make a FAIRY GARDEN

A fairy garden is a great summer project that will bring delight to kids, grandkids and any small visitors. Ideally, the children can help with its creation, or you could make it as a surprise.

Start by choosing an area that is shaded (fairies are easily sunburnt) and protected from the wind. Add some favourite fairy plants. Your plant selection will be governed by your climate but it’s best to choose plants that are small and dainty looking. Some ideas are maidenhair fern, clumping blue-berried dianella, dwarf lomandra or mondo grass, and bloomers such as native violets or bedding begonias.

Leave an open area in the centre where the fairies can meet. Fairies, of course, need toadstools to sit on, and making these can be a fun project to share with the kids. Toadstools can be fashioned out of craft clay, but an easier way to make them is to buy toadstool-shaped wooden doorknobs from the hardware store and decorate them with child-friendly paint.

Other additions to your fairy garden are limited only by your imagination. Perhaps a fence made from wooden sticks to keep out marauding goblins, or a gate decorated with strings of shiny beads. Or maybe an archway or a curved bridge to welcome visitors, with a path made out of pebbles or small, flat river stones.

And the fairies? Well, you can wait for them to arrive by themselves, but a few fairy statues might encourage the real fairies to turn up.