• Choose plants that are in scale with one another and the landscape you’re trying to achieve.
• Make sure the plants have the same need for moisture and sunlight.
• Use a container with drainage holes in the bottom, or drill holes. Cover the holes with screening to keep soil in and insects out.
• Create a coarse planting mixture from a combination of aggregates and organic materials, using no more than two or three ingredients in total. Good aggregates are haydite, ground granite (poultry grit) or other crushed stone. Organic materials include pine bark, leaf mold and peat.
• Fill the container as full as possible, mounding toward the center or one side for a more natural look. Keep the soil level at the edges of the container even with its top.
• Don’t line the container with stones or other drainage materials.
• Top dress the miniature garden to hold the soil in place and improve appearance. Examples of top dressings are gravel, haydite, granite chips, coffee grounds and moss.
• Use permanent ink to write the plants’ names on labels, and store the labels below the soil level.
• Make accents from rock, wood and other natural materials.
• Fertilize with slow-release organic fertilizer — more for bog and woodland plants, less for alpine plants and those that grow in arid conditions.
• Prune plants to keep them in scale. When they get too big, replace them.
• In winter, cover the container with evergreen boughs topped with leaves, and shelter it from prevailing winds.
• Consider scattering mothballs on the surface of the soil to deter chipmunks.
