Construction begins - fairy garden #2

S has been begging to start on our second fairy garden the last few days, but it's been dreary and wet and cold out, so we'd been putting it off.  However, we had a gloriously sunshiny warm day today, so we figured there was no time like the present!

(We also did a heap of gardening, and washed the car, but that's far less interesting.)

For the last few days, I have been painstakingly gluing rocks onto a terracotta pot, to form the fairy grotto for this garden.  I wanted to give it a natural sort of feel, not just a pot stuck in the ground.  I could only do a few at time, carefully balanced and pressed into place so that they wouldn't fall off before the glue was set enough.  This was the end result.

We already had a pot full of dirt/potting mix waiting to begin work, so we dug out a hollow to bury the edge of the grotto pot in, placed the pot in it, put some dirt in for a floor, and used some extra dirt to create some smooth contours as though it was dug from the side of a hill.  The effect was exactly as I had hoped!

Plants went in next.  S chose a small geranium (which will hopefully grow bigger & provide a bit more shade), and we sowed some Alyssum seeds around it.  Love-in-the-Mist went in another spot, and the third little garden bed that looks completely bare, actually has Marigold seeds sown in it.

The path is some blue decorative gravel from Bunnings.  It actually looks more like water because it's blue, but I think we'll keep it as in.  Next time, I might choose a different colour.

There's an immature pinecone as a tree, as well, partway up the slope.  We may decorate it at Christmas time, as the fairies' Christmas tree.

The house also has a doorstep - a lovely triangular piece of red-brown rock that I wanted to use in the first fairy garden, but it just didn't fit.  It's perfect here, though.

Lastly, we went on a moss hunt.  Fortunately in Canberra, moss abounds everywhere.  We have an open grassy area ringed by trees, right behind our house; we call it the "back paddock".  I spotted some big patches of moss there a week or two ago, so we grabbed our hand-spades and a bucket, and went a-hunting.  We actually found several different types of moss, judging by the different colours and textures.  I love the look that it gives having them mixed in together.

 We will be adding more to this garden over time.  I love the mossy look, but it is a little bare - not many places for fairies to hide!  I have some oregano seeds sown in pots, and if I get a few plants out of those, we will probably plant one somewhere in the fairy garden.  What I'd really love is some grandfather's-whiskers to make a sort of curtain for the grotto!

We also plan to get some more clay and make more toadstools.  We had been thinking of more paddlepop stick fencing, but as I look at it now, I think it would be out of place.  When we can get ahold of some champagne cork cages (anyone got any?) I will make a couple of little chairs and a table to go inside the grotto.  We had planned for them to be outside, but we are running out of room!

Anyway, we're pretty pleased with how this looks so far, and apart from my time spent gluing rocks on the pot, it has taken very little time to put together so far!