Here are a few images which show my super simplistic approach to landscaping around my garden railway layout. I should perhaps point out that my entire approach to the subject is driven by a longstanding attraction to the simple way in which pre war Hornby O Gauge layouts were enhanced. Hedges and trees were made of loofa, and fields were boards, painted to represent grasses with the occasional wild flowers in them. My first requirement however was: 'will the material to be used survive the elements'? With this in mind I've used polystyrene as the basis of any line side feature such as a railway cutting pictured below. The polystyrene was suitably positioned and then held in place with copper wire, secured with stainless screws.
How then to create the grasses of the fields? In my experience, painting would only give me so long before the weather took its toll and I'd become dissatisfied with the results, so with this in mind I turned my attention to the wonderful world of artificial grass. The range of such grass is mind boggling ranging from the market traders cheap & cheerful bright green to the artificial putting green, which is hard to tell from the real thing. I got myself a few samples and started experimenting. When I found one suitable for the larger area over the polystyrene former's I bought sufficient of this and tacked into place with small copper pins.
I could see there was scope to create effects, so I cut small patches from some of the samples and 'inserted' them into the larger area. To do this you cut out a slightly smaller area from the main section and then 'insert' the smaller patch from the rear, pulling the smaller patch grass into position. Once the whole area it tacked into place, everything holds itself in place quite nicely.
Here's the area concerned having a length of loofa hedging positioned via a length of bent wire - the wire is in the process of being pushed down into the artificial grass matting. When in place, I've found these hedges paint up very well using garden wood shade paints. You'll note the cows are perfectly content in their plastic field setting!
So, here's an overview of the area concerned. It was going so very well until the cat discovered just how good this particular field was to lay down in! Fear not however, as I have another hot tip and this involves a short length of barbed wire suitably positioned. Cat soon gave up.
This last image gives a general view of how my experiments have progressed. You'll note we now have a fence put up where once again making it weather proof, I have opted for nothing more elaborate than some nails and wire.
This landscaping has now lived through three quite severe winters with temperatures ranging from -15 to +30 and it continues unaffected.
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