q is for quandie

Good morning from the garden!

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know all about my fairy garden.  However, just in case some of you are new here, I’ve had a fairy garden of some kind for many years.

I love gardening in miniature!

I use a mix of shrubs, perennials and annuals in my fairy garden which is planted in an old wheelbarrow with plenty of rusty holes for drainage.

Typically I add several inches of chopped up leaves and then a burlap cover for winter (we have pretty harsh winters here in Minnesota), but this past winter I never did get around to the cover (although I did add the leaves).  Unfortunately, I ended up losing everything that was planted in there as a result.

On the bright side, last fall I removed the miniature hostas and planted them in a somewhat protected area in the ground to overwinter and that worked out perfectly.  I also potted up the Myrtle topiary and kept it as a houseplant over the winter.

Also on the bright side, losing almost everything meant a chance to start over with a clean slate!

I started with mail ordering a bunch of miniature plants from TwoGreenThumbs.com.  They shipped my plants out quickly, and they were in really good shape when they arrived.  I will say that a few of them were a bit root-bound in their pots, but that’s an easy fix.  Just rough up the roots a bit before planting.

In addition to the plants that are specifically meant for miniature gardens, I also picked up a few ground cover type plants that always work well in miniature;  mecardonia (the plant with the yellow flower above), a creeping thyme, and a small leaf wire vine.  You can usually find those at any nursery or garden center.

Another good option is alyssum, which is sold everywhere.  I didn’t get any this year, but I’ve used it in the past.  It’s the purple flower shown below.

I began with placing the larger items including my fairy house and the myrtle standard that I saved over the winter.  It works perfectly as a ‘tree’.

I’ll probably prune it a little for size after it recovers from any transplant shock.

I added a Jean’s Dilly dwarf spruce under the myrtle, as well as one of the Pandora’s Box hostas that I saved from last year.

As for that little plant with the white flowers that is next to the hosta …

well, I have no idea what that is.  I bought it at Bachman’s, but it wasn’t labeled.  It sure is cute though.  Do any of you know what it might be?

Over on the other side of the house I planted two shrubs, a variegated English boxwood and a Gemstone Hinoki cypress.

I ‘divided’ my Frosted Mouse Ears hostas and put two of them in front of the shrubs.

I planted another chunk of the Pandora’s Box next to the arbor.

I planted the wire vine on the other side of the arbor and I will train it to grow up and over.

It will eventually try to take over the entire fairy garden, so I’ll have to clip it back quite often later in the summer.

I purchased a couple of Dwarf Mondo Grass plants from Two Green Thumbs, and I was able to divide them right out of the pot before planting.

I’ve never grown these before, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they do.

Around the back of the fairy house I planted a couple of the creeping thyme plants and several of my Feather Boa hostas.

I have a patch of the Feather Boa hostas in the ground near the potting shed, so I just take a chunk out of it for the fairy garden.

Today’s q tip on growing miniature hostas;  hostas are classified by their mature height into five categories, miniature, small, medium, large and giant.  The hostas in my fairy garden are all in the miniature category.  If you keep the miniature hostas confined in a small planter or pot, they will stay quite small.  If you put them in the ground, they will grow quite a bit larger and spread more.  Here is my patch of Feather Boa hostas in the ground.  Behind them on the left is another miniature hosta that originally came from my fairy garden, but I don’t remember the name of that one.

In addition to being perfect for a fairy garden, these miniature hostas make a fantastic front border for a shady garden.

Unfortunately, I do not have a good mail order source for miniature hostas.  Two Green Thumbs doesn’t carry any.  It looks like there are quite a few options for mail ordering them online, but having never ordered from any of them I can’t make a recommendation.

However, for my local readers, this past Friday I once again stopped in at Dragonfly Gardens in Amery, Wisconsin and they had a couple of miniature hostas available.  I purchased the Funny Mouse.  After I looked their supply over I found a pot that looked full enough that I could divide the hosta before planting it.  I ended up with three plants.  I planted one in my neighbor’s mom’s fairy garden, and two in my own.

I also found that Dragonfly had miniature trees!  I was able to pick up another Primo Arborvitae for $20 (the tall, skinny evergreen on the right in the photo below).

I had added one of these last year as well, but lost it over the winter.  I’ll try harder to save it this year.

I just can’t tell you how much I enjoy gardening in miniature.

If you don’t have space for a full sized garden, or you just don’t want to work that hard, a miniature garden is the way to go.  All you need is a container of some kind and a bit of imagination.

Have you got a miniature garden?  Or have I inspired you to consider adding one?

