Theme Garden Design - Woodland Fairy Garden

Wiese Acres Fairy Garden

One of my favorite gardens at Wiese Acres is the Woodland Fairy Garden.  As the name implies, it is a shade garden.  It is also the oldest garden at Wiese Acres and is used for outdoor entertaining, reading, relaxing and even napping on a regular basis.  It became the fairy garden because the shaded, tree-lined setting can easily make you believe that a fairy is hiding under one of the large fern leaves or sitting on the branches of the lilacs that form the eastern border.

Fairy gardens are usually thought of in miniature and are found in a container of some sort.  You can produce a similar feeling on a large scale, creating an entire garden location around that theme.



Wiese Acres Woodland Fairy Garden

 I use a number of ways to create the fairy theme in this garden.  Plants that can be found in fairy lore are used throughout. Said to attract fairies are ferns, lilacs, forget-me-nots, bluebells, and pansies.   The violets that grow under the apple tree are likely the home of the Fairy queen.  Primroses are believed to allow the fairy to make itself invisible.   These all do well in the shady setting. 

Other plants that are said to attract fairies but require more sun than my spot provides are roses, calendulas, daffodils, dogwoods, daisies, flax, hollyhocks, lavender, morning glories and rosemary.  If you want to create a fairy garden in a sunnier spot, these plants are sure to lure fairies to your location.

I've also used plants whose names reflect the fairy theme.  Elfin pink penstemon, Fairy snapdragons, Fairy cranesbill and Elfin Thyme all grow on the sunnier side of the Woodland Fairy garden.  Foxglove, which is also known as "Fairy petticoats", make a wonderful background plant for the fairy garden.

Statuary and other structures make the fairy theme more obvious to the casual meanderer.  Fairy statuary on a larger scale than that normally found for the container or small scale fairy gardens are readily available at most garden centers.  The secret to making them fit the fairy culture is to tuck them in amongst the leaves, rather than leaving them fully in the open.  Fairies are playful tricksters, and they would rarely ever make themselves readily visible to humans. 



Wiese Acres Woodland Fairy Garden

Fairies are said to live in hollowed out logs or mounds of soil, sawdust or leaves.  These can easily be created amongst the plants.  I use a concrete planter, tucked in amongst perennials and turned on its side, as a fairy home.  It's  filled partially with dirt and impatiens or other shade-loving annuals are allowed to grow close around the edges of the planter.  A small fairy peeks out from inside the planter, welcoming people to the seating area of the Woodland Fairy garden. 


Wiese Acres Woodland Fairy Garden

Fairies also love to play and dance, so tucking tiny fairy "toys" such as miniature gazing balls, or picnic tables under some of the leaves will help give the cheerful, carefree fairy feeling to the garden.

Fairies are said to fear iron, so rather than using cast iron or steel benches in the garden itself, I use concrete to give the fairy theme a more authentic feel.  In the human seating area, I use metal legged tables and chairs, which should protect my human companions from the trickery of the fairies. 

It must work, because any tricks that have been played on me have been purely my own doing.