Bring a little magic into your garden

We garden for different reasons. Some of us garden to produce food; some garden to benefit wildlife; and some garden to add color and beauty to their landscape. These are all rewarding motives to spend time in the garden, but I have found another delightful reason: fairy gardening.

For centuries people have been enchanted by the thought of fairies living in gardens scattering mischief and magic. Have you ever noticed a tiny little seedling in an unexpected place - that's the magic; or a pot tipped over - that's the mischief. While this evidence may not be enough to convince you fairies are real, adding fairy gardens to your landscape is a tradition of encouraging more of the magic and less of the mischief.

Fairy gardens are just miniature gardens decorated with tiny furniture and other treasures to give the appearance of tiny beings living there. They can be planted in small, private areas in the landscape where they will be discovered by chance. Or they can be planted in any space you want to add a bit of charm. Planted in containers, fairy gardens can be moved wherever the mood strikes.

Before you build your fairy garden, decide what kind you want to have. A woodland fairy garden consists of natural items like mushrooms, moss, acorns and a door on the trunk of a tree or a stump. Include miniature metal garden tools and a bench. This style is perfect for a shady area.

A fairy garden can also appear near a water feature in your landscape. Water fairies love the sight and sound of water. Along with other fairy-sized décor, build a tiny raft with sticks and tie a mini tire swing near the water's edge. Can't you see the fairies jumping from the swing into the water?

Or build my favorite, the cottage fairy garden with a small cottage, lots of flowers and charming miniature décor.

Fairies love flowers. Annuals that attract fairies include sunflowers, cosmos, heliotrope, nasturtiums, pansies and snapdragons. Fairy-loving perennials include columbine, coneflowers, daisies, foxglove and yarrow. Lavender, rosemary and thyme are some herbs your fairies will appreciate.

Fairy gardens should include a fairy ring - a ring of mushrooms where they gather to dance and celebrate. Decorate a fairy ring with tiny tables with miniature tea sets.

I am always looking for new ways to garden and have jumped head first into fairy gardening. I re-purposed the rock garden beside one of our decks into a cottage fairy garden. I left the dwarf conifers and boxwood hedge for structure and a sense of permanence but changed all the flowering plants - most blooming in shades of purple.

The inspiration for plants came from Baptisia Starlight Prairie Blues. I fell in love with the soft lavender blooms. This perennial will grow to 3-foot tall and wide, and its foliage is attractive all summer long. Its upright arching habit will provide shade for a family of fairies underneath. Baptisias bring butterflies into the fairy garden because they are hosts to butterfly larvae.

I chose Geranium Rozanne to trail across the floor under the Baptisia. Rozanne grows 18 inches tall and spreads up to 36 inches wide. Its nonstop blooms from late spring until fall frost will provide lots of lovely violet-blue petals for fairy dresses.

Annuals will provide color all summer long. I planted Brachycome with its tiny, fairy-sized, daisylike flowers and Nemesia Aromatica Deep Blue. Alyssum Clear Crystal Lavender and Heliotrope Fragrant Delight not only offer purple flowers but fragrance too.

Although my rock garden was small in rock garden standards, it offers plenty of room for several fairy communities. Decorating with miniature furniture and garden décor is the fun part. I used metal arbors, benches, chairs and accessories in one area; resin rock walls, benches and urns in another. Small concrete mushrooms form the fairy ring where they meet to party, and small birdhouses painted in soft shades of pink and lavender serve as fairy housing.

If you want to learn more about fairy gardening, visit the Fairy Garden Festival at The Planter's Palette on Saturday, May 29 through Sunday, June 6. Fairy garden displays will delight and inspire you to build your own fairy garden. Classes and workshops will teach you how.

Make a hypertufa trough perfect for holding a fairy garden on Saturday, May 29, or Tuesday, June 1. Build fairy garden furniture from natural materials on Sunday, June 6. Learn which plants work well in and the many ways to decorate a fairy garden on Sunday, May 30, and Thursday, June 3, respectively. Bring your daughter to a tea party on Saturday, June 5. Some classes are free; some have a fee. More information about all events can be found at planterspalette.com or by calling (630) 293-1040, ext. 2.

You don't have to believe in fairies to build a fairy garden on your patio or in your landscape, but it will be more fun if you do. Join the fairy frenzy!

• Diana Stoll is a horticulturist and the retail manager at The Planter's Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield, IL 60190. Visit the website at planterspalette.com or call (630) 293-1040.