7mm Gardening!
Entry posted by wenlock
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A great deal of pride was taken in the appearance of Edwardian stations and competitions were held to find the best kept station. Often stations had beautifully kept gardens that exhibited fine displays of flowers and these greatly enhanced their appearance. I didn't want Sherton Abbas to "let the side down", so some 7mm gardening was called for. 
I started by cutting some card to form a base for each flower bed and then these were then coated in PVA glue and sprinkled with wood ash. Once dry these were painted using acrylics to simulate the soil in the flower beds.
Flower bed base.
Before planting the beds could commence I needed to make up some individual plants in a variety of heights and sizes. Similar methods to those that I outlined in a previous blog entry http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1131/entry-16989-fun-with-fibres-flock/
were employed to make some tall foxgloves and some shorter plants using products from the Greenscene range.
Foxgloves and assorted shorter plants.
I wanted the station gardens to have a display of roses in the borders and thought that the fine twig like stems in the Greenscene range might make a good starting point.
Greenscene twigs.
I cut the twigs into suitable lengths and then positioned them into small balls of plasticine until I was happy with the shape of the rose bush. Once I was happy with the appearance I dripped dilute PVA glue around the base of the bush to fix the twigs in position.
Twig armature.
Once the glue had set I painted the twigs with a green acrylic and once dry applied small amounts of PVA to the twig ends and sprinkled them with Greenscene scatter to form the leaves. I didn't think that ground foam or scatter would simulate rose blooms very effectively and so I experimented with other materials. I found that if I mixed acrylic paint with PVA and then dipped small squares of tissue paper into the mixture, then these could be rolled into balls, allowed to set and then positioned onto the twig framework.
Finished rose bushes.
I decided that some additional tall plants would be useful at the back of the borders, so I painted some of the Greenscene twigs with more green acrylic, added some leaves and scatters to simulate some delphiniums and hollyhocks.
Delphiniums and Hollyhocks.
Low growing plants for the front of each bed were simulated by applying static grass fibres into blobs of PVA glue and once dry these were sprayed with matt acrylic varnish and sprinkled with different coloured scatters.
Low growing plants.
Once I had finished making the plants they were fixed into position on the card/ash bases using more PVA adhesive. I was pleased with the end result and made the mistake of showing them to Mrs Wenlock, who although impressed with my efforts was more interested in why the flower beds in our garden didn't compare favourably with my model ones! 
Flower bed 1
Flower bed 2
Flower bed 3
Overall view of flower beds
Just to give a sense of scale, here's a picture of one of the leading lights in the Sherton Abbas floral society admiring the Station master's roses:-)
I'll save the installation of the flower beds onto the platform for the next blog entry.
Happy Gardening!
Best wishes
Dave
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