Top Five Blooming Plants in the Miniature Garden

What is a miniature garden without flowers? When I started my fairy garden education, I fell completely in love with the miniature accessories and the garden scenes I could create with them. However, I overlooked the miniature plants as a background, when I really should have seen how much personality and colorful punch they added to every miniature garden. It took some experience to teach me to start appreciating these flowering plants, groundcovers, shade plants, shrubs, and trees as part of my fairy gardens. When spring is coming around the corner, I am waiting for my bulbs to bloom, my trees to grow leaves, and the chance to pick out my next miniature plants to brighten up my spring gardens with bright colors and beautiful flowers. I see springtime as the perfect opportunity for rejuvenation and restoration. During spring, you start with a clean slate on all of your gardens, and this includes greenery.

A favorite plant of mine is the Floss Flower ( Ageratum houstonianum 'Blue Hawaii') an upright, bushy plant that has a vigorous growing rate. Encased with large, green leaves, the flowers are blue, big, and puffy. Consequently, this miniature plant has been compared to a blue hydrangea, so it is a good fit for those who love this shrub within their real-sized garden. The Floss Flower looks excellent sitting next to a bright yellow, fairy house with red shutters. These primary colors match well. Growing to a height of about six-inches, the Floss Flower resembles a bush framing a corner of a fairy home.

When I think of a happy flower, I think of Miniature Daisy (Bellium minutum) a flower that rests on a dense, mounding mat of foliage. This daisy is distinctive, because it has many, little, white flowers with sunny yellow centers that mimic a full-size daisy. This plant is a great choice for the fairy garden, because if watered regularly it blooms all summer long. The Miniature Daisy is also a popular plant, because it is not picky about the soil. In addition, I am always a pushover for a flower that bees love, because without bees we would not have any beautiful flowers.

If you like adding pink into your garden wherever it will fit, then try planting Heron’s Bill (Erodium x variabile 'Flore Pleno'.) The blooms I would consider double pink, because each flower has light pink petals with lines of brighter pink painted onto the floret. They are bright, beautiful, and an easy flower to show off. Heron’s Bill is considered rare, because it produces flowers the entire season. It will hold up well in the winter if you rest them in a warm sun room. I know I love seeing flowers all year long, as I live in the dreary Midwest, but not all durable plants are created equal.

Sometimes it is fun to add a green succulent or foliage with a few bright flowers popping out. I select Purslane (Portulaca ‘Toucan Tango’), because it is a flowering plant that thrives in heat and direct sunlight. These blossoming plants are also considered easy, quick, and carefree. However, you want to keep an eye on the new growth, because it may need to be sheared if added to a smaller fairy garden.

A plant I consider to have a lot of personality would have to be Lavender Cotton ( Santolina virens 'Lemon Fizz’). These flowers look as though they are reaching toward the sun with their yellow, fragrant foliage. This compact greenery is perfect for edging pathways and framing in spaces in your garden.

I would consider these five plants my favorite of the flowering variety. If you are looking for a new foliage plant that you have never used before, you will have good luck with all of the options on my list. I have selected them after some careful thought and consideration. I recommended miniature plants that would be easy to care for, beautiful, and fun to use when you are planning your fairy gardens.