Mini gardens

My Mum is right tight when it comes to plants for the garden.

There is a pot near our front door and my Mum decided that it needed some flowers putting in it. That day she was walking the dogs and came across a mound covered in flowers on the hill just next to somebody's fence. At first she took it to be some sort of pet's grave but on closer inspection it revealed itself to be a compost heap with some discarded pansy plants on it. The pansies looked to be in quite good shape so my Mum scooped up the pansies and put them in a carrier bag she had with her. This solved the problem of what to put in the pot.

However, the pansies did not last long so my Mum had to think about what to do next. She had quite admired the planters in the fruit shop with corn dollies in them and this merged in her mind with the thought of the Easter Gardens which we make at Easter for school which are little gardens with chicks and rabbits in them.

My Mum looked in my toy box and found a little fairy castle and two little princesses which go with it. She put them in the pot but thought the castle needs weathering a bit because it is quite a garish pink. Then she put some moss in to make a lawn, some tiny slates to make a path, some blue glass gems to make a pool and a rock to go behind the pool. She needed something to make a pine forest to go behind the castle and on another dog walk found some garden plants which had seeded on the green belt. The leaves of the plant are long and thin and point downwards surrounding the stem and which makes it look very much like miniature pine trees.

Then she made some tiny flower beds for the garden with wild flower seedlings which we have grown for the back garden. One of the princesses is bigger than the other so she put that princess at the front of the pot to give a sense of perpective.

My Mum is extremely pleased with the mini garden and is even thinking of starting some sort of cottage industry making them as she thinks nobody else is doing it.