18 GARDEN RAILWAYS FALL 2019
GREENING YOUR RAILWAY ■ NANCY NORRIS
Waterscape your railway
SWIRLING WATER STIRS THE IMAGINATION.
Splashing shuts out city sounds, and viewers remember seeing
famous falls at national parks or smaller watercourses closer
to home. Bridges over brooks urge us to see connections to
the land and how plantings create the habitat for a popular
scenic attraction.
Builders have countless reasons for including a water fea-
ture (or two) into a railway. But before you jump into the deep
end of the pool, let me inspire you with reasons why other
hobbyists chose their styles. Then I’ll give you nitty gritty
details of typical water feature construction.LOCATION
MATTERS
A stable rock “mountain”
forms an obvious location for
water f low, especially if full-
size trees won’t overhang to
drop extra work. Dart and
Dottye Rinefort hid a feed
pipe behind the perceived
action on a bridge along their
OS&FRR (photo 1). Wet
rocks grow native moss and
baby tears (Soleirolia soleirolii,
Zones 9-11) in partial shade.
Preserved boards create a
framework built over a 55-
gallon stock tank to model the
Himalayas (photo 2). Harsh
Misra chose colorful tur-
quoise-veneer rocks to remind
him of his homeland in India.
On the SHMS Railroad, Eng-
lish ivy (Hedera helix ‘Needle-
point’, Zones 5-10) creeps
across the dry mortared rocks,
while bald cypress (Taxodium
distichum, Zones 4-10) and
dwarf papyrus (Cyperus papy-
rus ‘King Tut’ or C.p. ‘Nana’,
Zones 9-11) pull droplets back
into the pond.
Instead of a gentle stream,
Jerry and Shirley Bradley
(photo 3) longed for a splashy
waterfall that they can see
and hear from their house on
the Indigo Mountain Rail-
road. A 20"-high retaining
wall leaves room for the
pond’s reservoir to sink
below grade. The pump plugs
into the box lower right with
110V wires properly routed
in PVC conduit. A colorful
parrot’s beak vine (Lotus ber-
thelotii, Zones 9-11) mitigates
the pile of rocks needed to
gain elevation.Ph
otos^ by^ t
he
author^ unless^
otherwisenotedOn F. John LaBarba’s
Sonora Pacific N.G.
Railroad, weeping
curtains of blooming
blue rosemary
(Rosmarinus officinalis
‘Irene’, Zones 8-10) and
little honey myrtle
(Melaleuca incana
‘Nana’, Zones 9-11)
mirror the falls and
soften the cliff.