Outdoor Project
Project Time: 1 Hour

This style of container garden, known as trough gardening or English trough gardening, began in the mid-1800s. It was popular at the time to collect specimen plants from around the world. This miniature garden planted with slow growing, low maintenance, dwarf evergreen plants will provide color, texture, and interest to your garden year-round

Step 1: Choose your favorite plants. Miniature conifers or evergreens work best because they grow slow - some growing as slow as an inch a year. They will be happy in a container for years to come. Mixing groundcovers and small succulent plants in with the evergreens is fun to do also.
Step 2: Choose your container. You can create a mini evergreen garden in any container you choose - but shallower containers work best.
Step 3: Place a coffee filter over the hole at the bottom of the pot to keep the new soil in place.
Step 4: Add potting soil in the container 2/3 of the way full.
Step 5: Place your plants in the container, and fill in with soil around them.
Step 6: To create more of a miniature landscape look you can layer pebbles, small rocks or moss on top of the soil.

Step 7: Water your container garden thoroughly. Place in an area with morning sun and afternoon shade.