The Eagleson yard is home to many unique and curious plants we’ve discovered in our years of landscaping. The north side of our house hides a small, unassuming garden populated by very tiny plants. This garden was created after we took an interest in various dwarf and miniature species. Because of a popular fad called fairy gardening, very tiny plants are available at many nurseries and stores. Quite a few of these minute marvels caught our eye.
We had already collected a number of dwarf evergreens and other species when we decided it was time to find a central place to plant them. The north side of our house had yet to be cultivated, and its partly shaded areas were perfect for the mini-plants, which generally prefer indirect sunlight. We created our mini-garden with spontaneity. To make a garden starting only with plants that are interesting to you, without planning ahead of time, is not the novice kind of gardening. It is for experienced green thumbs who are able to incorporate plants into an existing garden, and make the new fit in with the rest of the landscape.
The mini-garden mostly had plants that stayed small. We liked nestling the dwarf evergreens amongst different rocks and pieces of old wood that gave the garden some scale and a sense of age. We also had some Scottish and Irish moss, ferns, a 4-foot tall dwarf bald Cyprus, and two small trees with beautiful red leaves that served as anchors for the garden.
Besides our hosts of tiny evergreens, we also planted several collections of hostas in the mini-garden. We had a food collection, meaning the hostas’ names had to do with food, such as the key lime pie hosta, guacamole hosta, and the fried green tomato hosta. Our holiday collection included the White Christmas hosta, the Night before Christmas hosta, and the Christmas Tree hosta. We also had a blue collection, a patriotic collection, and a giant collection. Our biggest hosta was the Empress Wu, 3-4 feet tall and easily 6-7 feet wide.
The mini-garden was framed at the front of the house by a little wooden arbor with wisteria growing over it. You walked through this to get to the mini-garden. At the other end, a Cornelian Cherry Dogwood stretched over the path to make a natural arch with the neighbor’s fence. The mini-garden became its own little room in the scheme of the landscape.
The mini-garden was not easily seen from many places in our landscape. In the scheme of our yard, it was a bit of a surprise to find. This demonstrates one of our important beliefs about landscaping. You don’t want your entire garden to be visible at once. You should have something to draw you around your yard to experience the landscape. Your garden doesn’t have to be extremely elaborate to accomplish this, but you do want to peak your interest enough to make you want to explore. Each time you wander around there might be something you didn’t see before. It should always be something of an adventure.
Questions about this project? Send us an email or give us a call at (317) 997-4803.
