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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Make wishes come true and spend quality time engaging with your children (or the neighbour's or community's) by building a fairy garden, filled with their dreams. In the process, they learn about gardening and the beauty of nature.

 Fairies are out there and we must make it inviting for them to stay.  At least, that is what children and the young at heart can have fun believing.

Draw a plan on paper with your child's input. Ask your child what shape he or she would like (or simply tell your child the shape if your garden space is limited). Using this shape, map out the sorts of things your fairy garden will contain.

Take a walk in the garden and plot out the area that will make the fairy garden. It should be somewhere child-friendly and less accessible to dogs, puppies and cats who might mess with it. Fence it off with small garden fences if necessary (little blunt wooden picket fences are cute).

Dig over the garden. Do this together with your child, so that the soil is ready for planting and is easy to place the fairy pieces into.

Place a square or circle paver upon which the main feature piece will sit. A terracotta coloured cement paver is ideal. Place a statue on this square or circle, such as a mushroom, fairy, gnome, animal or other feature item that the child has chosen.

Mark out a larger outer fairy circle which surrounds this feature piece. Plant a circle of flowers chosen by the child around the inner circle. Edge this outer circle with upright border blocks (the wavy ones are the most elegant).

 Make little fairy circles next to the large circle. Use river stones, pebbles etc. Place plants inside these circles, or little trinkets chosen by the child. You could also make other shapes with the pebbles, such as cat faces, dogs, triangles, diamonds etc.; imagination is the only limit.

 Add extra fairy pieces. A fairy table and chairs can be made from various sizes of pavers. Purchase a small child's tea-set or go to thrift stores and pick up small china coffee cups and saucers and place on the table for the fairies to have tea.

 Follow your child's imagination to include other items in the garden. Listen to their ideas and try to adapt to them with items on hand.

 Remind your child / children to keep the flowers watered regularly. While watering, they can check for fairies. Encourage them to leave little gifts for the fairies (small pieces of fruit, seeds, whatever they like). This will ease the transition from stubborn disinterest in gardening to enjoying it!

 Have a special tea party to open the fairie garden. Invite other family members, friends and neighbours or teddy bear friends over to marvel at the little garden and to provide the child with encouragement to tend to it.

Fun things for a fairy garden can be found in garden stores / thrift stores/ recycled area at your local rubbish tip, garage sales, flea markets.

Ideas include: shiny glass pebbles, river pebbles, pavers, miniature statues, solar lights, terracotta worms, wooden insects, wooden flowers, candle light holders, fairy lights (with adult supervision only), and so on.

Thrift stores etc can be a source of extra features such as: beads, foil, glittery pieces, tiny animal toys, little miniature fairies, wooden pieces, small wooden fences etc. Let your imagination run wild; anything that might suit a fairy!

Flowers should be colorful and easy to grow. Buy some as seeds and some as seedlings, so that children can see the seeds grow but can also see real flowers from the start. I remember as a child my beautiful Grandma helped make a rainbow garden for the Fairies - we planted colours of the rainbow and made a rainbow shape with vegetables. http://www.spiralgarden.com.au/ sell wonderful seed packs, just perfect for fairy gardens.

If you are able to string things up over the garden, the children can make art pieces using foil, CDs and other shiny objects. If near a vegetable garden or fruit trees, the glinting objects will help to discourage birds from landing to ravage the produce. Make bird feeders - coat pine-cones with peanut butter and roll in millet, tie with yarn from trees.

Lately some stores are stocking little statues with in-built solar powered lights. These are a delight to children after dark when they can walk out and see a little glow that attracts moths - and fairies!

Use fairy books borrowed from the library to give you more inspiration - children will enjoy looking at the different ideas.

 For boys who think fairies are not their idea of fun, change to elves, pixies, gnomes etc.; or explain that there are boy fairies too and they used to look after the dinosaurs...

Be careful the items used are age-suitable - no small pieces where children under 3 or puppies can gain access.

If you use potting soil, keep children away from the bag to avoid possible breathing in of Legionella bacteria found in some potting mixes. Do not breathe in over the bag, wear gloves when handling and only use potting soil outdoors in open spaces.

Make sure items left outside are weather-resistant and for Fairies that live in countries that snow, you will have to help the little gnomes pack up their winter homes. Any lights used should be guaranteed outdoors safe.

If you use any electricity, make sure it is outdoor use compatible and that all exposed wires etc cannot be reached or pulled by small children and pets. Always wash hands well after gardening.

Enjoy your Fairy garden, perhaps was grown by Pixies and cared for by the Gnomes, the little Fairy folk who use them for their homes...