In the zen meditation garden numerous features can be introduced to give an Japanese feel to the garden. They must not be overdone, however, and should be in harmony and proportion with the size of the garden. Ornamental additions to the garden can be purchased and adapted for use or made from all kinds of easily obtained materials and various scrap odds and ends.

It is worth considering the features for the Japanese garden; Such features can be bought from a number of shops that specialize in such things, but some of the prices tend to be fairly high and would make a well-featured garden rather costly. Many of these ornamental features can be easily made with one of the good proprietary hard-setting modeling materials. For models of larger size, the plastic modeling paste can be applied to roughly shaped blocks of wood to avoid extravagant use of the more expensive material.

Articles on Ornamentation for the Japanese Garden:

• Structural Features for the Small Garden

• Ornamental Features for the Small Garden

• Furniture for the Small Garden

• Japanese and Dish Gardens

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Building Features

Except for dish types of gardens, building features should be used most cautiously. Perhaps one of the most suitable types for the stylized formal garden is that usually classified as a Greek temple; it is usually merely a dome based on a few pillars standing on a circular foundation and is whitish in color. It can be used to good effect in conjunction with water and trees (particularly of the classical conifer type), and its proportionate size rarely seems to become as out of place as other buildings might.

For less formal minigardens, a well-head, dovecote, summerhouse, arbor or chalet might be used, being made of wood, wire, modeling paste or any materials that might be adapted.
For naturalized rocky landscapes the ruins of a castle might be used to good effect.
Generally speaking, however, the fewer features added to the trough or outdoor types of minigarden the better. They should be used not for the sake of using them but because they provide a finishing touch that will considerably enhance the finished appearance.

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Statuary is particularly effective in the formal style mini-garden, but it should be very carefully selected to the mood, style and proportion of the garden, and must not be overdone.
Usually little statuettes can be bought and this is the most satisfactory solution unless the mini-gardener is also a good modeler. Sometimes it may seem desirable to finish off the little model to represent marble, stone, lead or bronze (either green or gold-brown) and this is normally best done with paints. Statuary is usually placed as a centerpiece to pool, court or terrace, or it may be placed in a niche or arbor (as in a background wall).
Sundials and Birdbaths can be constructed in similar ways to stonework, or if small, as for the Japanese pieces. Fittings (as for the sundial), or to represent wrought iron work, stands or brackets can be made with wire; metal panels with a fairly soft, easily handled metal such as zinc. In placing a sundial, do not forget that it should be placed in a position where, logically, it can function, i.e., in a sunny position. There is, in fact, no reason why a sundial could not be set in the minigarden in such a way that it really could function.
Ornamental vases and urns can be used in some particular styles of garden, but need even more careful selection and placing than other features. Sometimes they are used in conjunction with balustrades, sometimes to hold small trees or plants, sometimes just ornamentally, and sometimes in such a way that a continuous stream or trickle of water flows from one into a rill or pool. Such vases can be bought or made in modeling clay, but never forget proportionate size.

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Stonework. Paving stones, flags, stepping stones, steps, archways, moon gates, some types of bridges, plinths for statuettes, columns, balustrades, pools of all kinds, bases or “brick” piers for pergolas, walling, etc., can be made with cement or a proprietary modeling material.Alternatively they can be cut from odd pieces of wood and then surfaced with cement or similar material. The surface of this material can be modeled in the plastic state to any desired impression to represent stones or bricks (for walls or paving) or crazy paving. Pergolas for the formal style garden can be erected on the cement or “brick” piers already mentioned by completing with pieces of wood and cross-bars cut to size, and can be designed in a single or double line (e.g. for a background or to arch a path), or they can take a circular form to enclose a court or sunk garden.
Pergolas of less formal pattern can be made of pieces of wood cut and fitted to represent the rustic style. Simple arches and arbors for roses, etc., can be easily made from pieces of wire.

Making Features for the Mini-garden

Trelliswork, fencing, gates and gateways (usually used for backgrounds), can be represented with tiny pieces of wood cut and glued together and suitably painted. White shows up well in conjunction with very formal gardens and evergreen conifers.
Bridges in the occidental garden are usually made to neat, classical stone design with parapet or balustrade (made as under stonework) or of wood, either with boards, but frequently to the rustic pattern, and sometimes with a lantern raised in the center.
They can be made with small pieces of wood and twigs.

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In Japanese (and other styles of dish garden), more features can be incorporated than in the larger kinds.

Pagodas are usually of three- or five-tier design, but may be more. Buildings can vary a very great deal from tiny rest-houses, tea-houses, bower-houses, to living-houses with verandas or ornate temple buildings. A tea-house may be erected on low stilts in the water garden and be approached either by stepping stones or a small foot-bridge. A low, longish boathouse (or birdhouse) may be erected from the bank over the water on stilts, or a small landing-stage can run into the lake. Figures can easily be fashioned in all manner of poses, walking, sitting, bending, fishing, or poling a boat. Animals and birds can be modeled in a similar way, the larger, wading type of bird being the most suitable. All of these models are quite small and can be made with modeling paste, as carefully fashioned and marked as possible.
Finer details can be carved with a sharp knife or filed. Then the model can be painted with bright colors. In the case of birds and human figures or any model with a small standing point which could not normally stand by itself, a piece of wire is inserted into the model so that about one inch projects from the bottom and can be inserted into the soil.

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Propagate by Seed

Propagate by Cuttings

PROPAGATION

Propagation is the business of increasing the birth-rate of your plants. Some people find this work both interesting and profitable, and it certainly avoids the cost of buying new plants.

