Thursday, March 19, 2015

Two Enchanting Miniature Gardens

A few days ago, we got a brief break from the snowy winter weather by attending the 2015 Boston Flower Show.  The theme this year was 'Season of Enchantment', and I have to share with you one of the most enchanting parts of the show - the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's miniature gardens competition.

Each miniature garden is in a box and viewed through a glass window that is about 2 feet wide and a foot and a half high.  The gardens are judged on how it represents a larger garden, with a scale of 1 inch equalling 1 foot, at least for the part in the foreground.  Combining both horticulture and design on an intricate, scaled-down level, the results are impressive and amazing.


There were two entries at the Boston Flower Show this year.  The first one, by Gloria Freitas Steidinger, is titled 'The Lot Was Pasteurized', and shows a charming scene of a home in the woods.  It is complete with miniature lambs frisking through the front yard, a water feature with a swimming swan, miniature moose or elk surveying the scene from atop a cliff, and tractors resting in the nearby field.


I love all the little plants and moss that help create the scene.  So cute!


The second miniature garden was created by Debi Hogan and Warren Leach, and shows an enchanting scene of a playhouse up in the trees, complete with vines and children's playthings. Birdhouses hang in nearby trees, and a stone path leads to a picnic table and chairs behind the playhouse, completing the look of a miniature backyard retreat.


The variety of plants used was astounding.  It truly looked like a lush, miniature backyard garden, full of bushes, trees, vines, grasses, and even flowers.  Can you believe this was all done with little tiny plants?


I wish I would have taken even more pictures of all the little details going on in the two gardens - it's worth clicking on the pictures above to enlarge them so you can see how many things are going on.  The miniature gardens truly were enchanting, and just seeing them makes me itch to get some tiny plants and make a miniature garden of my own in a terrarium or something!  I don't remember seeing the miniature gardens competition when I went to the Boston Flower Show last year, but from now on I know to be on the lookout.  So charming!

18 comments:

  1. Oh I love these and I too would love to make one...Michelle

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    1. Just seeing them makes me want to make one, too :)

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  2. These are exceptional examples of miniature gardens. The backgrounds give a nice context to the scene which sometimes gets lost with these gardens. Love these! Thanks for sharing!

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    1. They must have taken so much work and time. I do love how they even paint the background, which really offsets all the plants.

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  3. Amazing. So many little details. You captured them so well in your photographs.

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  4. Delightful! Thanks for giving me a window to look at them and the best part is I can go back later and they will still be there!

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    1. I know, I just want to stare at them, there's so many little details!

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  5. Yes, enlarging them really gives one a great view of intricacies of these miniature worlds. I would love to create a fairy garden ... one of these days. Thanks for sharing the inspiration!

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    1. It looks like so much fun, doesn't it? It probably takes a lot of hard work to make something that detailed, though!

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  6. How charming, ready for fairies to move right in!

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  7. Wow, these are amazing! They are both so much more detailed than most miniature gardens I have seen. My friend and I saw several at the Chicago Flower Show this past week, so they're obviously growing in popularity. Glad you got to go to the Boston Show--these big shows are a great way to take a break from winter!

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    1. Glad to hear they're getting popular! I read that they've had them at the Boston Flower Show for a while, but I don't remember seeing them last year. Such a treat to see! And definitely such a treat to get a little retreat away from winter!

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  8. The miniature gardens are amazing. I am trying to learn to do that, on a much simpler scale of course. I can't imagine the work and time that went into those projects.

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    1. Oh, it's amazing. They must have been planning for months!

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  9. I adore these miniature gardens...maybe for fairies.

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    1. I just love the little fairy gardens! I'd love to make one, though slightly smaller than those!

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