Miniature Gardens ‘Big things come in small packages’

A miniature garden is the perfect blend of tiny trees, plants, hardscaping and garden accessories that are in scale with one another to create a lasting, living garden scene or vignette. Miniature gardens are gardens in miniature.

Miniature gardens just like life-size gardening, but on a tinier scale. It is similar to making miniature dollhouses, but using plants and making indoor gardens.Miniature gardens are made of slow-growing plants, typically ones that are “dwarf” and “miniature.”

These two terms describe the growth rate of the plant, not the mature size. “Dwarf” means the plant grows 1″ to 6″ per year. “Miniature” means the plant will grow less than 1″ per year.

Importance:

Miniature garden complete with structures and actual living plants. It is designed to give your green thumb a place to tend year-round. It’s a tiny space created and tended with love.

Best Plants used for Miniature Gardens:

Indoors:

• When looking for trees that you can use indoors for your mini garden, look for plants that resemble full-sized trees.
• Note that you can trim off the bottom leaves of a plant to expose the trunk to make a shrub into a tree.
• You can use indoor bonsai trees in your miniature garden but use them as potted plants so you can maintain them easily.
• English Boxwood– Buxus sempervirens
  False Cypress – Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
  Parlor Palm – Chamaedorea elegans
  Norfolk Pine – Araucaria heterophylla
  Ellwood’s Blue Cypress – Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
• Dwarf Mondo Grass– Ophiopogon japonica ‘Nana’**
  Baby Tears – Soleirolia soleirolii**
  Corsican Mint – Mentha requienii**
  Sugar Vine – Parthenocissus striata (aka Cissus striata)
  Zebra Haworthia – Haworthia fasciata

Outdoors:

• Trees for gardening in miniature outdoor are dwarf and miniature conifers because they resemble the full-sized trees that we see in our landscape around our homes. (The terms dwarf and miniature refer to growth rate, not overall size.)
• Other types of trees are baby trees that have small leaves and grow slowly, like the Boxwood or Japanese Holly.

• The ideal plants for the miniature garden bed are small-leaved and slow growing.
• Ground covers, sedums, rockery and alpine plants are general plant families that can be explored for more options for the mini gardening bed.
• Resist the urge to plant herbs, they will out-grow the miniature garden within one growing season.

1. Just Dandy Dwarf Hinoki Cypress– Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Just Dandy’
   Jean’s Dilly Dwarf Spruce – Picea glauca ‘Jean’s Dilly’
   Miniature Juniper – Juniperus communis ‘Miniature’
   Dwarf Mugo Pine – Pinus mugo ‘Slowmound’
   Sky Pencil Japanese Holly – Ilex crenata ‘Sky Pencil’
2. Miniature Daisies – Bellium minuta
   Platt’s Black Brass Buttons – Leptinella squalida ‘Platt’s Black’
   Cranesbill – Erodium ‘Album’
   Small Hens & Chicks – Semperviven tectorum
   Irish Moss – Sagina sublata

Making, Processing and Maintenance of Miniature Garden:

Miniature gardens planted in a pot or other container are designed to resist outside in the sun or rain. For this it’s better to use real small plants, which have a very slow growth rate.

Some plants can grow up to 15 cm in a year, while others do not exceed 2 cm. These masterpieces are kept very well over time, up to 8 years without needing too much care besides watering the plants.

1. Find a suitable container or pot. You can house your mini garden in a variety of containers, from a glass bowl to a plastic pot to a terracotta planters pot. You should look for a container that has drain holes at the bottom so the water drains through the soil when you water your mini garden.
2. Get potting soil and small stones. You will need regular potting soil to lay down at the bottom of your container. You can find potting soil at your local plant nursery or in the gardening section of your local hardware store.
3. Select plants for your mini garden. When it comes to selecting plants for your garden, you should go for plants that will stay small and require very little trimming. You should also choose plants that are easy to grow in a small space and that will produce attractive blooms.
4. Find miniature accessories. You can get creative by putting miniature accessories among the plants in your mini garden. Almost anything can be used as an accessory in your garden, as long as it is miniature in size.
5. Decorate the garden with rocks and figurines. Once your plants have been added, you can decorate the garden with rocks and figurines. Try out a few different accessories next to your plants to see what might work best.
6. Keep the garden in indirect sunlight. Once you have completed your mini garden, you should place it outside or inside on a flat surface, like a table or the ground. Keep the garden in indirect sunlight so the plants still get some sun.
7. Water the plants when the soil feels dry. You should always check the soil in the mini garden periodically to ensure it is not too dry. Keep the soil damp by running water through the pot once the soil feels dry around the roots of the plants
8. Trim the plants, as needed. As your mini garden grows and thrives, the leaves of some of your plants may start to overcrowd your container. To keep them under control, you should trim the plants using small gardening shears.