Fairy gardens can add a gorgeous touch to any corner of your garden. Even if you don’t have much outdoor space, these mini gardens are so small you can make one in a pot on a balcony, or evening a small dish indoors.
Before you start making your fairy garden, follow these steps so you have a solid plan of how to do it:
1. Choose a suitable fairy garden container or spot in your garden
If you’re making a fairy garden directly in your yard, you won’t need to find a container. Instead, you’ll just need to clear an area of your garden that’s suitable for making a fairy garden. It doesn’t have to be flat as multilevelled fairy gardens can look awesome, but it’s a good idea to choose a spot it away from any trees or plants that shed their leaves in autumn. Otherwise you’ll be spending half the year removing debris from the fairy garden!
Whether you use a container or plant your garden directly into the ground, make sure it’s easy to access. You’ll want to maintain your fairy garden regularly and if kids want to play with it, it’ll need to be within easy reach to avoid scrambling over other plants and flowers to reach it.
If you choose a container, make sure it’s as large as your space and budget will afford. You can make fairy gardens in containers as small as teacups, but larger, more permanent fairy gardens will provide more entertainment and satisfaction in the long run. For more ideas on what to use as a fairy garden container, check out my blog post 20 Amazing Container Ideas For Your Next Fairy Garden.
2. Fill your fairy garden container with rocks and compost
If you’re making your fairy garden directly in the ground, then you can skip this step. If you do use a container then you’ll need to fill the bottom of it with rocks, gravel or broken plant pots to provide drainage and to fill in some of the space at the bottom of the container so you don’t have to fill the entire thing with compost.
One you’ve filled the bottom of your container, fill the rest of it to the top with compost. You’ll need to make sure that wherever you fill you container is where it’ll be positioned, as it might be too heavy to move if you’ve gone for a large container!
3. Choose your fairy garden theme
Not all fairy gardens have a theme, some are simply cute miniature gardens with random plants and accessories. If you did want your fairy garden to follow a theme then you could try one of these below.
- Beach themes are a popular choice if you want to add some sand and water to your fairy garden. This beautiful miniature garden by TheArtOfEnchantment on Etsy proves that you can create a stunning beach themed fairy garden in the smallest of spaces.
- A spooky themed pumpkin or haunted fairy garden.
- A tropical fairy garden complete with mini Tiki hut and Tiki torches.
- A farm themed fairy gardens are great if you plan to let kids play in the mini garden as they’ll have hours of fun playing with animals and tractors.
- Forest themes are an easy theme to make and you can get the forest look by adding in taller plants that look like little trees (more on this below!).
- A winter themed fairy garden doesn’t just have to be for Christmas time, you could have mini polar bears, fir trees and sparkling lights any time of the year. This incredibly detailed winter themed fairy garden by FairyRealtor on Etsy fits in the palm of a hand and shows that winter gardens don’t have to be Christmas themed.
- An entire miniature village is another theme option and is great fun if you can add a train track or even cable cars like in the image below!
- Choosing a colour for a theme is another options, by planting plants which have similar colour flowers and choosing complementary accessories you can create a cohesive look for your fairy garden
4. Plan your fairy garden layout
You could do this on a piece of paper or sketch it out on the ground where your fairy garden will be. A great place to look for inspiration is Pinterest, or take your inspiration from nature by looking at local parks and gardens.
One option is to start off with a fairy house and build your gardens around that, but don’t forget to consider the below too:
- Will you have paths in your fairy garden, if so where will they be positioned?
- Will you have a water feature such as a pond or stream and will it be real or fake?
- What accessories will you include, such as seats, houses and doors?
- Will you have a focal point for your fairy garden? Such as a small tree or flowering plant?
- Will your fairy garden be on one level or multiple levels?
The great thing about fairy gardens is there are no rules, you can let your imagination run wild at the planning stage!
4. Gather the materials for your fairy garden
Now you know the overall look you’re going for, you can start to gather materials for your fairy garden. The best place to look is in nature so head to your local park or search your garden for pine cones, moss, stones and twigs to use.
If you live near a beach then sand makes a great addition to a fairy garden, or you can buy this from home stores but it will eventually wash away if your fairy garden is outside. Shells, pebbles and sea glass are also found in nature and can make lovely additions to a fairy garden.
Online shops such as HobbyCraft sell lots of pretty stones and decorative rocks and check out your local florist or craft shop for supplies such as moss and wood slices.
5. Find and plant the right plants for your fairy garden
Garden centres and supermarkets are a great place to pick up plants, or you could grow your own from seed, although this will obviously take longer!
