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 .

Inspiration

January 6,2018,

This was spent emailing a blog and website designer. I feel like that counts as writing even if it wasn’t per se in a my blog/journal. I’m working on a color palette, mood, and feel for my website! So excited about this. This is something I’m doing just for me. I think I’ve told maybe two close friends and my husband about this. I want this to be out there without me posting it on my social media. I want to be free to write without worry of judgment or feelings. The designer had the idea of mountain ranges because they are a literal peak and I’m trying to find mine. This idea had occurred to me before this (well because this is a part of My Peak Challenge and that’s their logo), however, the ONLY mountains I have ever liked were in Scotland. The mystical presence that surrounds the ancient volcanoes were eerily comforting. But when you look at most clip art designs this is not the mood or feeling you see. You see pine trees and eagles and rustic. And I hate roads driving through the mountains. They terrify me if I’m the one driving the car. Almost as much as driving over bridges such as the Ravenel, my hands sweaty gripping the steering wheel as to not drift an inch.

Why Write & Peak?

January 4th, 2018

I’ve decided on a blog name. It’s a little play on hide & seek. I’m determined to not let 2018 become a hide & seek game. I feel like I’ve been hiding for the past couple of years. Slowly losing friends and myself all at once; seeking for who I am now.  We know that my 2018 resolution is to write but the ‘peak’ was inspired by Sam Heughan’s My Peak Challenge. Not only am I a HUGE Jamie Fraser, Sam Heughan, Outlander, Scotland fan, but I love the idea of peaking to my full potential as a mother, woman, friend; physically, spiritually, and mentally.

Do you ever view yourself in different stages of your life? I can vividly see myself as a 4 year old, 4th grader, 7th grader, high schooler, and then 21. All very defining moments in my life and all very different “me’s.”

One time in kindergarten I had a scratch on the underside of my chin. I quickly realized that it must have a hole in it. I cupped my hands under my chin for what felt like hours. And then the hour of the day I’d been dreading ticked into place...“snack time”. I turned to the boy standing beside me at the sand/ water table and carefully uncovered my hands to reveal what I was sure was a massive hole. I asked him if there was a hole there to which he replied, “yes.” ALL FEARS CONFIRMED! That was it, I couldn’t eat snack that day for fear food or water would spew from the hole. That was me in a nutshell at 4 years old. Weird.

Now I have my own 4 year old. I don’t think she’s anywhere near as weird as I am. It’s uncommonly freezing outside this week. My children are going house crazy. My downstairs heat has been broken. We’ve all been stuck upstairs and I have a sick baby so going somewhere is a little out of the question or we’d be living at Chick-fil-A.