You don't need a green thumb, or even a yard, to cultivate a charming garden complete with potted plants, rustic wooden benches, cement statuary and even a quaint watering can or two.

Everything for the garden short of a garden hose is now transplantable to the indoors. Garden-minded interiors make use of items traditionally found in nurseries, from weathered-looking wheelbarrows to birdbaths.

There are gardening tools, especially rusty-looking antique ones, designed for displaying on a bookshelf instead of digging up the earth. There are decorative watering cans that don't water the plants--they sit on a coffee table looking pretty. Most of all, there are lots of pots filled with flowers, herbs and plants that thrive out of the sun. Where real plants won't survive, silk ones are used.

Family rooms and dens have been transformed into secret gardens, where one can retreat from the pressures of the modern world.

"Life is so stressful, even with all of our modern conveniences. Gardening is always relaxing, even if you don't have a garden," says Eric Cortina, buyer for Roger's Gardens in Corona del Mar. "To sit in a chair and look at your potted plants is relaxing."

Interior designers have been creating garden looks in homes for several years, says Jill Scheetz, an interior designer in Laguna Hills. "Once people became more aware of the environment, it started the trend," she says. "Now it's available to the masses."

Since gift shops, nursery boutiques and florists have caught on to the gardening theme, it's been growing like, well, a weed.

People are surrounding themselves with all kinds of items that once sat in the yard. At Roger's Gardens, they're buying up antique watering cans embellished with hand-painted designs.

"They're not putting them outdoors because they're afraid they'd rust," Cortina says. Some are taking huge urns--the kind that typically belong on patios or outdoor entries--and using them to adorn an indoor landing or anchor a corner of a room. Because these urns look like they're made of concrete but are actually lightweight fiberglass, they're designed for indoor use. Other decorators are setting up indoor birdbaths.

"You can float flowers in them," Cortina says.

Pots in all shapes and materials, including cement, tin and clay, are an important part of the garden look. Some decorators group terra-cotta plants on bookshelves or in the kitchen and fill them with live herb or bulb plants. Just don't mix shiny tin accessories with rustic clay ones.