March 6, 2004
IT'S A SMALL
WORLD
PETITE PLANTS ENHANCE THE MINIATURE SETTING BARBARA BRAMAN CREATED AND WILL
DISPLAY AT THE
By
MARGE HOLS, Columnist
When
America's premier horticultural event, the gigantic Philadelphia Flower Show,
opens Sunday morning, a St. Paul gardener with a lifelong love of miniatures
will be among the newest exhibitors.
Barbara
Braman's exquisite miniature setting, titled
"Let's Visit the American Wing," features replicas of famous
early-American paintings and furniture garnished with unbelievably tiny green
plants.
"Collecting
miniatures seemed like a natural for us because it's an extension of what we
love," says Braman, who with husband Ed collects
early-American art. It also built on Braman's
childhood interest in miniatures.
"When
I was a child, a maiden lady in
"I
grew up at her knee, and miniatures were a big part of my life," Braman says. "Then, I went on to other things -- I
didn't even think about miniatures for 50 years -- and now I feel like I'm home
again."
Braman is one
of only eight miniaturists nationally chosen to exhibit at the flower show by
the sponsoring Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. One of the biggest
challenges she faced was a requirement to include at least six living, rooted
plants in her exhibit.
Finding
tiny plants tough enough to survive for 10 days in a hot little box wasn't
easy.
After
all the cuttings she had rooted from an evergreen bonsai, sweet woodruff and
baby's tears died, she turned for help to Steve Kelley, owner of Kelley &
Kelley Nursery in
Kelley
started diminutive cuttings of herbs -- thyme, santolina
and lemon-scented geranium. Braman added succulents:
bitsy sedum rosettes discovered at the Allen Haskell nursery in
"When
Barbara brought in little urns in which she had drilled holes, I thought, my
gosh, there's no room for soil. We can't possibly grow plants in those
urns," Kelley says. "But we didn't lose one. We trimmed back the
roots and tops and tamped the plants gently into a peaty soil. I grew them
under a bell jar and misted them with water twice a day."
Braman's museum
exhibit is built to standard scale for miniatures: 1 inch equals 1 foot. It's
housed in a wood
"Scale
is really important and cannot be compromised," says Braman.
She
entrusted the job of building the box to Tom Fletcher, owner of a
In her
museum wing, the focal point is a copy of one of Edward Hicks' "
Miniature
settings are supposed to encourage people to look around corners to see into
all the nooks and crannies, Braman says. So, only
parts of the five museum rooms are visible.
Braman
furnished the museum rooms from her collection but constructed other features.
She created a domed skylight from three inverted bowls, including a cut-glass
dish and 2 Pyrex bowls, painting one with clouds and blue sky. She made
patterned rugs from snippets of colored construction paper and greeting cards,
and she reduced a museum program to Lilliputian size at Kinko's. She fashioned
a circular fountain from an ashtray and planted it with lemon-scented thyme and
santolina.
Braman entered her
exhibit in the flower show as a member of the St. Paul Garden Club, a chapter
of the Garden Club of America. Fellow member Roddie
Turner of
Flower show
The
show runs Sunday through March 14 at the