Miniature white poppies featured in a tiny garden beside an outcropping of rock
Part of the appeal, of course, lies in the charm of miniature plants—tiny annuals and perennials, small or slow-growing evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs, available in amazingly wide variety if you take the trouble to find them. There are also frequent opportunities to use inert objects with special effect. Small gardens can be designed as settings for works of art or products of the hand-craftsman—ceramic bowls and urns, authentic wrought-iron grilles, wood carvings, statuary, sundials, pools, even fountains and waterfalls. Or a garden may be designed with a background of well-placed rock, a tree stump, or a piece of driftwood. A bench, arch, gate, antique hitching post, or well-house may inspire a miniature planting. Inanimate ground covers such as gravel are often a definite part of the design.
In some ways miniature gardens are easier to design than, for example, standard items such as flower beds and foundation plantings. It’s easier to achieve originality. Mistakes are usually small and easily corrected. On the other hand, really good design is more critical than in large plantings where space can swallow errors and provide lucky effects. In miniature, even a minor defect shows up immediately, and may be a major calamity.
DESIGNING MINIATURE GARDENS
The first and basic requisite is an idea the garden is to express, a theme for the picture it is to create. The objective may be to embellish some neglected nook, disguise an unattractive corner, feature an unusual plant or art object, soften the lines of a small pool and blend it with its surroundings. Once the goal is set, it is pursued without deviation. For example, a featured plant is kept dominant—not necessarily in size, but always in visual importance—and everything else is subordinate. A pool planting does not become so elaborate that the beauty of mirrored reflections or rippling water is lost.
In both conception and execution the design for a miniature garden should be in harmony with its surroundings. Nearby buildings may call for certain harmonious lines and proportions. Land contours, and constructions such as walls and steps, may dictate size and shape. The architecture of a house and its landscape has a style that should not be violated.
Our Connecticut landscape demands informal or naturalistic design in no uncertain terms. Straight lines and formal geometric shapes would be not only out of place, but practically impossible to achieve. The land’s slopes and rises call for beds with flowering curves. Points of interest such as massive lichen-trimmed boulders, gnarled old trees, or a winding stream are sublimely situated by nature’s unerring instinct for what looks right. We’ve merely cleaned them up and made the most of them.
For not-too-modern houses built on regularly shaped, level lots, some sort of formal design is easier to achieve and much more suitable. In the traditional style, elements of equal size and weight balance each other. There is strict adherence to a predetermined pattern. Identical beds may make a formal dooryard garden, for example; matching groups of plants may ornament opposite sides of a gateway.
For houses of contemporary architectural style there are gardens of contemporary design, often featuring paved areas and patterns with distinct angles and curves. Plantings are based on the tone, texture, and form of the plants themselves. The object of interest is off-center, balanced by a larger area of subdued importance.