Fairy gardens can be planted directly into the ground in your yard or garden, but they also look beautiful in containers or bases. You don’t need to be a gardening expert to choose the right fairy garden base, all you need is a container which can hold dirt!
As a general rule, a fairy garden base can be made from any item big enough to hold soil – it can be as small as a teacup or as big as a barrel. It must have at least one drainage hole to stop water collecting at the bottom. For fairy gardens without plants, a flat piece of wood or stone can be used as a base or platform.
Below you can find out more about how to choose and prepare your base for a fairy garden and I share some inspiring images of ideas you can try yourself!
What container can you use for a fairy garden base?
The basic rule is that if it can hold soil and has drainage holes then you can use it as a fairy garden container. However, if the container is wood or metal then it may need a coat or two of polyurethane sealant, such as this one from Amazon, to stop the wood rotting or the metal rusting.
Fairy gardens don’t always need drainage holes and soil though:
- Bases for artificial fairy gardens that don’t contain real plants won’t need drainage holes or soil and can be made from anything that can hold garden accessories and artificial plants. I made an artificial fairy garden with a treasure chest for the base.
- You don’t have to use a container at all for your fairy garden base, instead you can use a platform, such as a slice of a tree trunk or a flat stone.
I’ve written in-depth about different containers you can use for a fairy garden so for inspiration, check out the blog post 20 Amazing Container Ideas For Your Next Fairy Garden.
What’s the best base for a fairy garden?
A large, shallow plant pot with a drainage hole works great for a fairy garden base as you won’t need to worry about drainage holes, and it will be easy to fill and easy to maintain. A good starting size would be a shallow plant pot the size of a large dinner pate. A terracotta plant pot will be heavier than plastic so will be less likely to be blown over or upturned by children or animals.
You can use a base with no drainage, such as a glass bowl for a terrarium style indoor fairy garden, but you’ll have to be super careful not to overwater your plants. There’s an excellent guide on making a terrarium on the Kew Gardens website so check this out if you’d like a pretty terrarium for your fairy garden.
How to prepare a base for a fairy garden with plants
Once you’ve picked your base, you’ll need to check it has sufficient drainage. If your container doesn’t have any holes, you might be able to add some yourself.
The video below has instructions for how to add holes to a plastic container, but you can also add holes to ceramic containers, providing you use the correct drill bit. There’s a handy video about adding drainage holes to ceramic pots here.
In some cases you might have the opposite problem and the drainage holes in your fairy garden base might be too big. In this case, you can add a shallow layer of drainage material to prevent the soil from washing out through the holes when you water.
Where potting media might be washed out of the container, place drainage material over the hole(s) in the bottom of the container, using stones or broken terracotta (crocks). Use a minimum of material as it is important to have as much rooting area as possible.
RHS.org
Remember, if you’re not using real plants then you won’t need to worry about making drainage holes in whatever base you choose.
What to use to fill a fairy garden base
A good quality peat-free potting compost is your best option for filling a fairy garden container. Potting composts are different to regular compost used in a garden as they are designed to nurture newly potted plants, whereas regular compost is used to improve the condition of soil in the ground.
If you don’t have any compost, you should be OK using soil from your garden, or from a bag of top soil. And if you’d like to know more about which compost is best for which container or purpose, the Garden Organic website has a fantastic guide to compost.
Potting compost in bags is usually lighter in texture than homemade garden compost. It is created for growing plants in containers – not as a soil improver – and there are particular mixes for seed sowing, cuttings or ericaceous (lime hating) plants.
Garden Organic website
If your container is very large, then you can add a few large rocks at the bottom to fill the space so you don’t have to fill the entire container with earth. Only do this is you don’t intend to move your fairy garden, as it will make it extremely heavy!
Fairy garden base ideas
You don’t need dirt to create a fairy garden, you can create miniature scenes on slices of wood or smooth stones, all you need to do is add some accessories! This is a great idea for indoor gardens – particularly as a beautiful centrepiece for afternoon tea!
The fairy garden below has a flat stone base and a spooky Baba Yaga figure. A piece of smooth slate or even an old paving slab or stepping stone will work really well for a fairy garden base.
If you have a tree stump you can repurpose this as a fairy garden base, like in the image below.
The fairy garden below proves that you really can use anything as a base, even things you probably already have in your home – this one features an oval ceramic dish. There’s no dirt used in the fairy garden as the plants have been potted separately and placed on the fairy garden base. This is a great way to create a super simple fairy garden.
If you have a seashell in your garden, you could transform this into a fairy garden too.
If you want something fancy for a fairy garden base then try a mini greenhouse, these make beautiful, eye catching fairy garden containers.
Fairy gardens also look lovely in metal or terracotta bases. This fairy garden combines a brass-style metal with a rustic woven top.
I bought the below fairy garden kit from Etsy and it featured a small slice of wood as the base, my daughter had great fun putting it together.
