February Fairy Gardens

Need a winter project while you’re hunkered down, waiting for spring?

Fairy gardens have been popular for years, and I always thought they look adorable. I had several vacation days to burn this month, so last week I invited my two sisters and their children to come and make potted fairy gardens together.

During the summer, Brenda and Joanne both have beautiful flowerbeds and thriving vegetable gardens, and they keep houseplants year round. So I knew they would enjoy this.

We started by filling planters with potting soil. Most fairy garden tutorials will tell you to use shallow planters, but I actually didn’t find too many options of shallow planters for sale. So we used several different sizes.

The plants came from a local greenhouse. I just found the garden/terrarium plants section and picked out a bunch. To plant them, just dig a hole with your fingers and pop them in. Add a little water.

Next, accessorize! We used wooden birdhouses, fences, mushrooms, miniature clothespins, and round slices of wood from Hobby Lobby and butterflies, birds, and other tchotchkes from the family craft stash.

(Tchotchke [CHäCHkə] is one of my favorite new words, it means “trinket” or “knickknack”. It’s derived from Yiddish, just like “schlep” [SHlep], which means “to carry something awkwardly”, another useful new word I learned since I started trying to learn a new word every day.)

Even if you don’t have sisters or friends that enjoy this kind of thing, making a fairy garden by yourself would be a relaxing winter project. Had it been just me, I might have made my little house and fences out of popsicle sticks and bark, etc. But since I wanted a project that we could complete in one afternoon, I went to the craft store instead. It’s not the cheapest way, but this was a special, one-of-a-kind sisters’ day.

I found the preserved green moss at the craft store. I’ve never used it before. It puffed more than I expected, more like bushes than moss. But I think it adds a nice touch.

I hope we can keep the plants alive until summertime and set the planters outside. By fall, I imagine we’ll have to transplant some of the plants as regular houseplants.

But for now, we have a bit of garden magic indoors.