Best Plants for Miniature Gardens
Soon, I’ll be up to my elbows in dirt outdoors, cleaning up beds, spreading mulch, and planting the first cool-weather veggies. In the meantime, I’m creating and caring for gardens in miniature, the ones that have kept me a happy person all winter indoors.
A planter, hanging air plants, a terrarium, and assorted miniature gardens (including a fairy garden) have brightened windowsills and my heart through days of limited sunlight and the occasional snow. Kids love them, too.
I started with a few small succulents. I found a glass bowl, but you can have good luck finding planters or bowls at Goodwill. (Make sure there are drainage holes.) Add soil.
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Place your miniatures(s) which can be anything from a garden gnome, a ceramic frog, or a small building. I added a miniature house. Any crafts store has fun miniatures or find something from nature!
Then, plant your succulents or small plants. To that, add pebbles or pea gravel. That’s it! What a delight in wintertime.
Air Plants and Rainforest Drops
Then garden geek friend Steve Asbell from Jacksonville, Florida, sent me what he calls a Rainforest Drop. He packed a grapevine ball purchased at a hobby store with shredded orchid bark and poked Rhipsalis, plus a couple of other epiphytes (plants that grow in the air), including a blooming tillandsia, into the ball. It had a long wire attached, and I hung it above the kitchen sink in an east-facing window. It’s grown greener and thicker all winter, and I enjoy it every time I go to the sink.
After those two easy successes, I was bitten with the bug and started researching miniature gardening. I spent two happy afternoons at area garden centers, looking at their plants and accessories and formulating ideas. Miniature gardens, especially fairy gardens, are trendy.
Fairy Gardens
What are fairy gardens? I asked my friend Betty Earl, who has written the book, Fairy Gardens. She says fairy gardens are miniature ones that give the illusion of tiny creatures living in them. They are located in small, secluded parts of the garden and in containers full of miniature plants, structures, and whimsical accents. “Above all,” Betty says, fairy gardens are about letting our inner child out and having fun.”
I had to make a fairy garden after that conversation!
How I Made My Fairy Garden
- Mine started with ten-inch square container, potting soil, pebbles, moss, and a fairy.
- ANY container can hold a fairy garden but you do need good drainage if you’re using living plants.
- An English boxwood, trained into a narrow tree, two pots of silk flowers, and a tiny frog soon joined them.
- Think about plants that are small in scale. Moss or a groundcover works well, as do plants with tiny flowers and small leaves (such as succulents).
- My fairy hides under the low-limbed tree, surveying her world, and casts spells upon intruders. It’s magical! And it’s low maintenance. The English boxwood is slow-growing, thrives in dim light, and doesn’t mind being pruned.
Plants Suited for Fairy and Miniature Gardens
Here’s a list of other plants suitable for miniature gardens.
- Baby tears
- Blue moneywort
- Miniature Mondo grass
- Irish moss
- Creeping thyme (also called elfin thyme!)
- Little stonecrop (sedum)
- Jade tree (train succulent as a small tree)
- Rosemary (train into a tree)
- Primrose
- Hens and chicks, small succulents
- Creeping fig (it climbs over fences and arbors)
- Heron’s Bill—pink, white, or lavender flowers on a tiny mound of green foliage)
- Terrariums (miniature gardens under glass) are also a lot of fun.
See my colleague’s post on How to Make a Terrarium.
Doreen G. Howard
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In the article Gardening in Miniature,
Best Plants for Miniature Gardens and Fairy Gardnes
By Doreen G. Howard
You show a Grapevine ball with a delicate tiny succulent growing on it - it is not a tillandsia at least not from what I can find - We have one at home and no-one knows what it is but it very delicate. Can you help me know what it's name is esp if it has a simple name.
Thank you
Eric
February 4, 2020
Hello Eric,
The plant pictured in the first image of this article is a succulent of the genus Rhipsalis. They are commonly called “mistletoe cactus” and are epiphytic, meaning they tend to grow on tree branches rather than in the soil (like air plants). A very unique and interesting plant—enjoy yours!
Thank you. What lovely ideas. I have a Delft KLM house from decades ago, on my stove ever since but I'm now thinking would make the perfect focal point for a miniature kitchen garden, maybe with moss, as flying over Holland I remember those vast fields of GREEN! Not to change the subject, but I read the comment by Etta, below. I came across that author's presentation on Restoration Agriculture half a dozen years ago (on line), 2-1/2 hrs I sat rapt, I so related to everything he said. Nothing has made me more optimistic about the future than that introduction to permaculture and farming in line with nature, the perfect antidote to the food-shortage fearmongering! :D
Fairy gardens are MUCH MORE than miniature plants and trinkets and baubles. They are the home of a fairy. The plants and accessories should be those that are useful to the fairy or have a special meaning to him/her. One must know about fairies and do some homework to plant a proper fairy garden. Come visit my facebook page Fairy Garden Queen (community) to learn more!
I'm reading a fantastic book, "Restoration Agriculture" by Mark Shepard. He talks about moving our planting consciousness from "annuals" to "perennials"! I've always had a perennial flower garden but Shepard has helped (and horrified) me into realizing that the greatest civilizations have been brought low by monocrops (annuals like corn,soy,wheat) which also are VERY low in nutritional value compared to perennials (walnut/chestnut/hazelnut, peach/pear/plum, apple, berry, fungi/mushroom). I planted a peach tree 2 years ago and had a bumper crop last summer. It's healthy and ready to blossom now~so excited! * p.s. to Marybeth K. living with only a woodburning stove: have you heard about "Air Plants"? Supposedly, you don't need a green thumb.
Sounds like a fascinating book. The author's supposition makes sense. Mono-culture of annual foods has lead to famine and destruction of many societies.
Thanks for the link! Miniature gardens are super easy, and I think it woud be a great way to get kids interested in garden.
i have always enjoyed gardening but have recently moved and don't have a outside yard available. i really like your photos and ideas espeicially the fairy gardens and the air ball...i'm got incentive now. thxs
Hello! I always had a fairy garden outside in the back yard! this year I will create one out of an old wheel barrel. My question is ; I only have a wood burning stove in my house for the winter months. most all of my house plant die because of the cold! Do you have any suggestions for me? thank you Marybeth
Pot-quilts around your planters can help keep roots warm. You might also 'blanket' the top of the soil with leaf or grass mulch. Don't forget to keep water always simmering on the woodstove so neither you nor your plants dry out. :)
