The Kimmels' had their garden railroad in top shape for the five dozen or so CGRSers who gathered there last month. Several trains were running through the nicely-landscaped layout. The buildings that Jim creates are always a highlight on this railroad.

Before the whole crew dived in to the create-your-own-sundae goodies we discussed a few business issues:

1. I asked for additions or deletions to the list of hosts for CGRS' annual garden tour. Columbus Monthly interviewed me about our annual garden tour.

2. CGRS will be staffing the phones at public TV station WOSU on Thursday night, August 9th. We have several signups already. Call me (Richard Abler) at 614-885-0351 to sign up or do so directly on our website.

3. I discussed the display railroad we had at the Rose Festival at Whetstone Park. It was another success. The park will be renovating the garden beds around the shelter house later this year. We'll have to see how that affects the garden where we set up our display railroad.

4. Doug Clark mentioned he was holding "phase 2" of his rail raising on July first. He needed to complete the inside figure-8 loop of their railroad.

5. We will again ask for assistance from CGRS members to help open garden hosts run trains during the annual open house. More information about the Dispatcher Program will appear in next month's newsletter and on our website. CGRS members are our best source of assistance, as friends and relatives often cannot answer train-related questions.

6. Kenny Francisco of Buckeye Bonsai brought in some small plants suitable for garden railroads. He was quite generous and offered all eight of them as door prizes. Besides bonsai plants Kenny has a variety of other small plants that CGRSers would be interested in.  

Next Bill Logan discussed methods of laying track. This was a great review for the novice and expert alike.

Our thanks to the Kimmels for taking good care of CGRSers and guests on that great day for a meeting!

Among the plants he gave away was Cotoneaster dammeri OStreibs Findling'. (As an aside, the genus is pronounced ko-toe-knee-aster and not cotton-easter.)  I have 2 plants of C. OStreibs Findling' both of them in the front rock gardens.  When I bought them I did not have room in the railroad for them.

These shrubs are flat, no more than 3 inches high, and are slowly creeping down the stone walls.  They look like Mother Nature poured pancake batter on the rocks and let it drip down the sides.  It is really one very nice dwarf shrub.  It likes sun and well-drained or even rocky soil.  If you have a spot for it in your railroad it is worth getting.

I don't remember all the other plants that were given away but I was very impressed by the selection so I gave him a call and made an appointment to stop by his home and see what else he had.  For a plant nut like me who likes dwarf conifers, this was great.

He had several different dwarf cultivars of Pinus parviflora (Japanese White Pine).  We have P. parviflora OGlauca' in the front rock garden.  Richard just calls it Oparv'.  It can eventually get to 40 feet or more in height but is slow growing and has what I call an architectural growth habit.  The dwarf cultivars have the same fine, soft needles and coloration but don't get as tall. There were several there that I would have loved to get but just don't have enough room in a sunny spot to plant them.  But I keep thinking about them.

There was another pine, P. autumnalis (I think), that caught my eye.  If Oparv' can be described as soft and lovely, P. autumnalis can best be described as prickly and weird, but I loved it.  Besides its delightfully strange shape, its other attraction is that it turns yellow in winter.  I'm still trying to figure out where I could plant one.

I did buy some plants.  I got a dwarf Japanese maple that is supposed to stay at about a foot high.  This will go into the sunny loop of the Puddlefort & Patio when Richard gets through with his enlargement and track reconstruction.

I got a dwarf hemlock (Tsuga canadensis OCurly') that had a nice horizontal spray of branches.  This will go in a rock crevice in the shadier part of the front rock garden where I hope it will cascade down the rocks.

The real prize, however, was a new cultivar of Dwarf Alberta Spruce called OSander's Blue'.  As you might guess, it is blue, like a blue spruce.  Like blue spruce, not all plants have as strong a color and I picked the bluer of the two he had.  Kenny says that the more sun they get the bluer they get. I'm hoping this one retains its color when it finally takes up its home in the P&P.

If I could figure out where to plant them, I would have come home with a lot more than these three trees.  But I have about a half-dozen dwarf trees/shrubs that I got at the rock garden convention that still need to find a home in the landscape and I haven't been out to Essentially English Gardens yet where I am sure I will see something else that I have to have.

So many trees, so little space!  So little space, so many trees!

Kenny Franciso lives in Brookside Estates, off Rt. 161 east of Sawmill. Since this is a sideline for him and he sells out of his yard, you will need to call to make an appointment.  See his ad elsewhere for the phone numbers and website.

Now we garden railroaders have an attractive nuisance on our properties and we can be held liable for injury to anyone who comes nosing around, even if trespassing without our knowledge.

There are 6 conditions that must be met for liability. 

1.  The owner knows, or should know, that children would  come (uninvited) on the owner's property.

2.  A hazardous artificial <man made> condition exists. ( This can be as simple as leaving some tools out.)

3.  You know or should know that the dangerous condition creates an unreasonable risk of death or serious physical injury to children who enter your property.

4.  The children are too young to discover or understand the danger.

5.  Your need to maintain the dangerous condition and burden of eliminating the danger are slight compared to the risk to the children.

6.  You fail to take reasonable precautions to eliminate the danger or protect the children against dangers.

The court noted that foresee ability is a key element in determining liability.

In one case there were no children in the neighborhood. However a child was visiting grandparents and drowned in the neighbor's pool.  This was ruled unforeseeable.  However if children lived in the neighborhood it would be foreseeable, especially if children had wandered onto the property before.

There is some balance in that owners have a right to enjoy their property. However, this fails if the owner could eliminate the danger without serious interference  to the owners legitimate use of the land.

Budish recommends:

 Keep garage door closed.
 Unstack wood piles.
 Put tools away.
 Empty wading pools.
 Roll swings up so they are not accessible.
 Put up a fence to keep children out.
 Childproof your yard.

I think this is a terrible law, but 48 states now have such a law.

Anyway, I think that garden railroaders should know that, legally, they now have an attractive nuisance.