By Susan O’Conner

She stooped down and looked inside the broken flowerpot covered in sticks and bark. “But where are the fairies?” she asked in a slightly upset but definitely disgusted voice.  The expression on her face matched the tone of her voice.  We had spent the morning collecting bark, rocks, pinecones, sticks, and moss from the yard for our fairy house. She patiently, in a very four- year-old way, let me apply the hot glue while she held the bark and sticks as they cooled.  A pinecone was a nice finishing touch for the roof where it came to a point.  I found a large saucer that once held a flower pot, long ago broken. Filling it with dirt was messy fun.  She gently placed the just completed house in the soil. The jagged hole in the flowerpot was the doorway for the fairies to use. We hot glued small pebbles around the sharp edge so the fairies wouldn’t hurt themselves on it.  Two tiny pinecones were placed on either side of the doorway to be pretend lights. Fairies are afraid of the dark.  Moss dug from the cracks in the driveway made the lawn.  She decided fairies liked flowers and wanted some for the project.  I remembered I had planted a St. Patrick’s Day shamrock under some boxwoods last April. The shamrock’s leaves showed signs of spider mites, but it was covered in delicate, white, trumpet-shaped flowers.  She was delighted, spider mites and all. Now it was time to put the completed project in an interior corner of a back-patio bed filled with boxwood.  

Naptime, then milk, vanilla wafers, and apple slices.  Time to jump up, go outside and check for fairies.  Oh my, no fairy sightings and one very disappointed little blue eyed babe.  Ok, maybe fairies are afraid of people, just like the birds, butterflies, and squirrels we’ve spent so many hours trying to catch.  That idea seemed to make sense to that young brain. The rest of the afternoon was spent decorating the patio with sidewalk chalk interspersed with moments of dancing, spinning, swinging and singing.  We are sure the fairies will think all of this is just too beautiful. Surely some small spite will find our garden fairy home to be practically perfect in every way.

To make a fairy garden you will need a broken flower pot of any size with a larger saucer, and a hot glue gun. Collect sticks, bark and other interesting yard trash. A small child adds a magical perspective.

Susan O’Conner, an Intern in the 2016 Master Gardener Class, lives in Montgomery.  For more information on becoming a master gardener, visit www.capcitymga.org or email capcitymga@gmail.com.