Every holiday season since 2004, the U.S. Botanic Garden has staged the Garden Railway exhibit, a wonderful display of incredible workmanship and holiday whimsy. And it has a Kentucky connection.

The Garden Railway is the work of Paul Busse and his company, Applied Imagination of Alexandria, Kentucky (see the Applied imagination website for more information). A landscape architect by training, Busse freely admits to being an incurable model train enthusiast with a deep appreciation of plants. His garden railways and building replicas have been a part of the holidays at the U.S. Botanic Garden since 2004.

Here are some photos I took this year of the Garden Railway and replicas of the buildings that line the National Mall in Washington, DC.