When it comes to assembling the ideal miniature garden, personalization is a key aspect valued by many retail customers. After all, as tastes differ from person to person, design sensibilities and preferred materials vary as well.
To address this, Country Farm & Home, a retailer in Mifflinburg, Pa., is putting the process directly in the hands of its customers.
For some time, the business has been hosting make-and-take classes in which guests can learn what goes into creating a fairy garden and use that knowledge to build a fairy garden for their home that fits their own personal style. These workshops cater to the whole family, with the specific classes for children being the most popular, according to Assistant Manager Chastidy Shuck.
To add to the success of the workshops, Country Farm & Home revamped the merchandising of its fairy garden department about four months ago to give shoppers more control and customization over what they buy and take home.
Shuck says fairy garden shoppers at her store can build a mini-garden right there in the store by choosing their soil, miniatures, plants and accessories. Customers can also bring in containers from home to use.
“We have a make-your-own fairy garden station, where we have a little work area,” Shuck says. “We have soil right there, we have the containers there and it’s right in the corner where all of our fairy garden merchandise is. So, (customers) can just make it as they go and they keep track of all their tags from whatever they decide to put in it.
“Then they come up and we charge 25 cents per scoop for soil and we have different moss, stones and things in smaller bags, so they can make it however they want to,” she adds.
Although fairy gardening jumped in popularity years ago, Shuck says that she’s seen little decline in demand for products of the genre.
“It’s amazing to me how popular they still are,” Shuck says of fairy garden products. “I kind of felt like it was going to be one of those things that came, was really popular, and wasn’t going to last, but it’s really lasted.”
The in-store fairy garden station hasn’t taken off with as much popularity as the make-and-take classes, but Shuck says the interactive merchandising display has become a reliable companion piece and follow-up to the workshops. She says many customers who are introduced to fairy gardening through the classes tend to take an interest and build additional mini gardens at the station on their own.
“I think the people who have used [the station] have been, I think, the people who’ve come to the classes and kind of seen it in action, then they’ve come back with other containers,” Shuck says. “Some have brought their own containers in and some have bought them in-store. I feel like, once they see it in action, they’re like ‘Oh, I have this container at home and I’m going to bring it in.’”
Shuck says the element of personalization makes the fairy garden experience much more deep and satisfying for customers.
“If you just give (people) a few basics, you can really turn it into exactly what you want it to be and everyone’s style is so different and there’s such a huge variety in fairy garden merchandise, that you really can make it your own easily.”
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