I\u2019m horrible at remembering specific dates so I\u2019m guessing this particular garage sale was about four years ago. The downside of being artistic is my tendency to collect too many items that\u00a0I have to force myself to purge every so often with a yard sale.<\/p>\n
Right away, I spotted a woman who probably has the same issues as myself. She started getting very excited at all the miniature architect and figurines I was pretty much giving away. I didn\u2019t even have to ask before her and her husband where explaining to me their fairy garden hobby. Several months ago, they turned a small section of their yard into a tiny fairy land and ever since, they\u2019ve expanded their fairy world by hunting for pieces at yard sales, consignment shops or flea markets. Their hobby had even turned into meeting other like-minded folks and getting together for tea parties or cook-outs so everyone gets to enjoy different visions of a fairy\u2019s lair.<\/p>\n
At that very moment, it seemed a little different the way they were describing it. Different, but also intriguing. I flashed back to a large glass container that rested on a white wrought iron stand inside my grandmother\u2019s sitting room. As a child, every time I came to her home, I had to gaze at the miniature garden growing inside that glass jug to see if the fern was now touching the top and if the pebble stepping stones were still visible from the violets. Her creativity and ingenuity fascinated my child\u2019s mind. That\u2019s when I realized fairy gardens are probably just as transfixing as the still popular terrariums were for me back then.<\/p>\n
Although I\u2019m sure we aren\u2019t the first generation to think of creating these unique gardens, it seemed not long after that garage sale that I began to notice fairy gardens popping up everywhere. But these fairy gardens weren\u2019t like my grandmother\u2019s terrarium. Some of them looked like something out of Peter Jackson\u2019s Lord of the Rings. The detail and authenticity these artistic gardeners achieved gave me a new appreciation for the tabletop-sized garden.<\/p>\n
One of the most ingenious ideas about these gardens is that someone thought to create them using broken terracotta pots, recycled items and sustainable natural products. The insight to take a broken container and create a tiered dish garden using soil, moss and the broken scrap terracotta pieces as a staircase makes me think I wasn\u2019t saving enough items. I can’t tell you how many times I stood above the garbage can, pissed off because my beautiful container was broken and there was nothing else that could be done with it besides throw it in the trash. For one quick instance before tossing, I would believe these ceramic pieces still had value and yet, I would let go every time. Apparently, I should have held on and thought much longer. Props to the people that discovered this.<\/p>\n
With that said, I also realize people are taking perfectly good terracotta or ceramic containers and purposely smashing the sides. Sure. Smashing a perfectly good container that you just paid ten dollars for can be exhilarating. But wouldn’t it be more gratifying to re-purpose something that costs you nothing? Besides getting a big enough hole with enough usable pieces using a hammer is not an exactly easy. So if anyone has figured that out, feel free to email me the secret.<\/p>\n
Besides some of these miniature gardens worthy of their own local gallery showing, it\u2019s the mixture of creativity I love. The ability to re-purpose landfill bound material and bring\u00a0different\u00a0objects together to create a piece of art with nature is just one of the reasons\u00a0I enjoy being involved with horticulture. We should all\u00a0strive to be globally responsible when appealing to our visual needs.\u00a0 While providing our bodies with nourishment is first and foremost, the visual power plants and nature have on us has been proven to influence our health, our happiness and our overall productivity. Maybe adding fairy gardens to the workplace is more than an aesthetic decision?<\/p>\n
When her husband wasn\u2019t around, the woman from the garage sale confessed to me she had learned a year ago that she wouldn\u2019t be able to bear any children. Extremely depressed and thinking about divorce, she started creating this fairy land in her backyard. This simple hobby brought her and her husband back together and rejuvenated\u00a0her happiness. That was all the\u00a0real life proof I needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m horrible at remembering specific dates so I\u2019m guessing this particular garage sale was about four years ago. The downside of being artistic is my tendency to collect too many items that\u00a0I have to force myself to purge every so often with a yard sale. Right away, I spotted a woman who probably has the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":7533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[623,535],"class_list":["post-7525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-residential","tag-terracotta","tag-terrariums"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n