by Autumn Damiana 
If you have been to a home improvement, craft, or book store recently, you have probably heard about fairy gardens. Right now there are books, online tutorials, and even whole websites dedicated to making fairy gardens, and many stores stock ready-made accessories and even complete landscapes. Fairy gardens are a recent trend in an otherwise older tradition of miniature garden making. Some people
believe that fairies, gnomes, pixies, and other “wee folk” are attracted to or inhabit these gardens, and some simply put them together because it is an enjoyable hobby or because they take up little space. Whatever your reason, if you want to make your own miniature garden, you have a plethora of options.
Miniature Garden Varieties
The Aforementioned Fairy Garden
This kind of garden has specific features. Usually there is a “fairy door,” which is a tiny, detailed door or hatch of some sort, glued or otherwise set into the side of a tree, building, or large plant container. The idea is that fairies will pass through the door and into the surrounding garden, which may also have fairy houses or furniture for the fairies to use.
Terrariums
These are miniature gardens that are usually decorative in nature, planted inside clear glass containers. The inside of a closed terrarium is usually its own ecosystem, as light passes through and water vapor is recycled inside the container. An open terrarium is optimal for plants that need little water or soil—usually succulents or air plants.
Zen Gardens
Just like their larger cousins, mini Zen gardens are focal points of meditation and are designed to still the mind, reduce stress, and create feelings of peace and contentment. These gardens typically feature large areas of sand or fine gravel, with larger rocks and plants used sparingly.
Holiday Arrangements
With so many Christmas village and Halloween haunted house collectables and miniatures, it makes sense to design an entire holiday garden around these centerpieces to show them off and add to the ambiance. Miniature trees and ground cover are perfect for this type of setup.
Dollhouse Yards
If your child likes to play with dolls, then you might consider making a garden for them. This can be as simple as a patch of grass with basic accessories, or can be a full-blown scale dollhouse garden with scale miniatures. Another type of garden for children to play with can be constructed for the size of their favorite action figures, with big stones and fortress-type structures amid larger plants and bushes for their figures to hide in and explore.
Birthday Party Gardens
Crafts are a recent trend in children’s birthday party activities, so making inexpensive mini fairy gardens has become one way for children to have fun at a party while taking home something meaningful that they have made themselves. Of course, this idea doesn’t have to be limited to children. Anyone with a fondness for miniatures and gardening can take advantage of this idea. Consider making miniature gardens at your next adult gathering—a birthday, a tea party, craft night, during the holiday season, and so on.
Miniature Garden Gifts
Perfect for anyone who “has it all.” A mini garden that you have made from scratch makes a thoughtful gift, since it will be completely unique and you can tailor the garden to reflect the recipient’s personality. Just make sure that this person can and will want to take care of a miniature garden—plants are living things, and, as such, they will require ongoing care and attention.
Locations and Containers
Any corner of your yard—in part of a flower bed, under a fountain, on an old stump, or even nestled in between the roots of a tree—can be the perfect spot to house your miniature garden. Or, to make things easier, you can plant one in some kind of container that is placed in the yard. These can include terra-cotta pots, bird baths, planter boxes, wagons or wheelbarrows, metal washtubs, and so on.
Container gardening is popular because it gives you more choices, especially if you would like to make your miniature garden an indoor one. Vessels made from glazed ceramic, wood, metal, concrete, and even plastic are all acceptable. Glass makes for an interesting visual because you can see the roots, soil, and moisture in your garden in addition to the plants themselves. Naturally, you can purchase a container, but first look around and see if you have anything on hand that you can use so you can save your money for the plants and accessories you will want to buy. Some more unusual container ideas include baskets, chipped crockery, abalone shells, or even a suitcase or an old shoe.
Your choice of location or container should take into account the climate that you live in and its seasonal weather patterns. In areas with harsh winters you have to be prepared to replant your garden if it freezes or gets drowned out by rain. On the other hand, if you live in a hotter environment, then you may have to worry more about drought or the intensity of the summer sun. A small container garden can be moved or brought indoors if weather is a concern. Indoor gardens may also have seasons or cycles, depending on what kind of plants you include. Knowing about these variables can help you choose how and where to plan your garden and determine what you would like to do with it year-round.
