Create a Faerie Garden with Your Kids

The faeries are there but they won't stay unless you make it inviting. Young children between the ages of 3 and 8 can have fun making and caring for a faerie garden. Help make their wishes come true and spend quality time engaging with your children (or the neighbour's or community's) by building a faerie garden together, filled with the stuff of their dreams. In the process, they learn about gardening and the beauty of nature, as well as forming concepts about turning imagination into something artistic and creative.

Steps

1. Draw a plan on paper with your child's input. Ask him or her what shape he or she would like (or simply provide a pre-decided shape if your garden space is limited). Using this shape, map out the sorts of things your faerie garden will contain. See ideas under "Tips".
2. In the garden, plan out the plot that will make the faerie 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 - available from hardware or dollar stores).
3. Together with your child, dig over the garden so that the soil is ready for planting and is easy to manipulate when you place the faerie pieces in it. Fertilize if necessary.
4. 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/circle, such as a mushroom, faerie, animal or other feature item that the child has chosen.
5. Mark out a larger outer faerie 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 nicest).
6. Next to the large circle, make little faerie circles using river stones, pebbles etc. Place plants inside these circles, or little trinkets chosen by the child. You could also make other shapes such as cat faces, dogs, triangles, diamonds etc from the pebbles; imagination is the only limit.
7. Add extra faerie pieces. A faerie table and chairs can be made from various sizes of pavers. Purchase a small child's tea-set from a dollar store and place on the table for the faeries to have tea.
8. 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.
9. Remind your child to keep the flowers watered regularly. While watering, they can check for faeries. Encourage them to leave little gifts for the faeries (small pieces of fruit, seeds, whatever they like). This will ease the transition from stubborn disinterest in gardening to enjoying it!
10. Have a special tea party to open the faerie garden. Invite other family members, friends and neighbors over to marvel at the little garden and to provide the child with encouragement for it.
    

Tips

• Fun things for a faerie garden can be found in garden stores. Ideas include: shiny glass pebbles, river pebbles, pavers, miniature statues, solar lights, terracotta worms, wooden insects, wooden flowers, candle light holders, faerie lights (with adult supervision only), and so on.
• Dollar stores can be a source of extra features such as: beads, foil, glittery pieces, tiny animal toys, little miniature faeries, wooden pieces etc. Have fun with your imagination.
• 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.
• 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.
• Little statues with in-built solar powered lights are fantastic. These are a delight to children after dark when they can walk out and see a little glow that attracts moths - and faeries!
• Use faerie books borrowed from the library to give you more inspiration - children will enjoy looking at the different ideas.
• For boys who think faeries are not their idea of fun, change to elves, pixies, gnomes etc.; or explain that there are boy faeries too and they used to look after the dinosaurs...
  

Advisories

• 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 germs found in some potting mixes. Also take care of your own respiratory health.
  
• Make sure items left out are weather-resistant.
• Place items in garage for over-wintering or they may crack, rust etc.
• 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.
  

Things You'll Need

• Terracotta pavers
• Terracotta borders
• Faerie stuff
  

Making Lawn Clipping Tea

Lawn clipping tea is a simple and fabulous plant tonic. It is easy to make and apply.


Steps

1. Place the bucket of cut grass into the netting bag.
2. Hang the bag in a bucket of water. Make sure that the bucket is sitting somewhere steady and cannot be knocked by animals or people.
   
3. Leave it there for one to two weeks. The nutrients will leach from the cut grass into the water.
4. Use. Pour small amounts over your garden and pot plants. It acts as a tonic and revitalizes plants, as well as strengthening them. It will help them to grow stronger and gain disease-resistant qualities.

Precautions

• This preparation does get a little smelly. Just block your nose and use it!
  

Materials

• One bucket of freshly cut grass
• Netting bag (the ones used for onions, oranges etc.), large
• Bucket or other large container

Photo courtesy of R.F.M. LL's Flickr Photostream.

Preventing Ponds Turning Green in Warmer Weather

Green ponds are commonplace during warmer months, as algae takes over a pond and thrives. The algae not only spoils the appearance of the pond (slimy and gunky) but also starves other plants and aquatic life out. Keeping a pond from changing to green can be solved without chemicals by relying on a plant solution.


