Granddaughter’s Faerie Garden
When we saw that our granddaughter was interested in faerie gardens, and always wanted to help in my faerie garden, we decided to build a garden area just for her. We planted a Rising Sun redbud, a fast growing and pretty tree, in the center of her garden to give it shade. It can be hard for a little person to reach all areas of her garden, so we decided to do a circle design so she could easily reach all areas. The faerie houses that we bought for her were mostly resin so she could move them to her heart’s content without worry of breakage. In past years, she came over probably at least three times during the growing season. She and I would go to the garden center and she would pick out flowers, then we would come home and plant them. This year, however, she couldn’t come over due, of course, to the pandemic. And I wasn’t able to start on her garden until late in the season, so it doesn’t look quite as nice as I would like it to look. But I have a good start and next year, between the two of us, it will look pretty good.
This is kind of an overview of her garden. Except for a couple of “trees”, I reworked the entire garden. There is a charming little “crooked house” in the foreground of this photo, and a castle with a moat in the background. The center photo shows a cute little acorn house that she picked out a couple of years ago, and a fish pond that she hasn’t seen yet, in the foreground. The next photo shows a woodsy looking house complete with ladybug near a little stream. The Irish moss got a late start but, by next year, it should be filled in nicely.
This little garden has streams running all through it; this is a closer look at one of the streams. The center photo also is a closer look at the castle with moat. You can see the moat’s shining blue water. So pretty. The last photo is another little woodsy faerie house. The blue flowers are annuals, but they like the shade and add a lot of charm.
These two photos are after and before photos. One looks lush and well cared for; the other looks sort of desolate. Although this photo doesn’t show it, in order to add interest and realism there are a lot of “hills” in this little garden. Since it is mostly seen from the front, I made the back part rise higher to give the whole garden more depth. Adding a small castle on top of the hill gave it even more of a far away look. Putting a steam in a round garden was a bit problematic. So next year we will try to incorporate more “trees” and bushes; that should help to make it look more like a landscape. And with all of the plantings, hills and streams, a lot of care had to be taken to maintain the correct soil depth for the redbud tree. The second photo shows the garden, after the houses and debris were removed earlier in the year, and the castle with moat were added. It’s sad when a little garden has such a level of winter damage, but it is fun to rework it in the spring.
This is the garden and our granddaughter from a few years ago. She had picked out and placed several houses and faeries, and planted some flowers, and she was quite pleased with the way things were looking. These last two photos show that, like everything else here, this area is on quite a hill. Although this garden was a bit of work to put in, you might say it was a labor of love. And we are looking forward to seeing what our granddaughter does with this garden next year.
Final thought:
The years go by so quickly. If you don’t think that, remember that next year you will be two years older than you were last year. It isn’t always possible to do the things that you want to do, especially if your family is scattered like a lot of families are nowdays. But do what you can when you can, especially for the little ones.