Miniature Gardens

Does anyone have one of these? I have been wanting to make one for a long time. It would fit in really well with the gnome theme...Little bushes, little trees, little paths, oh! The child in me is dancing around! I ordered a bunch of small evergreens from Musser Nursery this spring, and they would be so perfect for this. You could move them to another garden as they grow, and order more "babies" as necessary....

Any ideas for miniature plants to use, etc.? I'll bet people with very small city yards would like this idea!

Sounds lovely and whimsical, Caitlin. Some miniature plants might include, Santolina, a tiny Sedum or Dianthus Bath's Pink. :D

There was a long thread with many photos of miniature gardens here on DG a few months ago. Maybe a DG search would find it.

Thank you, oldflowergirl and darius. I "searched for "miniature gardens" and pulled up over 11,000 threads! Some of which don't seem at all pertinent, but I did find one in container gardening by Basset Mom, who had pics and several people posting back and forth. And another thread with a photo of a great miniature landscape posted by Lil-Pipsqueak. Does this ring any bells, darius? I suppose I could e-mail these two people directly. Does this sound like the forum you might be thinking of?

caitlinsgarden, it has been so many weeks/months that i really do not remember. I only remenber a few wonderful "dish" gardens of maybe 2' x 2 with lovely plants and a few props.

The only ones I have seen are the teeny tiny ones in containers, but yours sounds larger scale and very appealing. I wouldn't mind having one like this myself. If you find any info please post and I will do the same.

Rachel

caitlinsgarden, these are the threads I was thinking about...
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/440035/
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/433195/

Darius, thanks for the links! It is fascinating to imagine creating little models of all of my grandiose grden ideas...for example, the one using the rock foundation walls of our old fallen down barn with the mucky slope behind it that would make wonderful wet land gardens - Japanese iris, etc....Well you know - my creative ideas far outreaches my ability to actually do these things IRL - time, money and energy wise...

Hi Butterqueen!

I found a few other people that are interested in the miniature garden idea, and I have been talking about it in several forums - the rock garden/alpine forum, the container garden forum, and the assisted gardening forum. I was thinking that raised level but permanent miniature gardens, would be great for people in wheelchairs, etc.

Let's collect and share some ideas!

I'm interested too... what forum you actually going to end up posting in? ~ Suzi :)

Hi BriarRose, at the moment all 3 forums have some conversation on this topic...There might be other people doing this too that are in other forums. Do you have any ideas for mini plants? I want mine to be a regular outdoor garden - some people might rather make dish or indoor container gardens that wouldn't have to have hardy plants...

What do you grow in your garden?

I'm a rose lover, so my first thought is miniature roses. I also did a search in plant files (common name field) and plant scout for 'dwarf' and 'miniature', there is an adorable dwarf morning glory that I like a lot and many pages of other plants, including some beautiful dwarf iris.
I guess the most important thing to do is decide what scale I want to use and stick to it so the over all look is believable.

Or you could have a couple different scales that you use - the first and nearest garden could be larger scale, as if you were seeing it up close, and another one behind it could be a smaller scale, as if seeing it at a distance....
I just want to be able to collect a few minis without getting too obsessed with scale at first.

I have no clue!!! Figure I will watch what everyone else does and maybe figure out something for myself... Yes, I am going to be a copy-cat, if I do it. But, since I am far from everyone else, you hopefully won't mind!

Have a tree going to hopefully have cut down. Thought maybe a gnome door on the stump and miniature garden area would be perfect. ~ Suzi :)

Edited to get rid of all italics... what a ditz, stopping "bold" instead of "italics", LOL

This message was edited Jun 30, 2005 6:33 PM

Suzi - I like the idea of the gnome door and the miniature garden - I am making a memory garden for my son Nathan, who died two years ago. I have a little garden gnome, sucking his thumb, sitting in his old tractor tire sandbox, which I have painted ultra-violet.....

I am sorry for your loss! I agree with that king in LTR2 that said,

One of my brothers died in '94; Dad died in Sept 04. It was very difficult for him, and being bedridden certainly didn't help!

Your memory garden sounds very nice!

I liked the gnome doors, have a couple of the plastic gnomes... was thinking would be nice to do something like that... I'll keep watching and pick out my favorite ideas for when I can get the crabapple out of there.

Did you see the post from Dovey about her thumbsucking angel? http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/505131/ Did not look on there to see if had one, but I did check and no outlet near McGregor, IA. However, they have others you may go near, plus they also do online. Hope you find just the one you want! I found one of their stores that is on my way to visit family in OH, like I ever have the chance to go shopping along the route. ~ Suzi :)

Thank you Suzi. I did check out the online site but didn't find the angel there. But my little gnome needs a home, and the thread about the gnome door got me started thinking about the whole mini-garden thing. I could do all sorts of things in a mini-garden that I wouldn't have the energy or money to do with a big garden....butterfly benches, hmmmmm???

Here's some more to look at http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/486383/

Here is a pic of my miniature garden I did a couple of years back. I'm trying to find a more up-to-date pic of it... it has evolved over the last while. My bridge fell apart, and the pathway 'stones' kept heaving out of the ground. I took the stones from the path and silicone glued them to that rubber underlay type of webbing and sunk it into the soil. Now they are staying put. Some plants have grown out of control and I removed them and added more miniatures like creeping thyme and wooly thyme. Made a mini heron as well. Now WHERE did I put those pics?? lol

Marly

Very nice! What flower did you use for the water garden?

I have 2 mini Gardinias that are about 10 years old. They are about 1 foot tall and maybe 18 inches across ( can be pruned for better shaping) and they bloom every Spring. The blooms are "real" Gardinia complete with that wonderful fragrance at about 1/3 the size of my large Gardinias. I have NO idea what the actual "Latin" name is, but hopefully, someone could help you out on that. I plan to put my future gnome people under and around these 2 plants.

They are in my orchid garden now and seem to love the frequent misting, but in the past they got a lot less watering and seemed to hold up well.