Miniature walls for sunk or terraced gardens can be made with
cement suitably surfaced before it has set.
Water can be introduced in many ways: pools, which can be
set clean to the water, or be plant-fringed, or raised above the
surrounding court. A background pool with cascade down
terraces; broad steps, "stone" balustrade with a dwarf conifer
on each side.
Gardens can also specialize in one family of plants, such as a
Rose Garden, which should be very popular. This could include
a pergola or other forms of arches. Roses usually harmonize very
well with the dark greens of the conifers.
A semi-floral garden might be planned to have a formal
feature (such as a sunk garden) ringed around by a garden in the
more natural style. Tiny walls can be made with cement to
make little raised beds or long, narrow channels in which plants
can be grown and easily controlled. Many kinds of ornamental
features can be introduced, some of which are suggested in
Chapter XIV.
NOVELTY DESIGNS
In all the garden designs so far discussed, the emphasis has
been on the importance of keeping correct proportions and in
modelling as a reproduction of the real thing. Sometimes, however, comes the mood to upset the apple-cart of convention, to
be amusing, gay and frivolous; to tell of fairies and leprechauns
and giants and whimsical little animals and birds; to try to
capture the charming gaiety of Walt Disney and set it into the
small confines of a miniature garden.
Novelty gardens in miniature are the answer. They cover
everything outside the range of the more realistic. There are no
rules, no conventions, and there is all the freedom natural to the
teller of tales. These novelty gardens are not, perhaps, miniature
gardens in the real sense, but they are great fun and bring a
bright gaiety to the places where they are found.
Irene Hyde used to make series of these novelty gardens
especially for use in fashionable public places where they were a
source of constant delight. An example of this phase of her
work is shown on Plate VII. These novelty gardens, although
constructed on the same principle as ordinary minigardens, were
made up in an astonishingly short space of time, usually in
bulb bowls, and were intended to have only a fairly short
life. This latter point is very important, because the charm of
a novelty is mostly because it is a novelty. Whereas a well-
planned orthodox minigarden is a constant source of change and
interest, the novelty garden is usually dominated by a major
feature which has a much more limited period of interest.
In the gardens shown, the plants used include miniature bulbous
types and the quicker growing varieties of plants, and this is
suggested at least as one way in which to utilize the overgrowths
of the ordinary miniature garden.
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