Hedge Clippings...

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Hedge Clippings... (a Gardening page by Douglas Hedge)

Hello and welcome to the online magazine of AIM. My name is Douglas Hedge and Silvia Lane of Malcolm’s Miniatures created me.  

The idea behind the gardening page of the magazine is to answer questions and bring you articles about different aspects of Miniature Gardening. You do not need to have a garden attached to your dolls house, as there are many other ways to incorporate plants, produce and flowers into your miniature home. 

Whether you have or want indoor plants, a small garden, window boxes or a full-scale kitchen garden we will endeavour to bring you something you can place in or outside your miniature home. 

Ideas will also cover miniature fruit and vegetables for the kitchen and flowers for the house, plus seasonal decorations.

Douglas Hedge

Cottage gardens and the dolls house…

Unfortunately like many other traditions in England the cottage garden, as we know it today, is mainly an invention of romantic Victorians.

Cottage gardens originally grew up as a result of the Black Death in the mid 14th century, so many people died there was more available land than workers. Some of the workers who survived started to cultivate small areas of foodstuffs near to their homes in order to feed their families. Later flowers and herbs crept into these gardens, but every available space was used. Usually the only part not planted was the path leading to the house.

This may seem a haphazard way of planting when first examined, but many plants act as protection to others and Lavender is often planted next to Roses to keep greenfly and blackfly away. Both of these plants had medicinal properties and could be used in a variety of other ways. Other plants would be grown for making pot-pourri, moth protection, food, flavouring foods, medicinal uses, etc. All plants had to be hardy in the British weather though as cottage dwellers did not have access to greenhouses and did not often have the time to spend raising plants that could not grow readily from seed sown into open ground.  

The grand Victorian houses on the other hand had huge areas of brightly coloured flowers (often using a colour scheme) in beds in amongst lawns, most of these flowers and plants were raised in greenhouses and tended by a small army of gardeners throughout their lives. 

Most plants found in cottage gardens originally were native to the UK and all had a function. Today we visualise a colourful and haphazard style of planting when thinking of cottage gardens, this is mostly a Victorian invention as early cottage gardens were often more formally planted with beds of herbs and vegetables, one thing all agree on is that lawns are never found in these gardens (possibly because people kept animals on common lands, and until recent times there was no such thing as a mechanical lawn mower, up until this time sheep and cows were used or a scythe). 

Many cottage gardens also included a bee skep (an early beehive made of straw that could be placed in a niche in the walls to encourage bees into the garden but mainly to provide honey for the family.) Many skeps were open to the elements, but covered with old upturned crocks to protect the straw, a slight rise in the lower edge gave entry for the bees. Bees were transferred to the new skep in spring by inverting the old skep and covering it with the new one, the bees would fly up into the new skep and the honeycomb would be collected from the old one. 

Lavender grown in the garden would be collected in summer and made into lavender bottles or lavender sachets to protect clothes and bedding from moth attacks. Dried herbs would also be used to deter flies and other pests from the house. 

Today cottage gardens are well manicured and take hours of work to make them look haphazard and randomly planted. However the simple addition of a climbing rose up the side of a dolls house, trailing over a porch or some greenery and flowers in a window box can often create the image of a cottage garden, without having to spend a lot of money on plants for the dolls house. 
 

Potpourri recipes can be found on the following sites NOTE:  remember if placing them in a dolls house the mixture needs to be really fine, some flowers may need to be cut into tiny pieces

http://www.make-stuff.com/gardening/potpourri.html  

http://www.essortment.com/all/potpourrirecipe_rheu.htm 

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/stillroom.html

http://www.potpourrishop.co.uk/potpourri_advice.html

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