Darin Engh, from Engh Gardens, gives some tips for creating this magical spot.
Fairy Plants
Miniature plants are best for your fairy garden. Be sure to include groundcovers, trailing plants, shrubs and climbing plants for arbors and trellises. Baby’s tears, needlepoint ivy, lavender, sage, and miniature roses to name a few. Have some fun and use flowers that might entice fairies by their very names, for example The Fairy rose. Use plants the fairies love: primroses, pansies, Johnny-jump-ups, thyme, small ferns, shamrocks and coral bells. Moss is a must to cover the soil. It will look like a faerie carpet. But herbs are the real secret to planting a fairy garden. You can also clip some into the shapes of bushes, others into trees.
Landscaping and Fairy Garden Furniture
Fairies love a garden that has a “lived-in” look. Add a path of tiny cobbles, a quartz crystal, a pretty shell, a bit of bark or an intricately-shaped branch with lichen growing on it, a reflecting pool made of a small mirror, a popsicle-stick fence, a bench, an arbor, a wheelbarrow, and other miniature tools and garden accents. Include acorn caps, pods, seeds, walnut halves—anything the faeries may need to set up housekeeping. Use your imagination, and be sure to include all the things you’d like to see in your garden if you were a fairy.
Plants to Highlight
• Thyme, especially “mother of thyme”, is the fairies favorite plant. They love its color, fragrance and habit of growth. It was used as a resting place, for dancing and as a soft, green bed for fairy babies.
• Moss – Fairies love mossy areas, especially round ones. If you have or can establish a mossy spot in your garden or woods, you may be rewarded by fairy revels.
• Dolce Mocha Mint Coral Bells
• Fairy Dust Teucrium
• The Fairy Rose
• Bristol Fairy Gypsophila
• Charmed Jade Oxalis (Shamrocks) – silver-sheened, shamrock-shaped leaves; delicate blushed flowers; a great statement in shady areas.
• Pom Pom Pentas
• Joey Ptilotus – large, conical spikes of feathery flowers top thick silver green foliage. The 3-4″ bottlebrush flower spikes are glistening silver with a darker neon pink color near the tips. Excellent for fairy trees.
• Lavender – purple summer flowers are especially impressive in dried floral bouquets and have a sweet fragrance.
Ready…To begin, simply fill a container with soil. “Fluff” the soil until it’s light and fluffy and airy with a smooth surface.
Set…Design your fairy garden by first developing a plan. We suggest laying out your Fairy plants and furniture in the container before actually planting.
Grow…Once you developed a plan, it’s time to plant. Once you’ve finished planting your plants it’s time to add your fairy furniture and accessories.
Complete your Fairy Garden by adding a pinch of fairy dust and setting it in a bright, sunny, warm location.
For more information, you can visit Darin at Engh Gardens in Sandy or online at www.enghgardens.com.
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