Who you calling a kid? Miniature Gardening Is For Everybody!
Life doesn’t have to be complex to be enjoyable. Take a suburb for instance, the complex congregation of streets, cul-de-sacs and dead end streets are enough to make you go berserk. Beyond that, the landscape can rarely vary from house to house, typically resulting in miles of roads with meatball shrubbery and those “pencil-shaped-shrubs”.
Here’s a thought, why don’t you create your own little utopian neighborhood in your own backyard? All it will take is a little imagination and a little of elbow grease and you can make your own little city. Name it whatever you wish (I’d call mine Chestervilleburgton).
Here are a few tips on channeling your creative side:
Plan Your Area:
Create parameters for your area, decide if you want to use stones, mulch or other hardscapes to create little pathways to lead to little areas. Think about Christmas Villages and such, you can have a post office, a general store, a brothel, whatever!
You can even score some mulch from beds that you already have or ask nicely at your local nursery. Chances are they have a busted bag laying around someplace that you can dig a bit out of!
Build Your Houses!
What neighborhood would be complete without some houses? You can get premade little homes, you can turn birdhouses into little houses or you can even just use trees and attach doors to make big “skyscrapers”. By having a few different domiciles, you can landscape each little yard differently!
Don’t worry about the size or shape. The point is to have fun with it. You can even try to recreate your own home in miniature form in your backyard. Now THAT’S a challenge!
Landscape!
What community is complete without some landscaping? Use dwarf trees such as Dwarf Hinoki Cypress, Boxwood, and other little conifers to give you year round foliage. Also look towards some of the spreading succulent perennials such as Sedum and Ice Plant. Not only are these perennials heat tolerant and hardy, as they mature they will look almost like a turf in front of your little homes.
Don’t forget annuals! Seasonally swap out a few little burst of color using tiny flowers such as Johnny Jump Ups and Lobelia. The scale of these flowers will suit the rest of the community and give it a sweet little look.
Place Your Pavement:
After deciding where to place your little Chestervilleburgton, you can start bulldozing and laying down some pavement. Creating a grid of roads, trails and sidewalks will allow you to place plants and such, but make sure you do it after all your plants are in place and your homes are built. Unlike in real life, you will tear up your roads by trying to build houses while playing in the miniature world. Use either dark black lava rock or mexican beach pebbles to give it an asphalt look OR if you’re going for a more rustic look tiny pea gravel will give an old-time look.
Don’t forget to sit back and enjoy when all the work is done. This can be an excellent project to draw kids into the garden or even just channel the inner child in you! Don’t be shy, give it a try and make sure you share it with us on our Pinterest page – we have a whole section devoted to miniature and fairy gardening!