Picking out locations, containers, and appropriate plants is a chicken-and-egg type of conundrum: Which should you do first? Since there are so many plant choices out there, I recommend that you begin by deciding on a spot for your miniature garden and see what kind of environment it can provide. Different plants may have widely different needs in terms of sun, moisture, drainage, and space. And if you get stuck or are at a loss, you can turn to books, the internet, or free professional help from your local nursery. I also highly recommend gathering information from local garden clubs and native plant experts, and don’t forget about your gardening relatives, neighbors, and friends!
Live and Dried Plants and Cuttings
Arranging your landscape is the same with a miniature garden as it is with a full-sized one. You always want to plant your taller varieties in the back, midsize ones in the middle, and shorter ones up front. Scale is an important determination: Do you want to grow plants that are all miniature and that complement each other in size (a true mini garden), or are you willing to work with regular-size plants?
For a mini garden made to scale, try plants with tiny blooms, such as wood anemone, violet, dwarf sea thrift, miniature daisy, creeping bluestar, heron’s bill, blue moneywart, and even wood sorrel.
For a true miniature garden, there are mini evergreens and conifers, bonsai (which are any small or dwarf variety of tree), tiny-leafed herbs, creeping/stonecrop sedum, and miniature ground cover, which includes varieties of ivy, fern, grass, and moss. Some creeping vines and flowering plants are also perfect for a miniature garden, but a lot of these need to have their growth checked by frequent pruning or training for them to retain their diminutive stature. Look for plants that are actually labeled as miniature or dwarf or have words such as little, tiny, fairy, elfin, and so on in their names or descriptions.
A miniature garden that is not restricted by scale or size can include just about anything. Inexpensive herbs or flowering annuals are easy starter plants, many of which can be grown from seed. Or you can design a desert landscape made entirely of succulents, which also require very little maintenance. A simple tray full of grass seed or a low-growing sedum is a good place to start for a dollhouse yard. Some fairy gardens also include plants that attract hummingbirds or butterflies. Unfortunately, there aren’t many choices for a strictly indoor garden besides houseplants, but this is where dried plants come in.
Dried plants and plant cuttings might be the perfect solutions for a hassle-free or temporary indoor garden or to fill in the spaces between live plants. Fill-in plants include dried moss or pinecones, whereas dried flowers, acorns, seed pods, and even fall leaves can make attractive focal points. These are often the best choices for those who desire a miniature garden but can’t or don’t want to take care of a live one. For a temporary display, consider also adding plant cuttings or cut flowers.
Store-Bought, Handmade, and Found Accessories
There are endless ways you can decorate your miniature garden. When choosing how to accessorize, here are four ideas you should keep in mind:
1. What kind of aesthetic effect do I want to create?
2. How much money am I willing to spend?
3. Do I want to make my own accessories?
4. Is what I want to add compatible with my garden?
Let’s take a brief look at each of these questions and explore the possibilities, some dos and don’ts, and some practical advice.
1. Aesthetics
Depending on how you have created your garden and what it is for, this may be an easy question to answer. Zen or meditation gardens typically have lots of sand or pebbles, a statue of Buddha or a pagoda, and a mini rake to move the sand around and to make patterns with. A dollhouse garden or yard will likely have some tiny furniture, such as a bench, fountain, or birdbath. The trick is to decide if you want to use completely natural accessories made of wood, stone, metal, or glass, or if you are okay with plastic, resin, and whatnot. Most commercially available miniature garden accessories are made of these substances, especially fairy doors and other fairy garden furniture. However, if you know of a dollhouse miniatures retailer, you can pick up amazingly detailed and well-crafted accessories made from authentic materials: real wood or metal benches, actual terra-cotta mini pots, wire or wicker baskets, and lots more.
