Besides making this miniature garden, I take care of a real-life one, a total of one acre. I was out today putting homemade compost on my plants and future pumpkin patch when I started paying attention to all the little weeds in my lawn and along pathways. These are the pests that, normally, I would pull out. But working in miniatures gives you a different eye for everything. So I pulled some of them to see if they will work as miniature plants.
The first step is identification. When I am trying to rid my yard of these things, I don’t want to know who they are, I just want them gone. I hand pull most of my weeds and have seen all these before since most of them are impossible to get rid of. But on closer look, they are kinda cute.
I believe this one is Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress) and it is everywhere(below), lasting well into the frosty times. I planted a few of the tiny ones but since they grow so fast they my flower before the show and then die.
Next is the biggest mistake I have ever made in a garden (below). I planted one tiny plant of this Glechoma hederacea (creeping Charlie or ground ivy) on a slope that had bad soil. It left the slope and invaded a nearby lawn.
I truly hate this thing (below) but if you look at it closely, the tiny leaves on the newest sprouts could work for a miniature setting. And since it is very hard to kill, that is a good thing!
This is Melissa officinalis (Lemon Balm) (below) which I have growing in an herb garden I am trying to establish. It obviously sent out many seeds at the end of the summer becaue these tiny seedlings sprouted this fall.
Finally, I don’t know what this is (below) but it has the nicest little leaves. When I have a bit more time I will search some more weed identification sites to name it. All these plants are now growing in a tray in my greenhouse, isolated from my other miniature plants. They are, after all, still the bad guys!
Anthropology of the World's Fairs 