Finding Nature with Fairy Gardens

The little girl found the tiny fruit of a wild strawberry and saw that it would make a nice replica of a sedum in her fairy garden.  The little boy decorated the tiny plants with locust shells

Interaction with nature nurtured their creativity.

Getting kids interested in being outdoors isn’t always easy.  There are so many distractions calling to them from inside….   TV, Wii or DS….

In a 2005 book , “The Last Child in the Woods,” Journalist Richard Louv coined the term, “Nature Deficit Disorder.”   Symptoms of this are increased feelings of stress, lack of concentration, and feelings of not being rooted in the world.

In both intellectual and physical senses, children need to be outside and connected to the natural world.  Exploring outdoors strengthens kid’s connection to the natural world and provides sanctuary for thought and discovery.

But how can parents compete with electronics?  One Dillsburg, PA, family is very successful with this.  Their kids practically live outside in nice weather.  And one of the best ways they’ve found to get their kids engaged with nature is through building and growing fairy gardens. These are tiny gardens or canvases of magic that allow us to imagine other worlds.  Anything goes.  Kittens live in peace with dinosaurs.  Glass beads become gold.

Mom, Grace, recalls that the garden was part of the kid’s daily play through out the entire summer.

“Their playing was a constant moving , rearranging of all the animals and chairs, fountain, filling the tiny bucket with water and dumping into bird bath,” said Grace.

For their first mini garden, they started with a reused metal vessel about 2 inches deep and two square feet.  Some plants and decorations were purchased from a garden center but many of the items for the garden were found.

Creative fun kicked into over drive as the family created fairy houses and a school from found bark, pine cones, pebbles and even pennies.  Moss became the lawn.

“We all began to see the world around us in a slightly different way as we looked for those little things we could scavenge and add to the garden,” said Grace.

The children continued to decorate the garden all summer. One of Grace’s favorite memories is when the kids discovered locust shells and began to use them in the fairy garden.

“The locusts were on the chairs, hanging off the plants or piled into the wheelbarrow,” she said.  “They added found feathers and nuts, and even a black snake skin.”

Found objects can serve as a jumping off point to learning about the creatures that share the earth with your children. Explain that nuts are seeds or why a snake would shed its skin.

Grace, while playing with the kids and offering suggestions, immediately realized the kids enjoyed the freedom to create. Her kids had ownership and control over the garden and this added to the success.  Their fairy garden allowed the kids imaginations run wild while handling and sculpting with the natural world.

“I can’t wait to get it up and going again this spring. They’ve both been checking in the few days we’ve been out so far,” she said,  “It needs to be replanted and reworked. The redo will be the best part.”

All photographs by Laura Mathews