I created this miniature garden of the mountain islands of Thailand using Kingsville Boxwood bonsai trees, accent plants and vines hanging from stone cliffs overlooking the sea of white pebbles set in a ceramic tray pot. It's spring now, so everything is growing like wild fire and I will be trimming everything back and styling it once again once this current growth rush is over. This is one of several miniature gardens I created and keep in my San Francisco bay area backyard greenhouse. The seven main trees are styled Kingsville Boxwoods 4-7 years old planted with assorted accent plants including Thyme, Corsican Mint, miniature ferns, and assorted tiny leaf vines hanging over the cliffs covered in moss to give the appearance of lush grass. The trees were wired with coiled copper wire and carefully bent into interesting shapes so the trunks show movement and hang over the cliffs. It's hard to see in the photos but all the islands are quite large at the top and tin at the bottom which look very similar to the islands of along the coast Thailand. I'll share more pictures soon of other scenes I've also created.

I welcome any ideas, comments or suggestions by other gardeners. I really enjoy this sight after recently stumbling across it on the web.

Wow those are impressive and beautiful.

Do you have to mist them daily to keep the moss and such so green and lush ?
What type of rock did you use for the base?

And
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Hope you find this a pleasant place to share gardening

Wow! Wowee! Gorgeous! Please, yes, we'd love to see more of your creations, nersveen!

gardengus said: Wow those are impressive and beautiful.

Do you have to mist them daily to keep the moss and such so green and lush ?
What type of rock did you use for the base?

And
to ATP
Hope you find this a pleasant place to share gardening

Yes. I keep this garden in my greenhouse where it gets misted with water 4x day in the summer. Unfortunately I inadvertently brought in some long moss which took over in my greenhouse. I'm hoping to find a cache of velvety sheet moss somewhere and rid myself of this long stuff which need constant trimming and doesn't look as beautiful in my opinion.

The rocks - I just bought a medium sized standard post office box of top heavy rocks from Washington state and I cemented them into the pot to look like those top heavy inverted mountain cliffs along the coast of Thailand. If I remember correctly they were blue granite. The large island rock is two rocks epoxied together and covered over with moss. After winning the rock auction on eBay I requested top heavy rocks that could stand up, and the buyer came through. Postman wasn't happy to haul around a 40b $9 flat rate box of heavy rocks. Rocks and shipping came to $26.

That's really unusual what you have created. I like the trees growing on the "cliffs".

So I worked on this miniature garden a bit. I simplified it by removing 1 whole island which really opened up these in the foreground. Let me know what you think compared to the pics above with all 5 islands. I kept it so I can put it back into the scene if you think it looks better. I also trimmed all the accent plants and moss then pruned each of the boxwood trees. I think it has a much more open feeling to it this way.

I welcome questions comments or ideas.

Many Zen Gardening Moments to all.

Joe, I liked it a lot more with all 5 islands. To me it had more mystique, but at the same time seemed peaceful and soothing.

Amazing!

Rainbow said:Joe, I liked it a lot more with all 5 islands. To me it had more mystique, but at the same time seemed peaceful and soothing.

I feel the same as KD in regards to aesthetics but in terms of care and maintenance I think removing the island gives the other islands' growth more room to go its own way instead of making you feel that you have to prune/cut back so frequently to avoid the entire mini-scape looking too dark as a result of being overgrown.