap things around if one planting "goes south."
I’ve had even better luck with miniature sedums, including one called "Stubby Fingers," whose protuberances (you can’t really call them leaves) seldom exceed 3/8" in length. They grow great in cracks between stones, and other hard-to-work areas. I have used several other varieties with success, including a variety of "Acre" sedum that has even smaller foliage. The drought-resistant quality of miniature sedums was especially helpful last summer when we went eight weeks straight without rain, and the sedums came back better than ever this spring. In fact, if some of these plants continue to perform as well as they have in the past, they may enter the pest category.
Both thymes and sedum will reduce the number of weed seeds that take root, but they will move cheerfully aside for bulb plants or other established perennials. Although their color and appearance suffer in the winter, they hang on enough to maintain an appearance of foliage and to hold the soil in place. They also regain their appearance quickly in early spring.
Creeping junipers can be divided into those which lay down completely and those which have upright tips. Blue Rug juniper keeps such a low profile that you can almost see every rock in the soil. Blue Chip, Japanese Garden, and Dwarf Procumbens have tips that are a little more upright, so a planting of them looks slightly more like a miniature forest. Both kinds spread out, as much as several feet in every direction, if you let them. I use these chiefly to "fill in" areas that are supposed to represent evergreen forests between towns. By their nature they are less "portable" than thyme or sedum, so I wouldn’t use them in a spot I planned later to revisit with miniature plantings and details. Also, unlike thymes or sedums, their roots will eventually weaken the roots of perennials and bulb plants.
All three classes of ground covers look great and thrive growing in beds of finely-chopped mulch. And the mulch will recede as the plants spread. Consequently, a good choice for the beginner is a lot of mulch and a few experimental plantings. If the plantings are successful, they will eventually displace the mulch (and diminish your need for it).
Don’t be frustrated if the above groundcovers don’t exactly take off the first year, though. There’s a saying among gardeners about perennials after transplanting: the first year they sleep, the second year they creep. But their roots are getting established the whole time and they will eventually spread out where you need them to as long as you keep them alive.
In addition, it’s common for vining plants like ivy and pachysandra not to establish well until something else is holding the soil in place for them. So you can have a bank of pachysandra limping along for a year or five until something you like better takes root; then the pachysandra takes off, thank you very much. And such plants develop such incredible root systems that you can’t pull them out without destroying almost everything else in the vicinity. So when Grandma offers you some Baltic Ivy just to "temporarily" fill in a gap in your greenery, learn to "Just say no."
There are no hard-and-fast rules. Just don’t expect everything you try to work out just right, especially the first year or two you break soil or try a new variety. Take your time, try things out a little at a time to see what works for you, and avoid shortcuts you may regret later. Above all, remember that you’re the person who eventually has to be satisfied with how all these things come together. Best of luck!
If you zoom in on this picture, you'll notice the stubby fingers sedum filling nicely around the rocks, but moving over graciously for the hostas.
This article copyright (c) 2000 by Paul D. Race.
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