Before I let you go today I wanted to update you on my experiment with ordering ‘plugs’ online.  I ordered three apricot snapdragon plants from Holland Bulb Farms in Milwaukee.  It took them two weeks to get them shipped out, and that was only after I finally inquired about the status of my order.  When they did arrive, they looked like this …

They were bone dry and two were completely shriveled, with the 3rd one well on its way.  I have to wonder how long they were sitting in their packaging before being shipped out.

Shockingly enough, I paid $25 for these three snapdragon plants.  The plants were $15, with an additional $10 in shipping and tax added.  Somehow at that price point I expected a much higher quality plant.

I reached out to Holland Bulb Farms to let them know that the plants arrived in very poor condition and that I doubt they will survive being put in the ground.  Their response was that the plants still look green (I sent the pic shown above) and I should give them two weeks “with proper care” and they should bounce back.

So I’ve put them in the ground and they are starting to look a little bit better, but definitely are not thriving.  I think it will be a miracle if I get any flowers on them by July.

Well, I guess I’ll let this be a lesson to me, and possibly to you too.  Ordering annuals like this is probably not something that’s worth doing for me.  How about you?  Have you ever ordered plants this way, and did you have any luck?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Good morning from the garden!

Late May and early June is when my now-sunny border really puts on a show.

If you’ve followed me for long, you’ll remember that my next door neighbor took down a huge tree back in 2024.  As a result, I now have a lot more sun in the backyard.

At the time I was quite bummed out about it, and I do still feel like our backyard is much more exposed.

But looking on the bright side (pardon the pun), the irises are really thriving now.

The purple irises above were originally a garage sale purchase.  Last year (or maybe the year before?),  I also purchased another purple and white iris at a garage sale that is just starting to bloom.

I’ve had the yellow irises forever.  In fact, at this point I’m not even sure if I originally planted them or if they were already here when we bought our house back in 1988.  I don’t really remember.

I’ve moved them around a few times over the years and now have them in a couple of different spots.

They work great in the garden next to the carriage house.

I always have to remind myself not to use pink in that particular garden bed, it really clashes with the red siding, but the yellow seems to work.

I planted some Mount Everest allium here two years ago, and they just opened up this week.

If you have a garden and you haven’t discovered alliums yet, you should definitely get some.  I shared a blog post all about them back in 2022, so check that out for more detail.

My Purple Sensation allium are on their way out right now, but you saw them in my garden post last week …

I’ve got some Globemaster allium that aren’t quite open yet too.

If you add a few different varieties of allium you can really stretch out their bloom times.

Some of my peonies are starting to open, mainly just this single version so far …

The peonies behind the carriage house in my cutting garden are still just loaded with buds.  So we still have those to look forward to.

Before I let you go this morning, I want to share another amazing plant that I think is underrated. Geranium macrorrhizum, or Bigroot Geranium.

This is a a rhizomatous semi-evergreen perennial, so in plain English, it’s a plant that spreads by rhizomes that sit just on the surface of the soil, it can stay fairly green all winter under the snow (well, maybe not quite green, but let’s just say alive), and it comes back every year.

It is almost indestructible.

I encouraged it to grow on the west side of our house on a small slope that has black plastic with rock over it (installed by the previous home owner).

Let me elaborate a little on what I meant by “I encouraged it to grow”.  Basically I pulled some chunks of it out of another area, cut a small slit in the black plastic and tucked it in there.

And it has taken off and filled in the entire space.  It looks so much nicer than the rocks ever did.

This is its first, and always best, flush of blooms for the year.  However, it will continue to bloom all summer long, just not as robustly.

If you happen to be battling creeping bellflower, a.k.a. the worst weed ever, Bigroot Geranium will create a dense, weed-suppressing mat that can help keep it in check.  Another plus, it is deer and rabbit resistant.  It will also grow in anything from full sun to dry shade.  Best of all, it is nearly maintenance free.  You do not have to dead head (although you can if you want to encourage another flush of blooms), cut it back, remove dead foliage or really anything.  I literally do nothing for that patch alongside the house, I don’t even water it.

As for cons, I will say that it wilts quite a bit under a hot afternoon sun which looks a little unsightly, however it does bounce back by evening.  It also can really take over an area, even one that is mainly rocks on top of plastic, as you can see above.  That being said, very little effort is required to keep it in check by yanking it out.

If you are local, you have the chance to see my gardens in person by coming to my upcoming occasional sale.

Feel free to wander around and check them out while you are here.

I’ll post my address later this week, so be sure to stay tuned.

In the meantime, have you tried Bigroot Geranium in your garden?  How about alliums?  Or maybe you have irises that are in full bloom right now.  Leave a comment and let me know!