Miniature Garden

I just saw this DIY on creating a moss photography background via the Craft Blog, and it reminded me of the dried sheet moss I used recently on my own miniature garden.
I was just looking through my blog and realized I never posted about it back in 2010, and since I just redid the garden, slightly, I thought I’d share it here.

Background… I’m pretty obsessed with things in miniature, and have been since I was a kid. I’m pretty sure that watching the Littles as a child had a lot to do with it. A lot of my pretend play centered around tiny people and animals, so of course finding small things that I could incorporate into that was great. I didn’t get a doll house until I was probably in middle school, but I still have it, along with all the miniature furniture. I remember my mom being wowed while packing it up once and finding all sorts of miniature things in it that I had made like tiny bowls of yarn and miniature knitting needles, along with tiny newspapers, etc. When I was in college I used to subscribe to a few literary/art/photography magazine/journals and (I wish I remembered who the artist was) but there was a feature on a photographer who built little “fairy houses” out in nature, made from nature (twigs, bark, rocks, etc.) and then photographed them. That was one of those “I wish I had thought of that” moments. I also liked imagining other people finding her sculptures afterward (possibly children) and wondering what they were all about. It was like Andy Goldsworthy but way before I’d ever heard of Andy Goldsworthy. Of course the miniatures at the Art Institute in Chicago were always a favorite. As an adult I’ve attended a couple of Miniature Shows (Tom Bishop) and naturally, I have a miniatures board on pinterest.

My sister signed us up for a miniature garden class at her local nursery, The Growing Place. More than two years ago, sheesh, talk about a late blog post. I had always wanted to make a little miniature garden, but just assumed that the class would be teaching us how to make one at our own home and then sell us little plants that would be suited for our own miniature gardens. I was delighted to find that we were actually building our very own gardens right there, ready to take back home. They had a variety of containers to choose from including old vintage dresser drawers! How clever, right? I built my little garden (above) but was kind of horrible about taking care of it. Since it was just in a drawer I had it on my front porch or patio, just sitting on the cement, so it was low and overlooked. It wasn’t until moving into our home last year that I found the perfect little nook for the miniature garden, near our front door, but once again it was just on the ground. By then the plants were all dead and I didn’t replace them. Finally I had a great idea that I should put legs under my dresser drawer and lift the garden up, like a table, so that it could be seen.

It wasn’t until last week when visiting our local nursery (Bloomen Gardens) that I remembered that plan. Turns out they have a whole little miniature garden section there as well, and their gardens are on table tops, pictured above.

I left the nursery on a hunt to find something that could lift my “garden drawer” up and found just the thing, a little bench, at a resale shop for $6. I went home, lifted up my sad little garden and realized that it needed some desperate TLC. It’s a little late in the season to be buying plants but I remembered a bag of sheet moss I had purchased for little terrariums, so I brought it out and rearranged it a little bit.

I remembered a white picket fence I had picked up at Michael’s (I think) and dropped int into place real quick. I also remembered some bags of miniature items (garden statues, garden pots, watering can and stepping stones) I had bought years ago at the miniature shows, for when I finally made my little garden. The little bird house that I have in there definitely needs a coat of paint and when spring hits I’ll hopefully be able to put in some real plants again, as was pictured near the top. All the same, I’m glad that it is lifted off the ground and people can enjoy it when they come in and out of the house. I’ll continue to keep my eye out for miniatures that I could add to it.