Gardeners add artificial turf, model railroad to yard

When the rest of us are looking at brown grass in a few months, Bill and Judi Wynne will have a patch of green that will outlast the winter in their backyard.

Since I last visited their garden eight years ago, to write mainly about their use of stone in the landscape, the Wynnes have added artificial turf to the front of the backyard and a model garden railroad at the back. You can see all of it when their yard, at 934 N. Crestway, is on the Wichita Area Garden Railway Tour next weekend.

The additions are recent — the model railroad going in last year, and the new fake grass just a few weeks ago.

The Wynnes had a hard time keeping grass alive in the backyard, so decided to go artificial. They so far love the new lawn, even though “it took me twice as long to vacuum as to cut and trim the lawn,” Bill said. He uses a shop-vac to keep it tidy. It already looks greener than anything else around, and I think it’ll look particularly good in early February.

The garden railroad, of course, will be the main focus on the tour sponsored by the Wichita Area Garden Railway Society, which will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 20. Five other gardens and Botanica also will be on the tour. Admission is free — including to Botanica for those who have a guide to the tour that is available at garden centers and hobby shops, as well as at Botanica. Jars will be placed in the gardens for donations to the society’s community projects.

In the Wynnes’ yard, “I had to find a place where Judi said, ‘OK, you can put a railroad there,’ ” Bill said. That was the back of the backyard, where Bill built elevated tracks above the garden, making them of decking material stained green.

Most people who build a garden railway “try to make it a model of a particular railroad and place,” Bill said. “That’s more difficult.” He decided to mix up the cars and engines, which include rounded-edge eggliner cars painted cheerful red and yellow, and has placed old toys and Judi’s thrift-store finds in the cars and railway scenes. The Wynnes have dubbed the whole thing “When Pigs Fly Fantasy Railway.”

The Wynnes were on the railway tour for the first time last year, and Bill added a trolley line this year. A platform for the trolley station has stairs that lead down to a container fairy garden.

Part of the experience of the Wynnes’ tour stop will be a scavenger hunt to find various elements of the railway. Two other trains, one a battery-operated train, the other an electric, will be set out on the artificial turf where kids will be able operate the switches and play.

The yard has lots more going on, with a Shockers garden, sedum ground covers doing great this year, a stand of bamboo adding an exotic vertical element.

And “we have more rocks” than eight years ago, Bill said. Trips to rock shops at Mount Rushmore and in Colorado Springs and locally to the Sod Shop have provided the bulk of the new rock. A blue ceramic fountain from Johnson’s Garden Center sits above its reservoir, which is covered by rocks for a natural look.

Autumn Joy sedum is coming into its autumnal color in the yard, and snow-on-the-mountain and rose moss reseed themselves. New coneflowers include yellow Cheyenne Spirit and orange Sombrero. One trumpet vine has grown to cover the main pergola since hail took out the canvas covering. This is its third year, and the vine has been trained to grow down four sides.

Artsy elements include painted galvanized tubs hung from their handles on the back privacy fence.

A couple of other patches of artificial turf also can be found in the backyard. The main section of turf is 500 square feet, installed for $10 a square foot. It has a 10-year warranty.

Derek Martin, whose Foreverlawn Wichita installed the lawn, said he’s put in about 40 lawns in Wichita in this first year of his business. The largest lawn is more than 5,000 square feet.

“It’s extraordinary,” Martin said. “The community has responded really well. So far everyone is loving their yard.” He said reasons for going artificial range from cleanliness and lack of mud to water bills to wanting to go green.

The lawns are often used around pools, he said. They’re also used in playgrounds, where different colors of turf can be used to create designs; one of Foreverlawn’s jobs was in New England, where a life-size chess table was created for an academy, Martin said.

Bill Wynne will post a list of sources of most of the plants and elements in his yard — sources that range from retired extension agent Norman Warminski to Wings of the Wind Kites & Toys — on the garden fence during the tour.

This story was originally published September 12, 2014 at 1:32 PM with the headline "Gardeners add artificial turf, model railroad to yard."