Spook up your garden

Little children absolutely love halloween so October presents the perfect opportunity to get them outside by inviting them to help spook up the garden. The nights are getting longer and colder but all the more reason to get them active and enjoying the fresh air while they can.

You don't have to wait for All Hallows' Eve to start decorating. The creativity and fun can last for several weeks and can be educational for children who haven't done any gardening before. A halloween-themed garden could be the perfect introduction to the magic of growing a fairy garden or a chance to reimagine your fairy garden with a completely new feel.

Foraging is a great start

Autumn gives us so many gifts and this is a great time of year for foraging in parks and woodland areas. Leaves, cones and conkers lie on the ground to easily be collected. It's important to teach children not to pluck wild flowers and disturb living things but that at this time of year many interesting natural things can be found.

These foraged items can really add to a fairy garden. They will last for quite a while and can be used in many ways. We put cones into our crate gardens all year round for that magical natural component.

Spooky miniatures

We have a number of fantastic miniatures in our Halloween collection from the slightly spooky to the out-right scary. Some miniatures from other themed gardens can be repurposed to tell a ghoulish story, for example an ordinary black cat becomes a witches cat and a scarecrow is a little more scary when there's something sinister going on.

Just adding the four items from our Halloween set to an already made fairy garden and rearranging the scenics can turn an ordinary mini-garden into a nightmare scene. We added the set to this wizard's garden in a hanging basket for a simple but effective garden feature that visitors love.

Growing plants for Autumn and Winter

As you can see in our hanging basket, real plants work brilliantly in fairy gardens and whether you have a grassy or paved garden, fairy gardens are an excellent opportunity to teach children about caring for plants and growing vegetables.

You may think that the Summer is over and the season for gardening is also gone but nothing could be less true.

Many plants such as Forget me nots. Sweet William, Wall flowers can be planted now which will give a glorious display in the Spring and Summer. However there are some plants which will give you an instant splash of colour Autuum  and early Winter. We would recommend Pansies and their smaller cousins Viola, which are easy to grow and need little maintenance. Another great flowering  plant for this time of the year is Cyclamen, which will tolerate frost up to -4 C. So no excuses get planting

Fairy homes

Lots of our houses are a lovely fit for both Halloween and Autumn. We have two different sizes of Pumpkin house, one that fits into a tiny plant pot and can easily be added to your existing plants, and a standard size fairy house that fits large pots and larger fairy gardens.

Some houses and cottages work in a wide variety of different scenes but can be coopted for our Halloween gardens with some scenics, some decorations and spooky miniatures. Encourage your children's creativity by letting them decide how a halloween scene should look.

Vegetable carving

Another idea is to make your own fairy home especially for the season. It can be tricky but well worth it. This idea involves using a knife so requires a responsible adult. Inspired by the tradition of pumpkin carving, we created a spooky home for our fairy.

It doesn't have to be a pumpkin, just something you can carve. Begin by slicing off the top to create the lid. Then scoop out the insides. We then cut out a window and two slits for the cracks in the door. We then placed our lit candle inside to create a home with a flickering light.

Use your imagination and you can carve other interesting things. Maybe you can create an entirely different Halloween garden. If you're proud of what you've made send us your pictures and we'll include them in our gallery.