Miniature Garden DIY

|intro|

I have always been fascinated by miniature gardens.  They are truly whimsical and just put a smile on my face.  I took a shot at doing one for mother's day.  It was so easy to do and I had a great time making it.

|what you will need|

+ pot of your choice (I picked a pot that was fairly shallow, but had a wide opening)
+ decorations for your miniature garden (all from Hobby Lobby)
+ succulent plants
+ aquarium gravel
+ soil

|how to|

{1} First, figure out the layout of your miniature garden.  My pot was not that large so I tried to utilize as much surface area that I could, so I planted the plants towards the side of the pot. 

 

{2} Next place the aquarium gravel on the soil.  This will act like your "walkway" in your miniature garden.  Also, I placed the miniature garden fencing along the border of the pot. 

 



{3} Now the fun part...decorating!  I bought all the decorations at Hobby Lobby.  They actually had a section at the store dedicated to miniature gardens.  I got the fence, mushroom, bench, birdhouse, and metal wagon, and snail at the miniature garden section.  I got the miniature pots and garden tools at the doll section of Hobby Lobby.  You can definitely play around with the set up of your garden.  I really enjoyed making this cute miniature garden and hope to make a larger scale one in the future!

Home Sweet Home: Planting a Beautiful Container Garden 101

Since me and Mr. Domesticated Diva are brand new homeowners, I've decided to start posts dealing with home DIY, gardening, and interior design!  Please look out for posts labeled "Home Sweet Home" for home and garden inspirations.
It is warming up in Houston, so what better way to spend a nice weekend than working on the yard.  I absolutely love container gardens.  They are great for small spaces and can make a dramatic statement. 

I bought this absolutely gorgeous Texas theme flower pot at HEB.  It was only $20 with a $5 coupon, and it is fairly large!  Make sure you choose a pot with a drainage hole.

I bought an assortment of 4 different plants.  All are flowering plants. 

Here are the plants I selected:
Bulbine: Native to desert grasslands in South Africa, this plant grows well in a well-drained soil and is also very tolerant of poor, dry soil. Bulbine grows best in full sun, has succulent foliage, and produces racemes of star-shaped yellow with orange flowers in the summer months.
Blue Dwarf Katie Ruellia: Large lavender-blue flowers are backed by narrow, dark green foliage. Drought tolerant when established. Herbaceous perennial.
Becky Mix Rudbekia: Gloriosa Daisy hybrids are short-lived perennials, sometimes treated as annuals. Often these will survive a few winters, or at least self seed. This compact strain produces large black-eyed daisy flowers for months on end, in a wide range of shades from yellow through gold, orange and bronzy-red.
Grace Ward Lithodora: Beautiful, deep blue flowers cover this wonderful groundcover or rock garden accent. Sprawling with a slightly mounded form. Likes some shade in extremely hot areas.

The Bulbine is a taller plant, the Blue Dwarf Katie Ruellia and Becky Mix Rudbekia are low lying flowering plants, and the Grace Ward Lithodora is a crawling/trailing flowering plant.  It's good to mix and match different flowers, so that your arrangement is unique and complex.  Many people think that container gardens have to all be the same flower, but it doesn't!  Here's some great container garden arrangement from Better Homes and Gardens 

I used almost a whole bag of 2 cubic feet of Miracle Grow Garden Soil.  Make sure to space the flowers accordingly.  Water the flowers thoroughly after planting.  I placed the container near our front door.

Look How Pretty!

Upclose Shot of My Creation