2. Cost
With so many choices out there, spending on accessories can quickly become quite expensive. If you want to get the most out of your budget, I suggest getting one, two, or at most three very prominent pieces for your garden and then supplementing with inexpensive materials, such as mosaic tiles, round and flat glass marbles, shells, interesting-looking stones, or any of the earlier dried plant suggestions, such as acorns and pinecones. The best part about decorating this way is that you can use what you find around the house or during your outdoor adventures—children love to pick up rocks and shells, and their little treasures added to your garden make cute mementos. As an alternative, you can use your miniature garden as a way to display objects, like glass art or a crystal collection.
3. DIY Accessories
Even if you feel that you are not crafty, you should be able to make some of your miniature garden decorations quite easily. Online resources are a big help here, and read the directions beginning on the next page. Also check out these books: Miniature Gardens by Katie Elzer-Peters and, for children, Super Simple Fairy Gardens by Alex Kuskowski. Both of these books have some easy-to-follow directions on how to landscape your miniature garden with glass, pebbles, and shells as well as a few craft projects you can try your hand at.
4. Compatibility
Unfortunately, you can’t always make every accessory that you would like to add to your miniature garden work well with the garden setup. You can’t, for example, put little paper cocktail umbrellas in an outdoor garden, because they will deteriorate almost immediately. It’s also difficult to use solar-powered lights indoors, because these may not be able to charge correctly. Knowing in your planning stage what kind of aesthetic you are looking for can help resolve these problems before they occur. Naturally, you will also have to choose decorations that will not interfere with the continued growth and health of your plants. Fine, colored sand, for example, is usually a no-no for plants that require lots of water because the sand won’t hold moisture—and frequent waterings will cause the sand to seep further into the soil and will also ruin the decorative effect of the sand in the process.
Making Your Own Accessories
If you know how to sculpt and you have access to a kiln, custom ceramics can be a wonderful addition to your miniature garden. Glazed or unglazed, after being fired these pieces will withstand the elements and will give your garden a unique quality that only handmade accessories can give. Another idea is to find a ceramics studio where you can paint a piece of pottery that the studio will then fire for you. These places typically have a large assortment of containers, plaques, and statues of animals, fairies, gnomes, dragons, and so on.
Polymer “clay,” although artificial, is another option if you choose to make furniture or other items for your miniature garden. It is available in many colors and in small amounts for just a few dollars. You can easily fashion birdbaths, benches, fairy doors, stepping stones, mini containers, and more. Simply choose the clay colors you would like, sculpt something, and then bake them in your oven according to the package directions. The resulting pieces can be filed or sanded to remove imperfections and can even be painted, drilled, or have other items (like rhinestones or pebbles) glued to them. Keep in mind that modifications to the baked clay may not hold up over time against sun, water, and extreme temperatures.
There are also a number of accessories that you can make out of natural materials. Turn over a terra-cotta pot and glue a saucer to the top to make a birdbath, or stack these pot-and-saucer combinations in descending order by size to make a fountain. Balance stones on each other and then glue them in place for an impressive Zen garden piece. Find branches of different diameters and cut them into thin slices to make stepping stones or thick slices to make stools and tables. Use toothpicks or popsicle sticks (depending on the size you are looking for) and glue them together to make picket fences, doors, and bridges. Painted rocks are another fun and inexpensive addition to your garden—they can be decorated like bees or ladybugs, mushrooms, or small woodland critters or with inspirational words and inscriptions. Again, there are many, many more ideas online; YouTube and Pinterest are especially helpful if you are looking for tutorials.
In Conclusion
The world of miniature gardens is the same as the world of regular gardens around us, just much, much smaller. I, for one, am very happy to see the popularity of fairy and other miniature gardens growing (no pun intended) because it gives people a chance to connect with gardening in a way that they may not previously have. Even if you have next to nothing in the way of space, money, or time, or if you feel that you’re lacking a “green thumb,” there’s no reason that you can’t enjoy gardening—in miniature.