You could choose plants by a theme, such as colour, texture, height or type, such as herbs or bedding plants. Whatever plants you choose, try to make sure they’re small varieties so that your fairies aren’t battling with giant triffids in future.
Choosing plants with different heights is a good way of making a miniature garden look more realistic. Plants which double up as miniature trees include miniature spruce trees, asparagus fern, moon frost and herbs such as rosemary and thyme, though they will need regular trim to stop them from growing too large.
Below are four flowering plants which are small enough to look right at home in a fairy garden – clockwise from top left are miniature daisies, Hosta Blue Mouse Ears, My Monet and Money Wort.
Don’t forget to choose plants that will flourish in the soil type and position of your fairy garden, such as whether it’s in the shade, partial sunlight or full sunlight.
6. Choose or make your fairy garden accessories
There are hundreds of different options for fairy garden accessories and what you choose will depend on your theme, your budget and your personal tastes.
Making fairy garden accessories is a great way to be creative, and kids in particular will love scavenging for items from nature or recycling objects from the home and transforming them into fairy garden accessories.
Below are some items you might want to add to your fairy garden.
A fairy house
Every fairy needs a place to rest and you can either buy a fairy house or make one yourself. I found a couple of lovely fairy houses on Etsy but garden centres, craft shops, gift shops and even charity shops are great places to look. This gorgeous house is by Magelicasgifts and would make a lovely home for visiting fairies.
This gorgeous little fairy house is made out of stoneware clay and will bring a pop of colour to your fairy garden. It’s by Embar Pottery on Etsy and is available in a range of bright colours and is the perfect size for a container fairy garden.
I made this cute little fairy house from a piece of cardboard and some twigs – you can find out how I made it here.
Another great option for creating a fairy garden house is to use a bird box. Some bird boxes have a DIY element as you can finish and paint them yourselves. This DIY bird box from Amazon is a great choice for kids as it comes with paints so they can get started with the decorating straightaway! You can buy it here.
Finally, we got this little paint-your-own bird box from The Works for just £2 and my daughter loved decorating it, so much so that it now lives permanently in her bedroom instead of our fairy garden!
Fairy seating
A little table and chair set or garden bench can really set the scene in a fairy garden and give your fairy a place to rest. You can make these yourself and there’s an excellent tutorial for making a table and chair set below:
You could use dollhouse furniture for fairy garden furniture, but if you use wooden furniture, you may need to treat it with a protective coating first.
You can find dollhouse furniture in charity shops, yard sales and antique shops for a few pounds. The best place I’ve found for dollhouse furniture is antique shops, I picked up the huge haul of dollhouse furniture for less than £30. You can customise the furniture so it looks more suitable for a fairy garden, for example by painting it green or adding little touches like flowers.
Etsy is another great place to find beautiful fairy garden furniture is Etsy. I love this fairy garden table and stools by WhimsicalWhispersArt which features a toadstool inspired table and stools, along with a tiny kettle, crockery and sparkling fairy dust, so your fairies will be all set for afternoon tea!
Streams and ponds
Adding a water feature to a fairy garden looks sensational, whether you include real water or fake water. You can make fake water out of blue glass pebbles, blue buttons, blue sand, sea glass, beads or shiny stones – anything can work!
The one thing to avoid for outdoor fairy gardens are products like Woodland Scenics Water Effects, as once they get wet, the product can swell and turn white – this product is ideal for internal water gardens though!
For more ideas on creating beautiful fairy garden water features check out my blog post 10 Easy DIY Fairy Garden Ponds, Streams And Rivers To Try Yourself.
Fairies figurines for fairy gardens
What would a fairy garden be with out fairies?! Whether you believe in fairies or not, you can add some fairy figurines to your garden to ensure it always has residents. Although you can find fairy ornaments in garden centres, it’s worth checking out what’s for sale on Etsy as well. I found this beautiful hand-painted fairy figurine and ‘Make A Wish’ sign on Etsy for just £3.95, it would look wonderful in an indoor or outdoor fairy garden.
7. Maintain your fairy garden
Once your fairy garden is complete, you then just need to make sure you keep on top of the maintenance. Regular weeding, feeding and watering is all you really need to do, as well as bringing accessories inside during really hot or really cold weather.
Depending on where your fairy garden is, you might find you need to remove dead leaves and other debris in autumn. Cleaning your accessories from time to time will also keep your fairy garden looking fabulous.
You can find out more about how to maintain a fairy garden by reading my blog post Fairy Garden Maintenance: How to look after a mini garden.