Barbara Whipple,
Dundee Horticulturist
When I was ten years old, I knew where every fairy, elf, troll, gnome, and general practioner of magic lived in my neighborhood. Regularly I visited certain rocks, tree galls, bird baths, lily-of-the-valley colonies, shrub borders, and flower pots. While I never actually caught a fairy, let alone a troll, I often saw the edges of a tiny pale pink dress, or the heel of a shoe made from hosta leaves. And then I grew up and forgot all about that kind of magic.
A wonderful event comes to grown ups eventually: they get grandchildren and an opportunity to recover lost magic. My granddaughter is now ten years old and with her, I can create a miniature fairy garden wonderland, welcoming to gnomes and elves too. We can make a little garden in a pot, or a much larger one in a raised bed planter or right in a corner of the garden, depending on how many magic creatures you want to attract.
Through the winter our fairy garden has grown indoor types of house plants, from African violets to grape-leaf ivy to peperomia. Any
plant that will enjoy the light quality in your home, will do well in a indoor fairy garden. If the fairies you want to attract need flowering plants, the begonias, kalanchoes, cyclamen, and bromeliads will do well indoors.
Once you can create an outdoor garden, whether in a container or the ground, you’ll find all kinds of tiny flowers, shrubs, evergreens, and miniature trees available in our greenhouse and garden center. All of these will grow nicely in a general purpose potting soil, or your garden soil amended with some peat moss.
Of course, beyond the plants, there are many, many accessories available at Dundee to make your garden welcoming. There are many different kinds of structures to house the fairies and we even have an outhouse (I think that’s for the gnomes!). There are chairs and benches for them to sit in, pathways and bridges for them to walk along, trellises, and tiny pots, and shepherd hooks, and ducks, pigs and cows to play with them. There’s even a waterfall which will surely attract fairies, who love the sound of running water more than anything else except new morning dew.
While we all wait for spring to arrive outside, why not bring a little bit of it into your life, and the lives of some magic people, with a fairy garden in a pot. Just like plants, it can be transplanted outdoors once the season settles. Dundee has everything you need to get started today.
