Broken Clay Pot Fairy Garden Has Local Origin

A hammer and broken clay pieces have surprising uses in fairy gardens.

NORTHFORD, Conn. - Back in 2012, social media exploded with an image of a broken pot transformed into a fairy garden.

A quick creation by Natureworks employee Amber Robinson was shared on the Internet by her boss, Nancy DuBrule.

Organic Gardening magazine shared Robinson's photo on Facebook.

"She [DuBrule] had this broken pot and said to do something with it. When we first started doing fairy gardens, we were reusing all these broken things," said Robinson. (An old radio flyer red wagon was also converted into a fairy garden.)

"I made it in 15 minutes. We were getting ready to close. The next morning she took a photo of it and pinned it and it went viral from there," Robinson said.

Because the original image was a snapshot and not watermarked, only dedicated followers of Natureworks knew the source of the creation.

"Diane [St. John, store manager] found it on Facebook," said Robinson. Organic Gardening magazine had shared the image on Dec. 20, 2012, where it reached 11,868 likes, 900 comments and 11,594 shares. What followed was an explosion of copycat broken clay pot gardens, all inspired from Robinson's original.

St. John was surprised by the popularity.

"It was so amazing - it was on several Facebook pages (with no credit) and we would occasionally comment on them and say it was done by Amber, but then gave up, " said St. John. "It was just nice so many people liked it!"

Robinson shows how to make a
fairy garden out of broken clay pot.

"It somehow got linked back to Pinterest," said Robinson, where it snowballed in popularity. "One of my friends from Vermont even posted it and said she would make one, too," without knowing Robinson was the original creator.

Natureworks recently held a workshop to teach customers how to build their own broken clay pot fairy garden, led by Robinson. In the hour-long class, participants received a clay pot, two plants, soil and rocks to create their own creation.

"The hardest part is breaking the pot," said Robinson. After that, the design of the miniature garden comes together.

Ready to make your own? Here are the steps Amber taught her class to make their own clay pot creation.