Miniature Succulent Gardens require 5 basic ingredients:

1) An interesting, and appropriately diminutive container.

2) A varied collection of small succulents

3) An interesting collection of rocks and pebbles

4) Light soil with some sand in it, suitable for cacti and palms

5) Carefull composition

Containers:

a) The containers can be ceramic or wood, stone, concrete, glass or metal.

b) They need to be between 2.5 and 5 inches deep

c) More or less anything will do so long as it is water tight and wont rot or rust too badly.

d) The size will vary depending on where you want to put it - but in general they should be between 10 and 18" long by between 6 and 18" wide

e) The visual aesthetic can vary with your taste and application. For example I like rustic wood or stone containers for outdoor miniature gardens, or ceramic or more elegant wood containers for coffee table or bathroom counter displays.

f) Ideally your containers should have holes in the bottom for drainage, although succulents don't need a lot of water, so you can do without the holes if you water very carefully. Outdoor miniature gardens will of course need holes to allow rain water to drain away.

g) Depending on the material you can add the holes yourself wtih an electric drill. A half a centermeter diameter is about right.

h) If the miniature garden is for indoor display and the container has holes you might optionally want to add a piece of landscape cloth over the holes on the inside of the container to stop the sandy soil from falling out. Of course you will probably also need to keep your garden in a tray so that the excess water doesn't seep out onto your furniture.

Succulents:

Succulents are fabulous little plants. A form of spineless cacti they are suited to dry sunny environments and are native to Northern California amoung other places.

They come in a truly amazing variety of shapes and colors and textures.

They often start very small (often selling in 2.5 inch or 4" pots) but they can grow into quite large clusters (several feet accross).

They are highly collectable because there is so much variety and some are very unusual. It is my experience that people who get hooked on collecting succulent varietals generally get quite passionate about them.

Fairly easy to propagate, they generally grow from a small cutting.

When selecting succulents for the garden, look for variety of color and texture, shape and contrasts.

You will need between 6 and 10 small succulents for an 18" x 12" miniature succulent garden

Rocks & Pebbles:

I would suggest that your miniature garden have one tall rock (5" - 10" tall x 4" - 7" wide ) placed on end as a miniature menhir. ("an upright monumental stone standing either alone or with others in an alignment. eg stone henge."). And a second smaller menhir beside it - about a third to a quarter its size.

A variety of flat pebbles, of the sort that make good skipping rocks. Place these in a continguous curve or line, as if they were a miniature pathway through the garden.

Look for rocks and pebbles that have unusual colors and those that have distinct patterns or textures.

Ideally they will provide your succulents with contrasting tone and color.

Suitable Soil:

Succulents need soil with good drainage. We have found that most potting soil designed for cacti or palms is still a little too heavy and the succulents prefer if you add a little sand to these soils before using them in your miniature garden.

Composition:

Once you have made your holes in the bottom of the container (if you are going to do so), and put a piece of landscape cloth over the holes (if necessary), then put enough soil into the container to come up to three quarters of an inch or so from the rim of the container.

The Menhir

Start by placing your large rock or menhir: You can either place the rock an inch or two from the edge of the container and two thirds of the way towards one or the other end; or you can place it two thirds of the way from both sides.

If the rock has a more interesting side, face that side in the direction that it will be most viewed.

Then place the second smaller menhir slightly off to one side off it.

Then start putting in the succulents:

Against the menhir put a tall succulent. Something that looks like a little tree. Ideally it should be a contrasting color to the color of the rock itself.

Find a succulent that has a low profile and could be draped over the edge of the container.  Place 1 - 3 of these at the edges to break the line of the container's rim.

The pathway pebbles:

Create your path of pebbles in a long sweeping shape. You can make one end of the path (the end closer to the edge of the container) wider than the other end. Do this by using slightly larger pebbles here, gradually decreasing in size away from the edge, or by clustering smaller flat pebbles together.

Now select 3 or 4 interesting and varied succulents. Choose colors and tones that contrast with the pebbles.

Now place each one so that it overhangs the pebbles somewhat.

Don't try to put too many pebbles or plants in, you have to leave space for the succulents to grow.

Growing in:

In time the garden will 'grow in'. The plants will get bigger, the blank space of visible dirt will decrease, the edges will soften and a more organic feeling will develop. With luck you may get some natural moss growing on your rocks and over open areas of soil. Eventually you may have to take out the larger over grown succulents, split them out and make new miniature gardens with the excess plant material.

Table decorations without non native flowers.

After chatting with my friends over at the Pacific Open Space nursery - we concluded that the most creative, environmentally friendly and elegant solution to create miniature gardens of native succulents for each table.

Luckily miniature gardens and succulents are two particular specialties of my wonderful mother, so she has taken up the challenge and will share her creative insights and strategies on the subject in an upcoming post.

The challenge:

My own wedding is scheduled for May 23rd in a state park in northern california.

The challenge is that the park permits NO non native FLOWERS - no peonies, no roses, no tulips, no cherry blossom.

Not even for a bridal bouquet. They also do not permit the throwing of rice, petals, paper, seeds or anything else. There may be no helium baloons and no amplified sound.

After a brief moment of panic I decided that i am a resourceful creative woman.. i live by the addage 'necessity is the mother of invention', so i will not just cope with this i will make it an opportunity to do something really wonderful and unusual.

Over the next few months i will share with you the problems and solutions to these challenges.