Fairy Garden DIY Refresh
Time for a Fairy Garden DIY Refresh
It’s not every season that my fairy garden gets a DIY (do-it-yourself) refresh. This was my lucky year.
Interest in miniature and fairy gardens has grown at a tremendous pace in the last eight to 10 years. Miniature enthusiasts and collectors have always had their network of artisans and arts and craft suppliers who provide both the raw stuff and the finished products out of which their masterpieces are constructed. But for the average home gardener, it is still a relatively new phenomena to construct a “fairy garden,” and to delve into the plethora of mini-gnomes and mushroom-shires and tiny garden sets that have become available with the rise of interest in miniature gardens.
For my part, I dabble a little bit in this world. I have a few lovely miniature garden items that I picked up here and there, starting with purchases made on a trip to Des Moines for a conference some years back. This summer, seeing that the furniture had become rusty, and the garden set-up was tired looking, I enlisted the help of my sister Deborah, visiting from Toronto, to design a new miniature garden for my yard. She has an artistic flair, and she did a beautiful job crafting a small and delightful little world, fit for the most discerning of garden fairies.
Getting Started on the Garden Refresh
Deborah started with a paint touch-up on the furniture. Then she gathered some materials with which to “paint” this year’s garden canvas. On hand were some dried moss materials, blue-coloured glass “pebbles,” and small flat stones collected from the local beaches. On a trip to the local garden centre, she selected a succulent plant of unknown DNA, on sale in the clearance section and missing its sticker. It is likely a member of the Sempervivum family.
For the garden “yard,” I picked up a wicker box last summer at the local Ten Thousand Villages shop. Into this went some lovely fresh soil, being a mixture of new soil from the garden nursery and a bit of compost from my own yard. Onto this earthy canvas, she added the various elements – a charming little birdhouse that doubles as a stake to hold up the plant stem, a wee birdbath, a tiny bridge, blue glass pebbles to simulate a little stream, a few park benches, some background trellises, and a post on which to set something interesting when I next venture out to shop.
It’s fun to stop and peer into my little miniature garden when I wander around the yard. It reminds me of the lovely visit I enjoyed with my sister during the hot days of summer. Having a photograph or two of this year’s fairy garden brings back great memories of laughter, chit chat, sun hats, and chilled white wine enjoyed mid-day in the welcoming shade of our backyard deck.
Text and Images: Copyright Nadine Kampen / cookiebuxton
Photograph location: Home garden, July 2018
If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy seeing my first miniature fairy garden in a basket. It was designed four years earlier and housed in a round wicker basket.
