If you’re looking for an exciting addition to your outdoor spot or a craft project for children, creating a fairy garden fits the budget. While fairy gardens have been around for several years, they have become increasingly popular over the past few years. These miniature gardens are made up of small scenery loaded with small plants and ornaments designed to attract our little fairy friends to the garden. Fairy garden offers an enchanted play area or “tiny world” that kids and adults can use to develop their creativity and imagination. It’s so easy to start, and personalizing the garden with unique details is where the magic lives. Here is how to get started.
What You Need for Fairy Gardens
- Potting mix
- A container with drainage holes
- Plants, leaf twigs, and flowers
- Pebbles, glass marbles, and pea gravel
- Mini garden decors such as a fairy house, tiny table and chairs, and a fence
Decide a Theme for Your Fairy Garden
Choose your theme first. Are you currently intending to use an English cottage theme, beach, enchanted forest, or a tree-house? Choose whatever theme fits your present garden or whatever your imagination is. Whatever style you select will help determine which accessories and plants to fill your garden with after it’s made.
Theme Idea includes:
- Fairy home
- Castle
- Beach
- Woods
- Tree interiors
- Fairy City
Create a Plan on How You Will Create the Fairy Garden
As soon as you figure out your theme, select a spot to place your fairy garden. You may choose an indoor or outdoor location; you only need to ensure your container will fit the area. Collect the supplies you need to do your theme. Craft shops, nurseries, and online stores have the best resources to shop for fairy garden supplies. For example, you choose the beach theme, get your shells and sand. For a forest theme, pick up peat moss and lots of plants.
Pick a Container for the Fairy Garden
Select almost any container for your fairy garden project. Whatever you choose will require drainage holes because you will be utilizing live plants. Things like glass bowls, terra cotta pots, and terrariums work well.
- Flower pots
- Tin buckets
- Large bowls
- Wooden boxes
- Wheelbarrows
- Wagons
- Baby tubs
See that your container measures a minimum of six inches deep and roughly 14 inches across to allow for enough features and plants to create a good fairy garden.
Start Building Your Fairy Garden
1 . Pick composted soil filled with organic matter and little bark pieces to provide your own fairy garden’s most “alive” appearance. Ensure adequate drainage by adding a layer of pea gravel to the bottom of your container. It is also a great idea to add a layer of charcoal to help keep the garden clean and fresh.
2 . Fill up the container with potting soil and add pebbles, bark, pebbles, or even moss on top to make pathways for the fairies.
3. Narrow your plant variety by thinking about where your fairy garden is positioned. If outside, will the garden be in full or partial sunlight? If indoors, choose your plants appropriately because some plants don’t thrive indoors.
Select miniature plants for your landscape and flowers for color and aesthetic appeal. Pick options with fascinating designs and textures. Never overcrowd the container because you will be adding extra stuff and accessories to make your garden a fairy home. But clumping plants together in certain areas makes for good fairy hiding places. Look for two-to-three-inch plant pots with low-growing and small-leaf plants which will be easy to develop and sustain. And as always, make use of your creative imagination. A few plants can be pruned to look like mini trees.
Ideal Plants for Fairy Gardens Include:
- Ivy
- Ferns
- Rosemary
- Primroses
- Calendula
- Tiny violas
- Succulents
- Small bonsai trees
- Licorice plants
- Baby tears (ground cover)
- Ornamental strawberry (ground cover)
- Wooly thyme (ground cover)
Incorporate Some Cute Accessories
Beautify your garden with tiny mushroom stools, mini benches, a fairy house, fences, and fairy lights. Make your accents or buy online – there are plenty of sources, and a list follows below.
Some preferred fairy garden decorations include miniature models of:
- Chairs
- Buckets
- Trellises
- Birdhouses
- Fairies
- Toadstools
- Birdbaths
- Watering cans
- Animals
- Lanterns
To make your elements utilize sculpting clay to make mushrooms or a table. You may try to personalize a small birdhouse by simply gluing pebbles to the roof and moss to the house. Make a birdbath and stuff a small terra cotta container into a saucer.
One adorable DIY container idea is to take a big broken terra cotta flower pot and insert the broken items into the soil as steps leading to the top of the fairy kingdom.
Five Nurseries in Austin
The Great Outdoors
2730 S Congress Ave.
Austin, TX 78704
An urban garden center that has a wide assortment of native and adapted plants ideal for Central Texas gardens and dwellings. Their inventory includes seasonal vegetables, perennials, indoor plants, palm trees, cacti and succulents, shrubs, vines, roses, water plants, fruit trees, and so much more. gonursery.com
Shoal Creek Nursery
2710 Hancock Dr.
Austin, TX 78731
Shoal Creek Nursery has served the Austin area for over 6 years. They have a wide range of high-quality plants, water features, imported pottery, gardening materials, and gifts are complimented with personalized attention by their skilled personnel. Their experienced team is always there to help you set up the garden of your dreams. From plant selection to soil, they have the answers to make your next gardening job satisfying for many years. Shoal Creek Nursery only offers plants of the finest quality. shoalcreeknursery.com
Pink Flamingo Plant Co.
7221 McNeil Dr.
Austin, TX 78729
Pink Flamingo Plant Co. is a retail plant nursery in Austin, Texas. They offer a wide range of succulents, houseplants, pre-made succulent and houseplant arrangements, cacti, pottery, and garden components. They provide personalized setup services to individuals along with event planners. Plus, they host plant care classes and tutorials every month. They also have an event area on the location that can be utilized for small parties, farmers/art markets, weddings, etc. pinkflamingoplantco.com
Barton Springs Nursery
3601 Bee Cave Rd.
Austin, TX 78746
Since 1986, Barton Springs Nursery has taken pride in offering one of the greatest selections of native plants in Central Texas. The majority of their plants grow in the nursery, where they become acclimated to their soil, water, and weather. bartonspringsnursery.com
Tillery Street Plant Co.
801 Tillery St.
Austin, TX 78702
Founded in the year 2011, Tillery Street Plant Company is a small retail nursery situated in Austin, Texas. They serve as a 2-acre garden sanctuary within the heart of the city and have a vast variety of native and adaptive plants to the Central Texas area. Among their shelves many botanical charms can be found too, ranging from uncommon medicinals to inquisitive tropicals. tillerystreetplants.com
