I told my oldest daughter (almost 3) to look out the window to let me know if she sees any mushrooms in the garden yet because once the mushrooms show up that means that the fairies are seriously considering moving in. She looked a couple of times over a day or two and still no mushrooms. But then, all of a sudden yesterday morning, there were mushrooms! We immediately had to go out to investigate and sat on the stones surrounding the garden discussing fairies for quite some time. The fairies visited us again and we are convinced they’ll be back!
Who knew when I started planning my fairy garden that fairies are the hot thing right now. Disney is even taking a princess break and going with all things Tinkerbell and fairy. Fairies are taking over my life. Just last week I even sewed a fairy skirt for my daughter to go with her fairy wings, crown and wand for Halloween. Of course, she wears her outfit constantly. Let’s hope the wings hold up until Halloween.
My fairy garden is coming right along. I recently made some Sculpy mushrooms, a blue fairy door, a well and a chimney. Still no homes, thought I did find an intriguing website called Enchanted Gardens that is dedicated to all things you might find in a fairy garden and I am considering ordering a home as a sample and otherwise may borrow some of their ideas. I love crafting and I’ll see what I come up with. Here are some updated pictures:
Did you spot all 5 mushrooms? One is a bit hidden ;) The well and bridge (from the aquarium section of Walmart) are also present though the blue door is still waiting for it’s house.
I have been doing a bit more research on fairy gardens and discovered that fairies like all things purple and I have that serendipitously covered as most plants in this fairy garden will bloom purple, including the mondo grass and baby’s tears- who knew! I need to add some sage as reportedly fairies like to sleep on sage. Fortunately I have a LOT of creeping sage elsewhere in my garden and I will relocate a few cuttings. Fiaries also supposedly like digitalis as a fashion statement but I am not putting that into this child-friendly garden as it is very poisonous (though I do have it elsewhere in the garden which will have to be good enough.) Then I’ll add some crocus for the spring and will have saffron covered as well. I fortunately also have St. John’s Wort in garden in case I need to counteract fairy spells which aren’t to my liking.
Oh boy, this is fun! I get to garden, craft, do internet searches and shopping all for the same project.
Today I spent a satisfying 2 hours on the garden. After visiting my local Arboretum’s plant sale in the morning and scrounging around in my yard, I amassed a good selection of plants, moss and rocks for my fairy garden. After relocating 3 violets and two large primula I was ready to plant. I selected a location under a Himalayan birch, visible from the house and next to the edge of a raised bed for easy access for the children. I planted a small fern, some miniature mondo grass, 2 very small primula, a miniature hosta, some lily-of-the-valley, 3 different “stepable” plants and some miniature ground cover and finished it off with some moss paths. I added a few small rocks and then three glow-in-the-dark pebbles where each of the houses are planned to be. The magic pebbles will hopefully transform into fairy homes sooner rather than later. We’ll see how quickly I manage to find appropriate dwellings. I will try to find a couple little toad stools as well which should finish off the garden eventually. Most of the plants I used in this garden are very hardy and “stepable,” especially those in the front so they’ll hold up during playtime. Once the homes are in place I’ll look for fairy figurines for the kids to play with. I think it would also be fun to hang some glow-in-the-dark “fairy” balls from the birch as well. This garden will be a work in progress based on what I find but I think I have a fun start. My oldest daughter thinks it’s really neat that the fairies picked her backyard to build homes in. I’ll periodically post pictures as the garden settles and the plants grow as well as of any new additions.
Here are the before and after shots of the fairy garden:
Before…
Now the fairy garden…
Other than the fairy garden, I spruced up next to my patio as well by removing a sad looking rhodie and replacing it with a paper birch. I also added clumping bamboo as well as two new stepping stones in the area and finished it all with a coating of beauty bark. Here are the before and after shots.
Before…
After…
Finally some dead-heading and I was ready to call it a satifying day’s work in the garden.
Here’s a catalog link to a really great idea to incorporate into a garden for kids, a Fairy Garden.
The catalog has many many wonderful children’s items though not inexpensive. I think I am going to try to see if I can come up with my own fairy garden by borrowing the catalog’s concept and perhaps just purchasing the fairies. My daughter saw the picture and said sadly that our garden doesn’t have fairies for her to play with. I suggested that if she keeps her eyes open, perhaps one day the fairies might visit. I’ll let you know if any fairies move in!
