s m a l l w e e d s

Hello! My name is Kailay, owner/designer of smallweeds.

By trade I'm a graphic designer but I much rather spend my time in the garden with dirt in my fingernails than parking my butt, for hours, in font of the computer.

I discovered gardening over 15 years ago. Without prior experience, I turned my previous little track home yard in San Gabriel, California (left) into a lovely informal garden (below) that won an award in the Makeover category in Country Gardens magazine. It was published in the Early Spring 2001 issue. I was thrilled and proud!

To get the ball rolling I hired “muscles” to remove my pathetic grass. My then boyfriend, now husband, helped me with tree planting. The talented man also made me a beautiful brick path in the backyard in addition to a simple but functional iron arbor for my Altissimo rose to climb on in the front garden. My most productive floribunda was Margaret Merril.

Weeks after weeks I spent every night after work and every weekend designing, planning, digging, sifting and planting. Lots of love, sweat and money went into my project. At the end I got rid of the typical track home yards and gained two gorgeous gardens! They were not only the homes of beautiful perennials but also my sanctuaries.

My beautiful gardens/sanctuaries helped me to sell my house quickly in 2003 but unfortunately, the new owner soon got rid of most of the plants and turned it back to the way it was...my creation is only a distant memory...

Creating new sanctuaries...in miniature

My interest in miniature gardens started more than seven years ago when I saw my very first at Filoli, (below) an European-style country estate in Woodside, California (60 miles south of San Francisco.) I was immediately in love with this “big miniature” (photo) which was one of two replicas of the life-size knot gardens near by. However, I didn’t try to make one till about five years ago.

Making a miniature landscape is easy, fun, soothing, therapeutic and...did I mention addictive too? It doesn’t matter if you have no gardening experience or you think you have 0 creativity. With plants and accessories, you’ll have success on your first try.

Do it. After one is done, I guarantee you’ll create another and another... Each one will be different. All your friends will be impressed and want one for themselves.

Have fun looking at my garden pictures and I hope you’ll be inspired to make one of your own. If you run out of accessories or just like to share your garden pictures with me, please feel free to drop me a message.

Happy gardening!