I love to do landscaping work. Landscaping is one of those things in model railroading that will make your layout come to life!
I always say that you can’t really make a mistake doing landscaping. Just stop for a minute and look around. If you take the time to notice, it is hard to find anything perfectly aligned, perfectly sculpted trees, and brush. If nature did it, you will find imperfection when comparing it to man-made. When was the last time you saw a perfectly straight tree with a perfectly rounded top?
That being said, this is why you can’t make a mistake doing landscaping. Granted, if you don’t like what you did, you might consider it a mistake, but imperfections in landscaping make your layout seem real.
This is one of the reasons I do not use the grass mats hobby and craft stores sell. To me, that seems like a waste of money because grass mats are too uniform, and when I see one on a layout, I see that layout as a toy, which makes me wonder or causes me to doubt whether the person who laid that is really into model railroading.
Grass mats are quick fixes in my book, just to hide the plywood or foam base. Grass mats really do nothing more than that. The layout looks flat and uninteresting.
When you talk to any serious model railroader, they want their layout to look as close to real as possible. I’m sure many of them visualize it as I do. Visualizing if you were shrunk down to N scale size, walking into the town, and seeing and feeling like it’s real.
Some modelers are really, really good at detail work, something I am trying to get better at, but nonetheless, small details like mud puddles, faded bricks on the side of a building, rust on cars, weathering on engines and rail cars, a dented post office box, and leaning telephone or electric poles are all examples of little details that we see every day and take for granted. Yet, some modelers have done a great job picking up on those little details and adding them to their layout.
This is the reason I say you can’t really make a mistake in landscaping.
What about the budget, and what can I expect to have to pay for landscaping?
Having built as many layouts as I have, I am always budget-minded, trying to keep costs low while adding realism to the layout. Keeping the cost down is not as hard as you think. All you need is some imagination. Go on a scavenger hunt around your home. Rummage through junk drawers, tool chests, or the garage, places where you keep things you are not using anymore and that are collecting dust. You already have an idea of what you want; with imagination and old items thrown in a corner or drawers, you can come up with some cool ideas. For instance, on one of my layouts, I wanted to add a water tower. This was long before I thought about or even heard of a 3D printer. I checked some online craft and hobby stores and even my local hobby store at the time, but to no avail, not a water tower to be found. I started looking around the house for ideas, then while going through the garage working on a totally different project, I ran across an old doorknob. It was dusty and dirty, and the shaft was missing, but as I picked it up, an idea popped into my head. Why not use this as the main focus of my water tower? I cleaned it up, painted it, and drilled a hole in the middle of it for a light. By using balsa wood for the legs and an insert from an empty paper towel roll for the main shaft, with a little time and effort, I created a very nice-looking water tower. What did it cost me? Nothing out of my budget.
It’s amazing what you can find around the house or things we just toss in the trash, like empty coffee cans, condiment containers, egg crates, meat styrofoam trays, etc. These items that most people throw out without a second thought, with imagination, can be made into something unique that you can’t buy in any hobby or craft store, and best of all, it’s one of a kind!
Landscaping doesn’t have to drain your budget; however, it will take a little bit of imagination, ingenuity, and maybe a little bit of cleanup, but you can create great landscaping for just pennies.
I have seen modelers’ layouts with all kinds of old what would be trash, household items, as they explained how they accomplished creating that item. Some of their ideas are just amazing, as they let their imagination run wild to create a vision they had in their mind.
Landscaping is not perfect, nor should it be. If something didn’t turn out just how you imagined, let it go for a while and work on a different area. When you come back to it, you may find that “mistake” now fits right into your overall vision of what you wanted that area to look like.
Don’t restrict yourself to store-bought landscaping items. You probably have what you are looking for already sitting around your home.
This is the reason why I love doing landscaping. The only limit you have is you.
Until next time,
Happy Landscaping!