A corner of the balcony, a table on the terrace, a sideboard in the living room, a window sill... A few square decimeters are enough to invite plants and miniature decorations in your home and create real mini-ecosystems where gardening talents and artistic sense are combined.
Imagine
Imagine a humid tropical landscape with lush vegetation, the semi-deserts of South Africa covered with succulents, the garrigue and its paths leading through low walls and olive trees, the mountain cliffs with alpine plants in the smallest crack.
Can you imagine booking your plane tickets? Yes. But you can also keep your slippers on, move to the lounge, on the bay window side. On its curved plateau, surrounded by ferns, selaginellas, the ficus is a bit dull: a tropical shower with a sprayer will be welcome. A few meters away, new climate, under the south-facing veranda, succulents are blooming in a miniature scree. The terrace will protect a Mediterranean space, on its rocky plateau, bordered by a low wall, an olive tree will offer its shade to a 2 cm long bench. A toothbrush will be enough to clean it. For the mountaineers, a small piece of garden, a corner of balcony, will welcome a lauze where will develop miniature pines, saxifrages, androsaces, sedum.
Miniature ecosystems
It is possible to create miniature gardens featuring plants and decorations to represent any type of landscape or ecosystem. A fundamental principle not to be missed: choose your climate, tropical, Mediterranean, alpine... Which will correspond respectively to the heated space of the house, the veranda or terrace well exposed, a shaded outdoor space or an alpine greenhouse.
Another fundamental principle: the choice of plants. Each one must be adapted to the chosen environment, a fern from the Amazonian forests will not withstand the rigors of European winters, and conversely an alpine saxifrage will not withstand the heat of our interiors...
Third fundamental principle: small plant will become big... It is essential to know the development of the chosen plants to maintain a harmonious balance in your landscape. An aloe vera will hardly have its place in a semi-arid garden of 20 cm in diameter...
Last principle: respect the fundamental needs of your ecosystem, i.e. water, temperature and luminosity which must correspond to the mutual living conditions of your plants.
An easy maintenance, generally
Easy... by the size of the tools. Small tweezers to clean plants, fine scissors to contain them, a sharp knife to cut the roots of unwanted guests, a 2-liter watering can, a sprayer, and a seat at garden height. Properly cared for, plants will continue to grow, more or less vigorously depending on the species. It's up to you to choose, to prune, to limit, to favor one or the other, to perpetuate the same balance, to move, to cut. In short, to make your garden live.
But everything can fail, and your tropical garden can turn into a deplorable mineral desert. Once you have chosen your location, near the living room window, far from the heating, and selected your plants, Ficus retusa, bromeliads, selaginellas, you can start watering. It must be copious, like a good tropical rain. In between, you will have to keep your substrate slightly humid, with a dry environment, regular sprays will be welcome. So for each environment, semi-arid indoor or outdoor, alpine, Mediterranean, the maintenance will have to meet the specific needs of your ecosystem.
An original creation
Once you have mastered the technical requirements, it's time to be creative. Composing a miniature garden is similar to designing a painting: strong points, vanishing lines, volumes. Foliage and flowering colors. All in three dimensions. And there is also a fourth dimension: time. The plants change with each season, blush in the cold, bloom one in the fall, the other in the spring. To create with the living by offering the conditions of a perennial growth is to open a new door, a journey, at hand.
The power of plants, the gardener and the imagination
By listening to his plants, the gardener learns continuously, and offers them the best growing conditions. They then take over, grow, bloom and reseed. The dialogue is constant. Grouped together in a miniature garden, the plants will also interact with each other, sometimes competing with each other, but also helping each other, cooperating. And to harmonize, with imagination, in a reduced but abundant space.
Some plants:
- Tropical gardens : Ficus retusa, Ficus benjamina, Ficus pumila, Selaginella, ferns, ...
- Mediterranean gardens : Crassula sarcocaulis, Delosperma, Sedum, Sempervivum, Bergeranthus, ...
- Semi-desert gardens : Cacti, euphorbias, caudex plants, ...
- Alpine gardens : saxifrages, androsace, armeria, Cotula hispida, Pratia pedunculata, ...
