MODEL LANDSCAPES
Although these indoor gardens also follow the rules of good design, the result is a different effect. Montague Free once called them “an idealization in miniature of an outdoor scene.” They are not arranged to give an artistic impression, but to re-create some part of the out-of-doors on a small scale. Their charm lies in their diminutiveness, intricate detail and, often, in their whimsy.
The elements are: container; tiny plants (for the purist, all must be living) to represent trees, shrubs, grass, and flowers; and props Or accessories such as miniature pools, fences, and other landscape or architectural features. I suppose rocks would be called accessories, too.
Each garden should have a theme, and all elements should be in harmony with the theme and help to carry it out. For example, it’s difficult to combine buoyant hybrid pansies with shy wild flowers. A contemporary garden is best in a container with clean lines, but an old-fashioned garden is fine in a platter with high fluted edges. A desert scene calls for a container that’s bare and stark. A white plastic trellis doesn’t belong in a woodland scene. And please, no green bath towels for grass.
Visualize your garden first—sketch the plan on paper. If you can draw it to scale, it will help in the selection of container, plants, and props. It is crucial that each element should be in proper proportion to all others. One element not in scale can ruin the entire effect.
In some gardens a plant or small group of plants will be the object of interest; in others it may be a particularly charming and important feature such as a rustic bridge or a shrine. In gardens of moderate size or less, one feature is usually sufficient, and not more than two in larger ones. Select your main feature first, place it, and make sure all other elements are in scale. For example, a fence should not be more than one and a half inches high under a tree of six inches.
The variety of plants, props, and containers from which you can select can be as wide as your enthusiasm and ingenuity want to make it. Here are a few suggestions.
Tree
Upright plant with a single stem-trunk, foliage at the top, usually taller than it is wide. If the tree is to be the object of interest, look for plants with character rather than symmetry—bent, twisted, gnarled trunk; interesting, lopsided shape; especially lacy foliage; tipsy tendency to lean. There are a number of useful house and greenhouse plants, and more to be found in the woods and fields. For deciduous trees, it is often permissible to use twiggy branches stuck in the soil. I find leafless pieces of mountain laurel very effective.
Shrubs
Upright plants of bushy habit and branching. You’ll find many suitable house plants and some in the wild.
Hedge
Tiny-leaved, bushy plants that can be set close together and clipped to shape. The tiniest boxwoods will also do if they are carefully thinned and each extra leaf is removed separately.
Flowering and Foliage Plants
Miniature house plants are best for these indoor gardens, although you can achieve temporary success with some annuals like alyssum.
Climbing and Trailing Plants
These are needed for training over walls, but even more necessary for planting at the container’s edge so they will fall over and softly blend the garden and the container.
Ground Cover
A cover for bare spots in the garden—get sheet moss from the woods. Or plant grass seed and keep it mowed with sharp scissors. Use your own ingenuity. You may very likely come up with something more appropriate.
Urns
Use thimbles, thumb-pots, miniature vases.
Pools
These can be built with Sakrete or plaster of Paris. Or sink a sardine can—painted blue-green—an ash tray, soap dish, or plastic cheese container.
Paths
A path should always be going somewhere, preferably to the point of interest. Make paths with sand, fine gravel, small pebbles, perlite. If your garden is a formal one, make cement sidewalks with Sakrete. (Please, we have no financial interest in Sakrete—don’t even know who makes it—but have always found it a most useful material around our gardens for patching, fixing, and repairing.)
Bridges, Fences, and Gates
Here is another chance for your personal ingenuity—and the more ingenuity you use the greater will be your pride when the job is done. Use matchsticks, toothpicks, balsa wood (it is available in hobby shops, but you can very likely snitch a few pieces from some model airplane the kiddies are making). In my office I get coffee from the corner drugstore, each container having a stirring stick. I save those sticks. It is wonderful what one can do with them—picket fences and the like. A little whittling is all that is necessary.
Rocks
Please, don’t use chunks of broken concrete. Hunt around for smooth, interesting specimens, eroded and rounded stones of the correct size. If you happen to come upon one with a lichen, you have a real prize.
