Home : How to Create a Simple Faery Garden
TO ALL RETAILERS AND GROWERS:*
Mulberry Miniatures has Perfection Greenhouse in New Washington Ohio as a fantastic grower. Look for Mulberry Miniature plants at your favorite retailer.
There are four fundamental elements in landscape design.
Step 1Taking clues from modern landscape designers, a typical house entrance would include a single birch tree, under planted with 3 to 7 shrubs (yews, hollies, barberries are currently en vogue) with approximately 25- 50 small ground cover (pachysandra, sweet woodruff, ajuga) starts to form at single mat. Why so many ground cover starts? Because of their small “individual visual weight” they must be repeated, so that they might be seen. Therefore, the larger the plant element in design, the few numbers that are required. Conversely, the small the visual weight a plant has, the great numbers that are need. For a miniature garden in a small 6” X 12” plastic oval container or a 9” x 9” hypertufa trough: one tree element, 2 shrub elements, and one ground cover divided into 2-3 smaller sections (for repetition) are all that are needed for a typical modern day landscape design (see Step 1).
Step 2Although “elevation” is not a necessary element in design principles, it does add a great deal of interest and realism to the miniature landscape. In a flat elevation design, only a path is appropriate. With elevation, now steps, or terraces are possible and the design takes on a theatrical appearance, allowing for the use of even more plant material. (See Step 2) In addition elevation increase the opportunity for creative hard landscaping features.
Step 3In the commercial landscaping business, “Hardscaping”, as it is commonly referred to, are man made elements, such as stairs, walls, lighting, fountains... that either add to or are the focal point in the natural landscape (see Step 3).
Depending on the setting and your goals, you are now entering either the Garden Railroad, Mini Landscaping or Faery realm. It is this combination of plants and hardscaping that separate these planting from the arrangements sold in floral shops or those plants simply planted in the ground.
Final StepThese principles of design apply as much to a miniature house above the Grand Junction Railroad, as they do in a container faerie garden, or a doll house landscape, All use trees, shrubs, ground covers with contrasting color, form, and texture and repetition of elements as needed.
Inspirations can come from the real world. Remember the beautiful hotel in Santa Fe with the terraces and clay flower pots, or the neighbors house done the road with the white pickets fence and beautiful flowers in the spring. Draw from those places to create your own mini worlds and by all means- Have Fun!
- Contrast color (of leaves and flowers)
- Contrast form (overall shape of the plant)
- Contrast texture (fine/tiny verses big/coarse)
- Repeat an element as often as necessary to achieve a visual impact.



Depending on the setting and your goals, you are now entering either the Garden Railroad, Mini Landscaping or Faery realm. It is this combination of plants and hardscaping that separate these planting from the arrangements sold in floral shops or those plants simply planted in the ground.
