Dish Gardens—Less is Better

By Dawna DiOrio

 I remember a past member of All Seasons saying that once you enter a plant or dish garden, container, etc. in the Spring Show at Tower Hill, you’re hooked.  Well, of course, she was right! My first entry of a dish garden was well received, but I was given a few “pointers” on my entry card. I did not enter a dish garden last year, for heaven knows what reason, other than I cannot get my act together even with 12 months’ notice. But this year, I did enter one.

 I started by looking for an appropriate dish. I checked the thrift stores in my area, to no avail, and finally purchased one at a local nursery. Step one down, judges’ advice taken as to the container (my first one was too high). My vision was of a white picket fence, but after checking with both of the major craft stores, neither was carrying, what I thought would be, quite an easy item to find. With fairy gardens popping up everywhere, I figured it would be relatively simple. Not so! My close friend of over 30 years has a wonderful fairy garden and her husband makes furniture for it so I prevailed upon him to make me my nice little white picket fence. He did a wonderful job and even curved it a bit to fit the contour of the dish.

 Next was purchasing the plants. I needed height in my garden - my first one two years prior had plants that were all pretty much the same height. This time, I bought several of differing heights and a day or two later put together my dish garden. To those of you who might remember a prior article I had written, the scourge of my African violets is an adorable, inquisitive and roaming cat named Bella. Well, of course, I couldn’t let her have access to the garden so after putting most of it together, I put a cloche over it which seemed to discourage her investigation of a possible lunch. I opened it every few days to discourage excess humidity but I eventually lost a couple of the plants despite my attempts.

 Back to the nursery for two more. The garden was looking pretty good at this point but I was not that impressed by it and just told myself it was my best effort. Well, those two new plants dried out - the opposite problem, possibly because I was opening the cloche every other day and life was interfering with my oversight of the garden. Back to the nursery again - I’m surprised they didn’t know me on a first name basis by this point. I bought several different plants, put the dish garden together, and unlike my first attempt two years previous, remembered another helpful hint - not too many nic nac items. Being an animal lover, I had put in several miniature animal figurines. This time I put in just one little bunny, some fine gravel stones and the white picket fence. Less is better. I actually stood back and said “I like this one!”

 Well, I should hope so at that point, it was starting to cost a small fortune!  End result was that I got a blue ribbon, which I was hoping for, but ALSO, which I never imagined on my second dish garden entry - a rosette!  Sad to say, two days later, my dish garden became an empty dirt pit in one or two spots - Bella, of course, found it. I put it back together, but it never did look quite right. But as I said at the start of this article, I’m hooked. I’ve already got a picture in my mind of the garden I want to put together for 2020!