DISH GARDENS
A dish garden is the combination of a group of living plants and the container holding them. It should be designed and planted with artistry and originality, but without artificiality. Each dish garden should look distinctive—certainly without any resemblance to the ones which florists seem to make by formula. It should be neither crowded with too many plants, nor cluttered with accessories or small ornaments. It should be eye-catching but not brazen, harmonious but not dull, unusual in some manner and yet comfortably natural.
Like cut-flower compositions, dish gardens are arranged so that plant and container together complete an artistic design. And like any artistic design, these gardens follow (or have a good reason for not following) certain basic principles:
Plants and container blend into one pleasing picture.
Elements of the design interlock, overlap, or otherwise hang together.
The number of elements is limited by restraint and good taste.
All parts of the design are in pleasing relative proportion.
There is one focal point, or center of interest.
Pruning a dish garden to keep elements in size and proportion
If the design has formal balance, the focal point is in the center, with elements of equal weight at the sides.
For informal balance, the focal point is off-center, with heavier elements to balance it.
A design becomes fluid, rhythmic, with the dynamic use of line, and with pleasing contrast of colors, textures, and structural forms.
Of first importance, of course, is the container. It should be of proper size, shape, texture, color, and mood for the plants that will fill it. Rustic pottery is suitable for desert cacti and other succulents; glazed white, or lightly tinted, pottery for dainty flowering plants; copper, pewter, wooden bowls for an arrangement of heavy, masculine-looking foliage plants.
Containers can be of any shape—round, square, rectangle, triangle, ellipse, irregular. If possible they should be at least three inches deep so there is space in which to pack the roots of your plants. And they should not make themselves conspicuous with bold ornament, texture, or color. Plain design and subdued colors bring out the beauty of the plants.
Very few artificial accessories look well in a dish garden; but natural garden or landscape features such as interesting rocks or bits of old wood are often quite successful.
Before you begin to plant a dish garden, set the plants (in their pots) in the container, and then shift them around until they begin to look right. This will give you a rough idea of how an arrangement will turn out. For formal balance, set the tallest or most striking plant in the center, with some low ones nestled around its base. For informal balance, set the accent plant in one corner of a rectangle and let a large expanse of unadorned sand, gravel, or ground cover spread out toward the diagonal corner.
Turn a sharply curved leaf or branch so it falls against a straight up-and-down plant. Play rough foliage against smooth; feathery against solid; bright colors against dull; pattern against plain leaf. Try lifting out one plant to see if the effect is cleaner. To blend plants with the container, let a creeping or hanging plant fall down over the edges. These beforehand experiments will help you avoid having to shift plants later, during the actual planting.
Although not strictly dish gardens, there are some attractive variations that can be composed without benefit of soil, or of a dish to hold it. In the pockets of a small piece of smooth, silky old root, or driftwood, tuck osmunda fiber (orchid-potting material) for the roots of epiphytic (air growing) plants—most are bromeliads. Terrestrial (soil growing) plants, such as the miniature begonia, are best in sphagnum moss. Or try tiny orchids; some will creep slowly over the surface of the wood. Fasten the plants firmly in place with inconspicuous fine florists’ wire. This will hold the plants until their roots penetrate the fiber and attach themselves to the soft wood. If you supply liquid fertilizer at regular intervals, the plants will grow normally. Water by dunking plants and log in a pan or the sink. Feed by adding soluble fertilizer to the water.
Plants will often grow from cavities and crevices in rocks. If the rock is “limy,” stick to lime-tolerant plants. Tufa, if you can find it, is especially malleable for gardens like these. It is soft and porous, easily cut and shaped, and with ready-made cavities to hold roots and small amounts of soil or moss. It is perfectly acceptable to acid-loving plants.
Conch shells, and another large shell of a similar type which we used to find on the beach—the sort kiddies hold to their ears when playing the game of “listening-to-the-sea”—offer interesting possibilities. Pack the cavity with moist sphagnum moss and plant with several smallish plants. Water with extreme care, and fertilize only slightly. Almost any moisture-compatible foliage plant that is available will live and grow this way for months.
Root from an apple tree, with a pocket for osmunda and a bromeliad