There are as many themes for these gardens in miniature as there are outdoor scenes—cultivated or natural—in the world. The only necessity is, once you have decided on a plan, stay with it. See that every plant and prop you use is in harmony. See that every plant has the same cultural requirements—especially if your garden is to be a lasting thing. Here are some general ideas:
Formal Garden
This is probably the easiest to execute, chiefly because it is based on perfectly mathematical balance. The plan is basically geometric—a rectangle with a birdbath in the exact center; walks straight and precise; pairs or quadruplets of plants that are identical in size and shape; hedges that are neatly trimmed. How about trying something different?—an Old World herb garden; perhaps a scene from Colonial Williamsburg; or something from the Elizabethan age.
Informal Garden
Re-create your own garden, or something you hope to have around your house and grounds. It will help you to visualize it in advance. Get a container the shape and proportions of your lot—do a planting with the lawn you want, build up patios and terraces. Build a model of your house and duplicate the plantings you want on a miniature scale. This sort of garden will give you a real thrill.
Old-fashioned Garden
I wonder if you ever had a wonderful grandfather and grandmother—I wonder if they had a trim house with a picket fence—white of course. If you did, how about trying to duplicate it. If you didn’t, do a little dreaming. Dream about what you would like to see—picket fence, billows of bloom from flower beds, climbing things on the walls and fences. Please, let yourself go and improvise à la dream. Next to your own home, I can think of nothing more satisfying than trying to duplicate an old-fashioned garden in the manner of that wonderful past generation. Use your imagination. You’ll be happy that you did.
Contemporary Garden
The central figure could be a miniature vase, to represent an urn, at the edge of a square or rectangular pool. Small boxes can be made like redwood planters. To be purely functional, use gravel or paving instead of grass. Plant sparsely and with an eye for modern design.
Oriental Garden
Here is a garden that can fool you with its simplicity. It calls for fewer plants, more minutely perfect props, figurines, stones, and moss. It may be built around a pool with a Japanese bridge. Outwardly, it looks so easy and simple, but it isn’t. Just get one feature out of proportion and you will be unhappy. Remember, the Oriental artist is a person of great perfection, one with thousands of years of artistry behind him. Before attempting an Oriental garden, better get some good photographs or drawings. It will help you achieve a good picture and you will have a lasting satisfaction. Good luck.
Tropical Garden
This one should be lush with tropical creepers and climbing tropical trees, as pictured in the color section of this book. The container is a bowl from an overhead light fixture—the sort that used to hang above the dining-room table. (It cost ten cents in a junk shop.) The back is a masonry wall, made of pebbles and Sakrete, as is the irregular pool. Paint your pool blue-green. Since your plants will very likely require acid soil, separate the construction material from the soil by strong plastic.
Desert Garden
Little but cacti and kindred succulents can grow here, and sparsely at that. Sedum multiceps, little Joshua tree, has a picturesque tree-like character. Use a suitable soil mixture completely covered with a layer of desert sand, or very fine gravel. Build a dune perhaps. Or make an oasis with a few palms around a pool—an irregularly shaped pool like one might see in a mirage. How about a few strands of grass—maybe not quite in tune with the setting but it might be considered as bamboo. A little faking is permissible.
Rock Garden
This usually calls for building up a rocky slope supported by hardware cloth in the rear and lined with moss to keep the soil from falling through. Follow good rock-gardening rules—rocks of the same kind but of varying shapes, with their layers, or strata, running horizontal. At the base of the slope you might contrive a small pool overflowing into a plastic-limed stream. Make a rustic gate and bridges with evergreen twigs wired and glued together.
Woodland Garden
Naturalistic arrangements of woodsy plants, rocks, moss, fallen logs. Seedling evergreens are fine. Artificial props are out.
Meadow Garden
A gate might open through a split-rail fence to a winding, foot-trodden path through a field of waving grass and flowers. At the back leafy trees line the edge of the imagined cow pasture.