At the end of a path, there’s a bench with a book…
I recently received an email letting me know of a much anticipated visit to Birmingham of a certain Connecticut gardener, Douglas Thomas. She was coming on the invitation of a friend and member of one of the oldest garden clubs in the city, and, to celebrate her visit, a joint meeting of two Garden Club of America groups had been arranged at the Birmingham Museum of Art.
Through an arbor…the cat wants the goldfish in that bowl!
The miniature gardens shown here were designed as centerpieces for a small gathering in a private home to honor her visit. Ms. Thomas gardens on a grand scale, so the hostess and I decided having miniature gardens as part of the tablescape was bound to
A seating area under a Chamaecyparis “tree” and a pond, with sedum ‘Ogon’ as a “groundcover”…
be something unexpected and fun. First a little background:
A croquet set and puppy underneath a chamaecyparis “tree”…
A gazing ball in the distance…
Douglas Thomas is only the third owner of Twin Maples, a beautiful 400 acre estate in Connecticut. She would be in Birmingham in early February speaking on it and of the 40 acre meadow that she and her late husband, Wilmer, created with the help of noted Pennsylvania landscape designer Larry Weaner.
On the table…
In 2011, the Foundation for Landscape Studies awarded her their Placemaker Award. See the link HERE to read more about this award.
Delving more thoroughly to learn more before going to hear her speak, I came across a New York Times article from 2008, which described the meadow in their headline as “The Natural Look, With Much Effort.” This phrase could certainly be applied to any garden I thought, including miniature versions!
Miniature Garden Centerpiece – 2 years earlier…
These particular miniature gardens had actually been created two years earlier for another eventful gathering, and, due to the owner’s exceptional care, many of the original plants were still thriving. The chamaecyparus “trees” had grown (Just as real trees do!), and the succulent landscape around one of the ponds only needed a bit of pinching back. Still, there were areas that needed fresh “landscape” plantings.
On the table…2 years later…
Some of these new plants included the addition of a fresh angelvine climbing on the arbor and air plants at the entrance to the succulent garden. In another, sedum ‘Ogon’ was added near a pond as a “groundcover”. More tiny ferns and some selaginella were added to the existing tiny leaved maidenhair fern in the largest garden, and beyond it a strawberry begonia was planted to frame the rabbit hutch. Great care was taken to place plants with like water needs together.
The path leads to a seating area beyond the rabbit hutch…
With careful attention all of the “hardscape” paths and placement of small pieces were redone for each garden, and some redesigning of certain areas was accomplished as well. This takes a good bit of time and a lot of patience, but, above all, it’s quite a bit of fun too.
Through the arbor…
It really is exactly like laying out a real garden, with decisions of where the paths need to be, what materials they should be made from, what they lead to, and more questions needing to be answered to make it realistic. Scale of materials is very important too and can be difficult to accomplish, but it makes all the difference!
I received a phone call from the hostess the morning after the dinner party. “Your ears should have been burning,” she said. “They were a hit! Everyone enjoyed them, and kept finding new things the more they looked at them.” What a compliment, and how kind of her to pass it on.
Take a look HERE for another post on miniature gardens, and type in “miniature gardens” in the search field for more.
Here also are pictures of a couple of groupings I pulled together to give you an idea of what is available as of October, 2014. In the first picture, left-right and front-back, they’re as follows:
Interesting choices, right? Here’s another grouping, again L-R and front-back:
For all of you 
Some people have asked why we don’t carry fairies and other inhabitants for our miniature gardens. For us, the garden is the key – creating a miniature garden world with plants that actually will grow for you…along with some judicious clipping when needed. (Fairies are there in spirit, not seen, and, if the garden has the magic of the creator’s touch, of course they’ll come.)
These miniature gardens have really struck a chord for adults and kids alike, and it’s so much fun to see the delight by adults and excitement of little ones as they browse (and play with) the tiny creations that can be used in their own gardens. Of course, any activity that stimulates imagination is certainly worthwhile! For children, it’s a make believe world; for adults it’s an outlet to grow plants in a different way.
All was well until the night the little girl had a sleepover party with a couple of her friends…you might well imagine where this story is going! Somehow the miniature garden, which she kept in her bedroom, was completely up-ended in the middle of the bed, an utter mishmash of soil, plants,pea gravel, stones and little accessories. It must have been like Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall in the fairytale! We helped rework the little miniature garden, and hopefully that little girl is still happily raking her pea gravel “path”…
Not long ago a parent, her daughter, and the girl’s little brother came in. The mother marched to the counter with the little boy and said that he needed to buy, with his own money, a stone for his sister’s miniature garden. Puzzled, I asked what kind of stone he needed. Well, the mother said, her daughter had a stone with the words “My Garden” written on it in her miniature garden. Evidently the little boy had turned it around and scrawled “bathroom” on the back! Of course, the boy’s sister wasn’t having any of that in her garden. So, we found the perfect stone, wrote “My Garden” on it for the little girl, and the little boy brought out his money to pay for it. Before they left, the mother gave the little boy the stone that he’d written on. Much later we found it hidden in the miniature garden displays and had a good laugh….he didn’t want it either!
Some of the fun things we’ve gotten in recently include a pair of ghosts (It’s never too early to begin thinking about Halloween!), wooden soda bottle crates with soda bottles, a wine basket with wine bottles, a metal tub (just right to put the wine and soda bottles in!), tiny turtles, frogs and one very fat cat, some pretty urns, a very realistic Celtic cross, a stone walking bridge, a triple trellis and more. And there will be additional miniature garden items coming in down the road too. It’s a good idea to pop in every now and then to see what’s new.
If you’d like to have us put one together for you we have containers here, or you can bring something of your own in and we’ll create one for you. All we ask is that you give us ample time to put your miniature garden together – they may look less time consuming to make than a full size garden, but we promise you the devil is in all those minature details!
Some plants that can be used for gardens that will be used outside are many low growing sedums, echevarias, hen and chicks, euonymous standards (They make great trees!), tiny bromeliads, air plants and miniature jade plants to name just a few…indoor gardens (or