Steps

1. Plant a water lily. The water lily's floating leaves are large and keep the water shaded. This discourages algal growth.
2. Look for other oxygenating plants for your pond. Ask your local nursery for ideas. When you use pond plants that create shade, absorb minerals and carbon dioxide, these plants make the environment unpleasant for algae.
3. Keep the pond clean. As well as removing pond weed regularly, it is also important to remove dead and decaying foliage and aquatic life.

Tips

• Don't leave fish food to build up; it provides too many algae-tasty nutrients.

Materials

• Water lily or similar suitable plant

Photo courtesy of Dawnzy 58's Flickr Photostream.

Controlling Vigorous Pond Weed

Pond weed that takes over a pond can sap the life force from it and prevent the fish from thriving and even suffocate them, as well as starving out other plants. It is a really good idea to keep it under control regularly during growing season, to ensure that the pond remains very healthy. This article provides some suggestions for getting started.



Steps

1. Put on gumboots and some good waterproof outdoor work gloves.
   
2. Drag out a third of the pond weed. You will need to do this every few weeks during growing season.
   
3. Check that you haven't caught any fish in the weed that is been removed. Use a garden knife to break weed that will not pull apart.
4. Leave the pond weed pulled out to one side of the pond on the ground. Let it sit overnight; this gives any small creatures such as water snails and any insects to go back into the pond.
5. Throw the weed into the compost bin the next day.
   
6. Keep an eye on the pond regularly to check for excessive growth.

Materials

• Gumboots
• Waterproof gardening gloves
• Gardening knife

Photo courtesy of Leezie 5's Flickr Photostream.

Ecosourcing

Ecosourcing is about growing native plants using local seeds. When growing locally, the plants produced are much more suited to the narrow local environment and its specific conditions than the same species introduced from elsewhere.

One benefit of ecosourcing is the ability to maintain the widest possible diversity within species, rather than enabling a more generic overlay to take hold within a plant species. Any unique characteristics that belong to local variants of plant life will be maintained when ecosourcing is practised and promoted.

For the garden, there is increased suitability and hardiness of your plants that have been ecosourced. Encourage your local nursery to ecosource by explaining the benefits to your garden and the region you are in. Be aware that even in the same city, areas may vary between hill suburbs, beach suburbs and river flat suburbs, so keep this in mind when ecosourcing your plants.

Projects that concentrate on restoring flora to a region benefit greatly from ecosourcing as a means for bringing a place back to the way it once was.

Taken from my original writing on Ethical Living.

Dealing with Harlequin Bugs

Are Harlequin bugs having their way with your garden? They are a pretty bug but menacing, with damage in store for plants. However, before you reach for those chemical sprays that take no prisoners, think twice...




Steps

1. Avoid chemical sprays. Chemical sprays are indiscriminate and will kill all the predators of this bug. And, you will most likely discover that it survived even though its predators did not.
2. Be proactive. Put on the gardening gloves and start physically removing them. Go out early morning when you can catch them congregating and shake them off the plant onto a sheet of newspaper or plastic below. Pluck of any that hang on and toss them on the pile. Try popping or tipping them into a jar which is partially filled with methylated spirits; this will kill them quickly. Soapy water in a bucket also works well. Beware squashing them - they stink; hence the reason for wearing gloves.
   
3. Be patient. Their predators will eventually succeed but it is a cycle that requires patience. Within about 18 months, the balance should be restored to the garden and the harlequin bugs will be back under control.
4. Keep weeds under control. Healthy plants are more resistant to bug infestations. Give plants a better chance by removing competitors in the form of weeds. And keep all the good plants well watered and fertilised.
   

Tips

• Watch the brassicas. Harlequins like them. They are also partial to radishes and turnips.
• Consider using a garden vacuum as another means for mopping them up.
• Use a garden shovel or funnel to collect the bugs and tip them into the bucket or jar if you are squeamish.
• Soap spray can sometimes work if it contacts the bugs directly on the plant.
  

Materials

• Gardening gloves
• Plastic sheet or newspapers for catching the bugs
  
• Jar partly filled with methylated spirits, or a bucket of soapy water

*Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.