Miniature gardens or fairy gardens and accessories are a popular new trend in gardening. These tiny gardens are a great project for both adult and children, and some become a hobby for the more dedicated. Children will delight in planting and caring for the garden as well as playing with the accessories.
Items for the garden such as miniature gourds, twig houses, and furniture can be found at garden centres or hobby stores. Making furniture out of collected twigs, bark, and moss needs nothing more than a creative mind. Miniature dollhouse furniture can also be used.
There will be many enjoyable excursions to the woods and beach to hunt for treasures for the garden. Pebbles from the beach can be used for a walkway, while a shell, depending on size, makes a perfect bathtub or sink.
Upscale fairy gardens have whimsical items such as bistro tables, fire pit patio pads, and pools, into which a fairy can dip her toe on a hot day.
Check out your yard and decide where you can put a little garden to create an enchanting space to attract the wee folk of the forest. It doesn’t have to take up a lot of space.
If you want your fairy garden off the ground, containers such as urns, birdbaths, wagons, and wheelbarrows work well. Going even more miniature, bowls, terrariums, and even over-sized teacups can be used. For a small balcony in a high-rise, fairy gardens can be made in railing planter boxes or hanging baskets.
Once it is decided where the fairy garden will be placed, choose plants according to whether the spot is sunny or shady. If containers are used, good drainage is necessary so that water doesn’t pool and flood the plants.
Good outdoor potting soil is important. The scale of plants is also important to keep it manageable. Use a mix of tiny plants and trees. Dwarf plants such as myrtle, pink autumn sage, miniature ivy, baby tears, moss, and elfin thyme, which has tiny pink flowers, are good options.
Books available online and some websites offer more information on how to make a fairy garden.
