Fairy Garden

The older I get, the older my soul becomes. My latest obsession is gardening. I think it began to take root a couple of years ago when we bought our first home. At the time it was more maintaining what was already there and potting flowers. When we purchased our second home, there was little to none landscaping in the backyard. Horribly ugly sight to sit outside and look at the back of our house. Last summer I planted two rose trees, two azalea trees, five hydrangeas underneath the trees, and six azaleas. I thought that was a lot. This year, I’ve gone crazy. My mild obsession transformed (but so has our backyard). I was going to plant a living hedge using cherry or common laurel, but that seems to be harder to find in the south. I know that there are other things I could use, but I just had my heart set on that. I was also going to do another bed on the side of our garage. The problem is, it is in almost complete shade, all day long. I’ve spent countless hours researching, watching, reading about plants the past two months. Going to nurseries and price comparing, feeling the texture, charting the sun in my yard ( who am I?), looking at our soil, the drainage, etc. 

Turns out, I scraped most of those plans (for now) and went and made a fairy garden bed over the weekend. Only using about 57 plants (only). But, it is GORGEOUS!


The first thing I did was get a garden fence and enclose my backyard and also the area that the fairy garden bed is located. I bought it off of Wayfair and spent around $250 total to enclose everything. Much cheaper than a fence. 

I’d been saving our cardboard boxes for a while now to make the beds. It’s supposed to kill the grass underneath, it’s recycling, and the worms love it. We laid the boxes down and covered it with soil, organic compost, top soil. First mistake was not watering the cardboard down before we covered it. 

The next day, (after I once again bought more plants), we began placing things. I’ve been watching Monty Don’s show on Netflix, and he always says this stage you’re just putting paint on the canvas, not too spend too much time overthinking. We placed and played with the arrangement of the flowers until we found what worked. 

Then it was time to dig (with the help of my husband). Since I didn’t wet the cardboard to begin with, once we moved the dirt for the hole, I used the hose to water that specific spot. The cardboard came up fairly easy. Our soil however, is basically clay. Awful stuff.


List of plants used:


Burning Bush

Delphinium

Creeping Jenny

Foxglove

Phlox “Thrift”

Hydrangea

Salvia

Dusty Miller

Hostas

Dahlia

Silver Mound

Irish Moss


I’ve also read to keep the number of different types of plants you use down (like 7 to 10) and then to repeat. Also, helps if you use colors that are close on the color wheel, or contrasting. I picked shades of pinks, blues, and purples. I added texture using the Irish Moss, Silver Mound, Creeping Jenny, and Dusty Miller. I also tried to make sure everything used in the garden was soft so once it spreads to cover some of the ground, the girls have a soft place to sit. They can feel and learn. I wanted to bring a touch of an English garden to the South. The girls had so much fun helping to pick out the plants and their own fairies. Since the pictures, I’ve added fairy lights to the fencing. It just makes it a little more whimsical .