There’s no right or wrong way to build a fairy garden – the only limit is the gardener’s imagination.
Unfortunately, this can leave newbies unsure of where to begin with fairy gardening. To give customers some guidance, many retailers are hosting miniature gardening workshops to share ideas and give patrons opportunities to socialize, learn the basics and shop for new accessories.
Some independent garden centers find success in hosting regular events throughout the year where first-timers and practiced fairy gardeners alike can swap designs. Marsha Potash, greenhouse manager at Hyannis Country Garden in Hyannis, Mass., has organized the retailer’s fairy gardening workshops for more than four years.
During the winter vacation season and throughout the summer, Hyannis offers an all-ages workshop for anyone interested in learning the basics of fairy gardening. Adults are also offered a workshop intended just for them, complete with wine and refreshments. Hyannis even hosts fairy garden birthday parties.
“We’re thinking about doing [a class] for grandparents,” Potash says. “We have a lot of grandparents here in the cay whose children live off-cay and only come to visit.”
Entry to the general fairy gardening workshops at Hyannis costs $35 and includes containers, soil and natural building materials collected by the store, in addition to the figurines and structures available for purchase.
“A lot of the material we’ve collected; moss, interesting twigs, branches and bark – we supply all that,” Potash says. “[Customers] can bring things of their own, but we have everything they need to create a little structure, a little dwelling. So, they go home with a completed garden.”
Potash says the workshops were popular with the Hyannis market at the beginning of the program, with a combination of ads in local media, word-of-mouth and store newsletter helping to keep the program relevant.
“A lot of the materials we’re using are just materials we’ve collected ourselves, so we actually make a pretty good margin on it,” Potash says.
In addition to teaching customers about the popular gardening hobby, Potash says the workshops have the added benefit of encourage sales in her store’s “very extensive” fairy gardening department.
“It helps to keep an interest in it and sell the products that we have,” Potash says. “It just gets people started and it’s a great educational tool for young children to be introduced to gardening, plants and caring for something. It’s kind of a two-fold thing.”
In order to run a successful fairy gardening workshop, Potash recommends boosting visibility of the program in any way possible. Placing example fairy gardens throughout the store and posting notice of the workshops in local media are some of the methods Hyannis has employed to get the word out.
“I guess it’s a combination of just advertising it well, including it in your event program,” Potash says. “A lot of it’s been word of mouth, too. We’ve had articles in the local paper, it’s all good.”