A new plant is “born” by taking a seed or a piece from a healthy parent plant and “nursing” it with special care and attention until it develops its own roots as a new and healthy young plant.   Most plants are fairly easy to propagate but there are a few which are somewhat difficult and require a little more attention in the “nursery” stage. The various stages are explained below.

Preparing the Seed Tray for New Plants

The seeding tray and compost will only be required for seeds or the rootless type of cuttings. Porous earthenware trays or pans are preferable to wooden trays; it is an advantage if they have a filter or drainage holes in the bottom. A good drainage layer of broken crocks is laid inside and then covered with a compost that is porous but which will also retain warmth and moisture. A specially prepared seeding compost can be bought or a suitable mixture can be made of one to two parts of good sterile soil, one part of horticultural peat (or good leaf mold) and one part of vermiculite (or silver sand), and adding one a purchased product for promoting root growths. This compost is thoroughly saturated, allowed to drain, and should be quite moist when the seeds or cuttings are inserted.

Seeds. After the seeds are planted, cover the tray with a clean piece of board, tile or slate and place it in a warm, shady place, keeping the soil moist, until the seeds have germinated. At the first sign of growth, replace the dark cover with a piece of glass and put the tray where the seedlings can get as much light as possible (under the shelter of the glass), but not in excessive sunshine.

Cuttings. Immediately the cuttings have been set in the seeding compost place them in a shady place for a day with the tray covered by a sheet of glass. After this, place the tray in a semi-shady position (and still under glass) and with good light, but avoiding excessive sunshine. Keep moist and warm. Trees may take several months to root. The first signs that they have taken will be the appearance of little buds or shoots on the cutting.

Potting New Plants

When the plants (seedlings or cuttings) have rooted they are ready for transplanting into potting compost, which can be in a tray or pan but is usually in pots. The pots are well crocked and then filled with a bought prepared potting compost or one that can be mixed with coarse silver sand, fine light loam and a good proportion of horticultural peat (or good leaf mold) in approximately equal parts.
Prick out the seedlings with great care to avoid injuring the tender plants or their delicate roots and transplant in the potting compost. Place pots in semi-shade for the first day or so after potting and then into a lighter position, at first under shelter and then gradually “hardening off” until they are ready for transplanting into the mini-garden.

Cuttings (of various types) are the easiest and most popular means of propagating trees and plants of all kinds. The particular part that is cut varies a little according to the plant but should almost invariably be a new growth, and needless to say, the parent growth should be a really healthy specimen.
The most suitable times in which to take cuttings are: willows, poplars, etc., in the spring; conifers, roses, etc., in late summer; flowering shrubs, alpines, and most rock plants immediately after flowering, usually in late summer or early autumn; succulents at any time, but mid-summer for preference.
In taking a cutting from a tree or shrub a newly grown shoot is cut from the stem of a parent tree so that the cutting includes the “heel” where the shoot bends to join the stem. Any little skin that is torn in removal is trimmed off before planting. To prepare the cutting for setting in the compost, all side shoots and little buds are nipped off the bottom end of the shoot for about one-third of the length. This will be about 11/2 inches.
Most of the alpine plants develop offsets which are like tiny plants attached to the parent and which have not yet grown roots of their own. An offset is separated from the parent plant and planted in the seeding compost. Plants that form little rosettes are an excellent example as each rosette can be considered as an embryo plant.
Succulents are readily propagated from cuttings taken from the body, stems, offsets or other parts, according to the class. The Crassulas, for instance, can be propagated from a leaf broken off the plant and set in the compost where it will develop roots. Any part of a sedum can be cut or broken off and will develop into an individual plant even if the piece is only dropped on the compost.
Cuttings from all of the succulents should be allowed to dry out at the cut before they are set in compost, but cuttings from all other plants should be set promptly.
Root cuttings. Just as any part broken from a sedum will develop into a plant, there are also several varieties (usually those having long, creeping tendrils), of which a piece of broken-off root will grow into a normal plant. Cuttings of this kind, when used, should be set in a more or less vertical position.

Layering

Layering is a variation of cutting in which the parent tree does the “nursing”. In the spring, a low-growing new shoot is bent to the ground (without separation from the parent) and the tip turned upwards so that a small U is formed. The shoot is then slightly cut on the bottom of the U.  A small recess is dug in the soil and the bottom of the U is inserted, pegged down and covered with soil which is then pressed down firmly. The tip of the shoot will then project above the soil like a tiny tree. The soil around it is kept moist and in the autumn it is completely severed from the parent tree and should be ready for transplanting wherever required.

Division or separation is really only a variation of cutting, but since roots are on the part of the plant that is separated, it does not normally require any “nursing” and can be transplanted into position after removal.
Division is applicable to most plants where the new growth develops roots at the same time. Most of the carpeting and compact growing plants are of this nature. The part of the plant is gently prised from the soil so that roots remain undamaged and the soil is gently shaken free. Then firmly separate the selected growth from the parent plant with the hands, aided with your small fork, and separating the roots at the same time. Do not forget to put the old plant back to “bed” and make good the soil where necessary.

Seeds are either bought or they are collected when ripe. In addition to seeds from plants, the seeds, pips, and stones of trees (such as apple, cherry, orange, plum, conifer, etc.) can be planted in seeding compost when they are ripe or in the following spring.
Soak them in water for about 24 hours before sowing to encourage germination. Sow seeds at a depth and at a distance apart according to their size and the nature of their growth, and not too closely. Large seeds such as acorns or chestnuts should be fairly deep and widely spaced; conifers and smaller seeds fairly shallow; small seeds very shallow; while the very tiniest, almost invisible seeds, can be sprinkled on the surface and gently dusted over.

• Tending to Your Garden
• Pests and Diseases in the Garden

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