Gardening For Kids: Fairy Garden

You're probably just about sick of me blogging about North Canton Library programs, but this is one more.  Last night, Ellie went to the Children's Department's Fairy Garden Party.  Of course she had fun, she loves that kind of thing, but she also came home with a really cute fairy garden.  

Ellie's Fairy Garden

Ellie's been a fan of fairy gardens for a few years, ever since my mom got her hooked by taking her to a fairy garden class at Rice's Nursery.  Since then I've seen lots of fairy gardens and fairy garden accessories for sale.  We got each of the grandmas fairy gardens a few years ago for mother's day.  The big appeal for Ellie at first was that she really thought REAL fairies would come to her garden.  Now that she's a little older, she just likes the idea of the tiny little accessories and growing flowers.   

So, my blog today is more about how to get little girls interested in gardening.  This fairy garden that Ellie did at the library is basically just a container garden with a few added items, available from Michaels, Pat Catans, or Jo-Ann Fabric (also available at almost all garden centers, for a considerable higher price.)  Any flower will do in a container, as long as you plan the container for the type of flower you're planting as well as placing the container in a place suited to your plant.
I've done fairy gardens with small shrubs or herbs as well.  It really weirded Ellie out when I used her lemon thyme from her first fairy garden to season a risotto I was making!  That was before we started our vegetable garden and it was the first glimpse into "you can actually EAT this stuff"  that she saw from our gardens.  You could always do fairies in a vegetable garden as well.  If you've ever done any extensive fairy research, and who HASN'T?!?!, you know that there are all kinds of fairies.  Not all of them are tinkers, some are water fairies, some are sunflower fairies, some are animal fairies some cultivate diamond gardenias (or maybe that's just in the Barbie movies...).   

I blogged awhile ago (back with snow and ice were still covering everything)  about a planter by our front door.

Our front door and the planter. 

Being the helpful Nana that she is, my mom appeared one day with a container of pansies and planted them for us.  As she was planting she suggested that this planter would make a fantastic fairy garden.  I agree!  I'm going to dig out the accessories we already have from that first garden Ellie made at Rice's Nursery and see what I can use in here.  I think it might even be better to use this as a winter fairy garden--planing a few SMALL evergreen shrubs and adding winter or fall themed little fairies and accessories.  What a great idea Nana!

Close up of the pansy planter, soon-to-be-fairy garden. 

I've found that my kids are SO excited about what they plant.  No matter WHAT it is.  Ellie dumped a whole packet of seeds in a small container last year and had a mess of flowers.  They were choking each other out and growing all over each other to the point you could barely see what was in there, but she LOVED it because they were HERS.  Caden planted a pumpkin seed one year after we carved pumpkins.  We forgot about it, but in the spring we had a small little pumpkin shoot.  The thing didn't really produce much, but we got a pathetic little pumpkin.  Caden loved it because it was HIS.  Gardening is magical to kids.  The fact that that little seed can transform into a beautiful flower or even something to EAT is amazing.  To be honest, I find it a little magical myself.  All you need is faith, trust and,  of course, a little pixie dust!