AUTHOR’S NOTE
Naturally, the children’s welfare was the compelling reason for moving our family out of New York and into Connecticut. But we can’t deny that we also had visions of more expansive gardening. So we set out to find an old (meaning dilapidated—not antique), spacious, window-rich house with acres of neglected land where we could indulge our yen for flower borders with delphiniums by the dozens, sweeping green expanses of lawn, even obese bullfrogs on lily pads in a modest lake.
These naïve notions were quickly canceled by the orbital prices of Connecticut real estate. In order to achieve our principal purpose, we had to make concessions to the second. The house we settled for is small; its windows are few and runty; and it has less than an acre of cultivatable land. It is one hundred feet at its widest, nearly six hundred feet long, and less than a hundred feet level in any one expanse. In other words, we got split-level land instead of a split-level house. But it is charming. Neighbors with great expanses of gardens and lawns actually envy us for our “natural setting.”
Actually, my favorite landscape architect, who happens to be my husband, Bob, would be lost if given a perfectly flat piece of land of equal length and width. He would have no contours to follow and would probably go fishing. As it is, both of us have plenty of challenges and the fun of running up and down ridges in our plantings. The acreage is ample for two persons who have little more than so-called “spare” time.
From this quick summation of facts, it is obvious why we gave up our grandiose ideas of immense perennial beds, a half-acre vegetable plot, naturalized bulbs by the thousands. Instead, we’ve learned how to tuck little gardens into odd corners; to compensate for limited space with intimate miniature perfection; to hunt for and find the small plants that are in sympathy and in scale with our small house and landscape. Cramped growing quarters indoors have even led us to collect miniature house plants. And when, some sweet day, we have our own personal greenhouse on the place, it’s bound to be in scale with the rest of it.
Fortunately, we are by no means a minority. More small homes than large are being built today, and on more small lots. Gardeners are intensifying their demands for small plants of all sorts; and hybridists and suppliers are working nobly at filling the need. We now have four-inch ‘Wee Willie’ sweet William, tiny Twinkle Phlox, other dwarf annuals and perennials. Some nurseries are beginning to feature dwarf trees and shrubs. Florists and greenhouses are giving us minuscule house plants such as Sinningia pusilla and orchids with one-inch flowers. The charm and intimacy of the miniature is replacing the magnificence (and oppressive maintenance) of the massive.
There you have the beginning of this book and the reason why it contains many quite new projects. They would be illustrated as “before and after,” except that the “after” is yet to be written. Regardless of how long miniature gardening has been practiced, we feel the greatest developments are yet to come. Small houses and small plots of land force us to this conclusion.
Admittedly many of our personal opinions are based on experience and observations in Northeastern gardens. However, whenever possible we have included reliable information for other climates. You will, of course, make your own interpretations and adaptations. This a reader must always do, no matter where an author lives and gardens. And there is always your county agent to consult or your local garden-supply florist with whom to discuss your particular situation. Always an added pleasure.
PLANTS INCLUDED
As the author, I have used two criteria for including or omitting plants at the time of writing. I am concerned with those that are readily available from florists, nurseries, and the suppliers listed in the Appendix; and those that in my opinion are suitable for miniature gardens.