Got your e-mail & replied. Thanks!
Did your boy make the mini garden in the picture with him? My goodness! If he did, he is exceptional! (What is that reddish plant in his garden?)
Gee Liz, have you any idea what you could do if you marketed these??? Just gorgeous!
Jean
Miniature gardens
He made it with some help from me - I just basically told him to put the tall stuff in back. He wanted to use red and yellow rocks b/c his fictitious planet is made of sulpher and iron, so he picked red and yellow plants too. The red thing is just an old leggy nandina that I pulled up from where it was slowly dying. Looks much better in the pot! Davey is very creative but also stubborn. He insisted the spaceship must have jointed legs. Now was THAT ever fun to try to figure out how to build! He has since added some "old man's bones" succulents donated by Marlatt8. Now my other son wants to do a battlefield with a fort, cactus, etc. Here's my three year old with her garden, which she plays in all the time. It keeps her out of mine, except that she can't resist rearranging my japanese rocks.
delphiniumdiva,
Welcome to DG! You are one very creative and talented lady! Your attention to detail with your container gardens makes them unique works of art! Have you ever considered selling any of them? Bet you could sell them easily, especially through the SCIF stores at DG. You may want to consider it, because YOU definitely have the "touch" when it comes to these beautiful and expressive works of living art!
Dear Delphiniumdiva,
A gardening area related to this is landscaping outdoor train sets. Garden railroads are becoming more popular and train enthusiasts are building gardens to match the sizes of the trains. You might be able to find sources of miniature plants and other accessories from this angle. I know that train enthusiasts have as many magazines and whatnot as gardeners do and online places as well.
Thanks for the tip gardenmart! Great idea. I have a friend who is into the whole train thing - I can ask him where he gets his stuff.
By the way, Dmitri, I figured out why I don't want to put animals or little people etc. in the gardens. THey are MY private mental retreat places and I dont' want anybody in there but me (figuratively speaking). I like them empty and as it where, waiting for me to arrive. As an introvert surrounded continuously with three small children plus sundry dogs, cats, chickens, birds, etc, - a quiet place with nobody there, even frogs (we have a pet frog too) seems the epitomy of bliss. So its not as selfish as it sounds. I think.
here here! i'm so with you on the private retreat!!!!
Well expressed, Liz- I agree with you completely - when you have children you feel you need to give them as much as possible, so you feel drained in the end - a private retreat is just a way to fill your batteries again. What a nice and artistic way to create your world !! It is obvious that these mini gardens are made for yourself - the big nails holding together the frame express no wish to camouflage for a sale - they are non-existing to your imagination, in the same way as a macthbox is non-existing in a child's hand when he plays moving it in the air as if it were a spaceship..
Very observant dp, you are right - no mitered corners here! I know Shirley1 suggested I sell them but I don't have any desire to do mass production where I have to start worrying what other people think. I get enough of that with my portrait work. The only reason I even posted them was b/c I thought they were so easy and so rewarding - everyone should try one! A whole garden for $20 with no backache!
I am thinking of trying an English garden - another unattainable here in zone 9b. I'm looking for really tiny flowering things to put in it. And I have an idea for making a gazing ball out of one of my kid's marbles. I'll post pic when I'm done. Unfortunately right now I'll laid up with a pinched nerve so all I can do is plan...course that's half the fun!
SweetPea, I loved your site! Just about laughed myself silly! "How to kill plants in Zone 9!!!" Love it.
LOL. Glad you enjoyed it! I have killed more plants than the law allows. I used to think I had a Black Thumb instead of a Green Thumb. I'll be re-doing the Garden pages in the next few days -- it's all terribly out of date right now, but glad you visited!
Welcome to DG. d-diva, your creativity fully deserves my appreciation too! Great! Pleasure to see.
I LOVE all of these little fellas! You've inspired me to try one myself!!! How creative!!!
Sweetpea, how can I get to your website? I've been pretty good at killing plants in the past as well. Some are pretty hard to kill in this climate too! lol
This message was edited Jun 26, 2004 3:32 PM
Missie, there is a link on my Member Page (but that may be to the cats' pages). My Home Page is:
http://members.aol.com/Jyex/index.htm
The Gardening Pages are a real mess right now. I pulled all of the pages, reorganized, and have been uploading the new pages, so many are not available at the moment. This should be fixed in the next few days. When the upload is finished, there will, once again, a lot of information for gardening in our Zone.
Thanks for asking. It's good to know that I'm not the ONLY one who successfully kills plants! LOL.
