Plantings

On the subject of plants, well, there’s not much.  After all, it’s a desert scene and I want minimum maintenance.  Maybe I should look into getting someone to 3D print some scale tumbleweeds I can roll across the railway from time-to time.   

All of the greenery is either in the lower level or along the back side of the box and is left over from the original garden.  A small row of prostrate blue spruce- (picea pungens 'glauca prostrata') fill a line along the edge of the flower box.  From the vantage of the upper end of the railway this gives the illusion of transition from desert to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada tree line, a distance in real life of about 150 miles from Calico foreshortened into twelve feet. 

picea pungens 'glauca prostrata'

Future plantings will be miniature bulbs, some low growing moss and dianthus like (Dianthus gratianopolitanus) 'Firewitch' and  some ‘Sweet William’ (Dianthus barbatus) to represent the desert wildflowers. I have one already in the front yard that was a left over from the former owners and nursed it back to health to where it can now be divided.

‘Sweet William’ (Dianthus barbatus)

Hens and Chicks (Jovibarba globifera) succulents have a desert cactus look to them and grow well in Virginia, so those are on the list along with a sedum that is called a miniature Joshua Tree (sedum multiceps). I have to have that!

Miniature Joshua Tree (sedum multiceps)

A  Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster salicifolius) also left over from the original plantings was pruned to be a tree and provides some shade relief for the campers that have arrived to do some fishing and hiking.  That scene is homage to my younger days when as a family we went camping and rock & fossil hunting in the desert. You can say that the entire railway pretty much embodies my youth while growing up in the Mojave Desert.  So now, anytime I pine for the good ol’ days of my yesteryear, I can visit my miniature living desert here in Virginia.