What a dish! Mini plantscapes

BEAT THE WINTER BLUES WITH CREATIVE INDOOR GARDENING

Repurpose your old mugs, jugs and bowls

Don’t curb your gardening enthusiasm just because it’s cold out. Make one of these delightful dish gardens instead. By using big saucers or wide, shallow bowls, you can create miniature landscapes that will keep you fascinated all winter long.

1 ORIENTAL RISING

The Chinese banyan (Ficus microcarpa) is a great place to start if you want to explore the ancient Japanese art of bonsai. Plant it in quality po ing mix and cover mix with lovely, ferny spikemoss (Selaginella sp) to imitate grass, then place it where it gets morning light. Prune the fig a couple of times a year to emphasise its branch structure. Mosses love moisture, so mist regularly – this will also keep the atmosphere humid and make the fig feel at home.

2 GET IT TOGETHER

Clean out your cupboards and repurpose unloved mugs, jugs and small bowls to throw a party for tropical plants, such as seedlings of an umbrella plant, elephant ears, a prayer plant and a polka dot plant. Keeping them close together will create greater humidity and help them thrive so that come late spring or summer, you can plant them outdoors. Plant in quality po ing mix, give them warm but not hot light, and gently water the mix weekly.

Tradescantia needs a regular trim. It can become an environmental weed, so put cuts in a black plastic bag before placing in your regular rubbish.

3 FOREST FLAIR

Recreate the grandeur of a rainforest in magnificent miniature with false aralia posing as tall trees with an understorey of red-leafed rex begonia, striped zebra plant and purple tradescantia. Don’t forget shiny, dark pebbles for the glam version of a dark forest floor.

4 FLORAL FOLIAGE

Place this collection of succulents low, such as underneath a glass-topped table, so you can look down and appreciate their beautiful symmetry. Sit your li le striped agave, family of sempervivums, mother-of-pearl plant, red bromeliad, crown of thorns euphorbia and echeveria in succulent mix, cover mix with red scoria and add a rock. The wooden planter is fine because these plants don’t need a lot of water.

PUT THE SAUCER OF THAT BROKEN GLAZED POT TO USE AS YOUR DISH PLANTER.