Maybe it's a LA thang! Hee hee! Check out this Sega I have pretty much killed and I'm not sure HOW! Maybe this pic will make you feel better! lol
Anyone know how I might beable to save this Sega? It started out w/2 bulbs last spring... Had a beautiful year, and then this spring, it all started going downhill! Any suggestions?
I never met a plant I couldn't kill :(
I feel ya Sweetpea! LOVE your website by the way!!! :) :) :)
Hi, I just found this thread, with the help of darius. I have been thinking about miniature gardens, having planted some baby conifers from Musser
Forest this spring. Whenever I look down at them, it looks like a miniature world. Also thought it would be a good way to do some model-like designs for gardens and landscaping....For example, I want to design an area of my garden with a wall to make a mini shelter zone for more tender plants, and use mosaic tile on the wall in some kind of phantasmic design...etc...Who knows, maybe a mini-garden is as far as my grandiose ideas will ever get, but....
delphiniumdiva, I love your funky california garden! What part of LA are you in? My youngest son will be going to LSU this fall in Baton Rouge. We will be seeing this part of the world for the first time ever in August. I have a feeling, though, that August is not prime time to visit LA? LOL
delphiniumdiva is no longer a paid subscriber.
Thanks, darius, gee, you know a lot!
Nope, just know how to navigate DG for information!
How would I find out if Lil_Pipsqueak is still a member? I'm guessing not, as her last thread was posted in 2003...But did you see the photo she posted of a miniature landscape? I thought it was really neat!
Missed that photo. Go to the Member list and type in Lil_Pipsqueak. Then go to her homepage. If there's a big DG Subscriber logo, she's still a subscriber.
Here's the logo...
Yeah there is a logo there. Or do some people pay for several years at a time? I think I just am a little concerned about her because I was reading her threads and one of the last ones was a prayer request for her son Nathan...I also have a son Nathan who died two years ago, so I guess I am just identifying with her problems. Oh well, I sent her an e-mail so if she gets it she gets it...
If you want to see the photo go to the list of threads she started, and it is called miniature display, in the photo forum, 3-12-02. Must have been at the PA. flower show. Anyway, iyt just seemed like a neat idea to make a model of garden ideas...
caitlin, sorry to hear you lost a son. No mother should have to go through that.
I hope she contacts you... and as for subscriptions, some folks do pay for more than a year at a time.
Thank you Darius. Yes, it is very hard. I don't think you ever really get over it, you just learn ways to live with the pain - like someone who has lost a leg, etc...Gardening right now is a very healing experience. Last summer I mainly dug quack grass. Day after day after day...Well at least gardening is a healthy addiction, and gives one a reason to get up and out and see what's blooming in the garden!
I just transplanted a daylily named "Darius" that I got from Wanda. Do you have one? If not I could send you a start when it grows a little bigger.
Thanks for the daylily offer, but Wanda sent me one last year!
Well, caitlin & darius, I came over and read this thread after seeing the link posted for caitlin elsewhere............drats, delphiniumdiva is no longer around!!! GREAT stuff!
Sorry for all of the aforementioned in regards to your son.....I can't even begin to imagine, having children of my own....
Darius, you DO know everything! You should have an honorary UBER for all of your DaveSavviness!
MKJ
DD had a car accident and was having a lot of back pain the last time I emailed and she promised me that she will return to DG. I hope so- we had a grand time together here! Together, we very nearly spelled trouble! LOL
Hi, has anyone tried to make the Japanese lanterns out of hypertufa? I just have not figured out how to make the bottoms with the arched openings. Please make it simple, I do not have a room of tools. Thanks, Rachel
Rachel,
There is a form just for hypertufa and you would be better off posting your question there. Good luck.
Hap
Your miniature garden is lovely. You should send them to garden magazines. I bet they'll do an article for you. Please tell me what plants you're using for these mini gardens.
Great job!
Linda
Have you thought about making a Japanese lanterns out of clay? I just went to google.com and search for Japanese lanterns images to get some ideas. Several styles to choose from.
Enjoy!
Linda
Just thought of another idea. You know the paper-like japanese latern plants? I wonder if you use some paint, and put some oriental writing on it, and mini-lights that you use for Christmas and make a hanging lanterns. I hope the wind won't hurt it.
Just another creative thought.
Linda
Welcome to the new forum!
I'd love to see some updates. It has been a few years...how did your mini gardens hold up?
Still looking for one of those asian lanterns? I have some extra that someone gave me, if interested :0)
Thanks for the idea about that amaco clay. I'd love to try that.
Did you ever get your pond hooked up to a pump?
I like all your minis, and I agree...it lets you try different stuff for $20 each, instead of $20 grand each, in real life, lol
-T