Add some magic to the backyard with a DIY fairy garden

Summer days typically mean spending more time outside, often enjoying the magic of your garden and nature.

A wonderful way you and your family can add extra enchantment to your space is by creating a fairy garden. While kits are available in many stores, making everything from items that you can find at home and outside is part of the fun! Fairies love nature, so invite them into your yard with these simple steps.

Fairy Garden Location

The first step to creating a backyard fairy garden is to choose a location. If you have space in a garden bed or a secluded spot in the yard, start there. You can make small fences with twigs or craft sticks to section off the area and provide a boundary for your fairy garden. A spot that gets a mixture of sun and shade is ideal; not only will it feel magical, but any plants you include in your setup should thrive. If you don’t have space to section off on the ground, choose something portable for your fairy garden. A large bucket, barrel, or even a wheelbarrow can make a great fairy garden location. Fill the container with dirt and then cover it with moss and small pebbles to create a base layer. Feeling a bit more creative? Try using several large planter pots to create a whole fairy village. Situate the pots close to each other and build bridges out of twigs or wire to connect them. You can put a fairy house, plants, and accessories in each one!

Water and Plant Features

To truly create a magical landscape, add lots of miniature plants and a water feature. While a backdrop of human-sized greenery is lovely, the small plants situated around your fairy garden will help give the impression that tiny fairies are gardening there. Many plants are good choices for a fairy garden, so look for any of the following (depending on your particular sun and water resources): low-growing sedums, creeping fig, little-leaved ivies, wire vine, tiny ajuga, violas, and small succulents. Alongside your plants, consider having a water feature for your fairies. You can create the illusion of water by using blue, green, gray, and clear-colored marbles and stones set in a depression. Line the depression with light-colored bark first to help the color stand out. If you’d like a real water feature, take a small saucer and fill it several times a week to act as a pond.

Fairy Home Materials

For a rustic fairy home, take a walk through your backyard or local park and keep a lookout for flat pieces of bark and a variety of twigs and moss. By attaching craft sticks to the flat base, then covering them with the natural elements you collected, your fairy house will look just like the fairies built it themselves. Try to find pieces of pinecones to use as the roof. If you’re looking for something less traditional, try repurposing an old metal watering can for the fairy’s home. Paint parts of the outside to look like a door and windows, or even cut out holes! You can also get creative and use any pot/cup/jar that you have on hand. Glue pebbles, moss, twigs, dirt, and other natural elements to the outside and cut or draw holes for doors and windows. After you’ve made your fairy’s home, arrange some pebbles and twigs around the base so that it blends in with the ground and looks well-situated.

DIY Accessories

The finishing touches for your fairy garden are the most magical – make it look like fairies really live and play here! You can make small furniture from twigs and bark, or simply arrange rocks to look like a seating area. Pebble pathways and stepping stones are great if you’d like to construct a path for your fairies to visit other homes nearby. Make little toadstools out of air-dry clay or a brightly-colored fence using craft sticks for some added color! Kids will love making this fairy swing and rope ladder to help their fairy friends have fun in their new home.

After you’ve made a fairy garden in your backyard, make sure to tend to it thoughtfully – the fairies will enjoy having such a magical place to live!