Working a tiny house into your miniature garden design can add another dimension to an already existing layout, wether your tiny living world is in a big planter or in-ground. Once the viewer sees the tiny house, the story immediately starts to evolve, curiosity takes over and the questions begin:

Whose house is that?

Is there anyone home?

What’s going on inside?

I wonder if I can I see inside?

Fairy houses and buildings are especially effective with young children, their ability to suspend realism is very endearing.
Another upside for play-ability, a miniature house is big enough not to get broken or lost in the garden bed. And, there are extra points if the door can open and close or if there are any moving parts. If it can light-up at night, well, that’s even better.

With a little help from Plow & Hearth today, [Author’s note, their houses have since been discontinued but you can find a good variety online] we have a few miniature fairy houses to play with to demonstrate my findings. It’s one thing to plop a house down in the middle of a garden bed, put some fairies around in and call it “a fairy garden.” But, with a couple/few things to look for in your own garden, you can probably “install” your fairy or miniature house to make it look a lot more realistic – read: enchanting.

It is interesting to note that the few rules that do apply to miniature gardening, also apply to using miniature houses too. We found that it is still the combination of plants, patio and accessories with the house, that come together to create that “Aaawwww!” moment that delights and enchants instantly. Let’s take a look at the photos to see what works and what doesn’t.

In the photograph above, we fit the house underneath the canopy of a Jacqueline Hillier Elm, top-left corner, next to small Shimpaku Juniper shrub to the left of the house, you see the tiny trunk. The tall column of the Sky Pencil Japanese Holly to the right of the house works as an anchor point and helps to put the building into perspective for us. The patio and furniture helps deliver the scale.

The bottom mini garden bed is filled with small-leafed Sedums and ground covers that was perfect to nestle-in the patio and accessories. I resisted the urge to clean-up the shot and left the fallen leaves and debris alone. Note that the simple things, like a log or a boulder, can add a sense of permanence to the miniature scene.

In this photo, we’ve used the same house in a different part of the garden. The fine-foliage of the beautiful Tansu Japanese Cedar canopy on the right helps to put the house in scale, the smaller Balsam Fir and ground cover Red Thyme on the left finish the simple scene. If we didn’t have the patio and chair to complete the idea, the house would look a bit lost. This patio is made from rolled marble pebbles and tumbled glass pieces and laid-in by hand with our Mini Patio Mix Kit.

When photographing the houses, we found more mystery by photographing the scene from behind a taller tree or full-sized plant. That is a Pixie Dwarf Spruce on the right and another Balsam Fir on the left. The big trunk behind the house is a full-size Alpine Fir. The patio was made from our stone sheets and locked-in with our Mini Patio Mix Kit.

It was very fun to walk around the garden and see where the houses looked best but, funnily enough, we had to go back to our main components to get the look that we wanted: the patio and realistic accessories. The patio and pathway worked to situate the house, to make it look like it belonged there, while the smaller plantings brought the scale down to match the house.

Now you can start to see how the smaller plantings around the house make it work. Now I want to live there! :o)

Just a little patio is all you need – pardon the pun – this one was made from marble pieces, an ivory stone sheet and our Mini Patio Mix. The Plow & Hearth Adirondack chairs are an invitation to come on in and sit down. The stumps are staked to hold in place in the garden soil. Again, the rocks add a sense of permanence. Find the current selection of miniature garden ground covers up the our online store here.

Sedum cuttings in the wee pots make the perfect miniature container plants.

Like this? Please pin, like, share it with your fellow fairy gardeners. You’ll be supporting a woman-owned micro business!

And, if you love gardening in miniature, you’ll love our Mini Garden Gazette newsletter. It’s free each week and our subscribers get the first dibs and discounts too. Join us here.