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Making A Dish Garden
Making A Dish Garden
https://ugaurbanag.com/creating-your-dish-garden/
A dish garden is a collection of compatible plants growing and changing together over time in a small
container. Using basic principles of design, you can create, in miniature, the feeling of a sumptuous full
scale landscape. First select the location where the dish garden will grow; then select the plants suited to
your location.
Careful location and plant selection is the key to successful dish gardening. For example, if you expect
to grow your dish garden in the often dry and dark open atmosphere of the home or office, select plants
suited to this environment.
container
drainage materials
soil mix
plants and
decorations and trims.
Unlike a traditional flower pot, there is usually no hole in the bottom of a dish garden
container.Virtually any object that holds water and does not leak con contain a dish garden. Suitable
containers include metal, china, glass, pottery, and plastic-lined wooden bowls, boxes, and baskets, and
antique and reproduction items such as basin and pitcher sets.
Look at your surroundings. Cast-off and yard sale items often have interesting shapes and colors,
including dishware, old gardening tools, outgrown toys, and bricks and concrete blocks.
A visually active container demands simple plantings. A container with simple lines and subtle colors
permits the variety of exotic plants to catch the eye.
A rather wide and shallow vessel helps to create the illusion of a miniature landscape. Select a container
deep enough to provide room for the roots, soil, and necessary drainage materials. Usually 3 inches deep
is sufficient.
Drainage Materials
Loose materials, such as small rocks, pea gravel, marbles, and coarse sands, provide drainage for a
container with no holes.
Coarse charcoal layered just above the rocks prevents sour soil, s common problem in dish gardens.
Sourness results from too much water (H2O) and from a lack of air (Oxygen) between the soil particles.
Roots need air too!
Soil Mix
Most foliage and dish garden plants thrive in a soil mix made of
sterilized soil
coarse sand and
peat moss or leaf mold.
You may either sterilize the soil in your oven or buy a commercial sterile soil mix.
Remember: A container with no drainage hole in the bottom requires a well-drained soil mix and
careful watering.
Plants
Plant selection depends on each plant’s compatibility with the others and its adaptability to the site
conditions and the style of the container. Avoid mixing incompatible plants, such as cactus and coleus.
Plants thriving under different conditions will not prosper together in a dish garden.
See the table at the end of this brochure for types of dish gardens, their plant selection, and special
requirements.
Miniature figures and ground objects, such as bits of wood, rocks, stones, and crystals make appropriate
additions to a dish garden. Select shapes, colors, and sizes to create interest and contrast. Toe enhance
your dish garden for gift presentation, attach a small ribbon duplicating a color already present in the
container of the plants. As a rule, minimal decorations create the greatest charm and delight.
On the day before you plant your dish garden, thoroughly water all the plants you expect to transplant.
1. Line the bottom of the container with loose drainage material to prevent the soil and roots from
standing in water.
2. Add a thin layer of coarse charcoal to prevent sour soil.
3. Fill the container about 1/2 full of damp, but not wet soil mix.
Note: To test for proper soil moisture, squeeze a handful of soil. The moisture content is satisfactory if
no water oozes out but the soil retains its shape when released.
Note: Consider where you plan to display your dish garden. If it will be seen from all sides, check the
views all around it. If it will sit next to a wall, you need only consider the view from the front or at most,
three sides. If it will sit in front of a mirror, use this to your advantage. A dish garden viewed from table
level benefits from a different plant arrangement than one seen from eye level. Carefully move the
plants until you discover a pleasing composition.
Remember: Drainage does not exist in most dish gardens. Dish garden success depends on proper
watering.
Use this table to design and select plants for your dish garden.