It's A Small World

Tiny houses are all the rage in sustainable home design, so why not tiny gardens too? Lynda Hallinan finds that good things often do come in small packages.

Honey, I shrunk the garden! I’m sure my husband would be delighted if I suddenly announced that I was downsizing our large country garden for a compact courtyard or petite patio – no more lawns to mow, hedges to clip, trees to prune and DIY projects to build. But when your appetite for gardening is as gluttonous as mine, that’s never going to happen.

I have, however, been experimenting with Lilliputian indoor landscapes of late. Everything looks cute when it’s small, according to American fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, and who can argue with that? My miniature tabletop gardens and terrariums make me smile every time I see them, which isn’t always true of the blooming beds and burgeoning borders around our farmhouse, where I haul out weeds by the trailerload rather than with a pair of tweezers.

I’ve never had the patience for building ships in bottles – how could you not sweat the small stuff when you’re fiddling about with such finicky craft projects? – but I’ve spent hours pimping, preening and maintaining my miniature gardens and it never feels like a chore. The basic tools? A toothbrush (for sweeping up soil spills), teaspoon (for shovelling sand and potting mix), sugar cube tongs (for precision positioning) and nail scissors (in place of secateurs). A misting bottle is also a musthave for keeping all the wee plants trapped inside a terrarium in good nick.

Glass bowl terrariums have been trendy for a while now, and local houseplant nurseries can’t keep up with the demand for architectural foliage plants such as Monstera deliciosa and string-of-pearls (Senecio rowleyanus). But for most of us, this newfound captivation for all things great and small actually dates back to childhood.