Organic gardener growing food and flowers, lovin' pollinators and birds.

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.




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Make Your Own Broken Clay Pot Fairy Garden

Amber Robinson, creator of the broken clay pot fairy garden, showed me how to make my own creation. Here are the steps from her October workshop:

Step 1.
Step 1: Lay the clay pot on its side and using a hammer, tap with medium strength along the side. Caution: if you tap too hard, you may break off more then you want.

Step 2
Step 2: Save the pieces that were removed. Use duct tape to reinforce any cracks that may appear on the inside of the clay pot for added stability.

Step 3
Step 3: Fill the pot with soil. Use one of the broken clay shards and push it into the middle of the pot. Be firm.

Step 4
Step 4: Add another clay piece if desired. Make sure the soil is firmly packed into place.

Step 5
Step 5: Using small broken pieces of clay (you may need to break up more with the hammer), push the shard horizontally into the pot to form the first step. Pack down dirt on top of the step to secure it. Then repeat with remaining clay shards.

Step 6
Step 6: Plant desired plants in your pot. (Robinson advised using plants that are often used in terrariums.) Moss (real or fake) can be used to cover up all exposed portions of the soil. (Rocks can be used for this purpose, too.)

Step 7
Step 7: Add fairy garden figurines! I added mushrooms, birdhouses and a small fairy to mine. Let your imagination decide how yours will look!
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Floral Friday: The Last Hurrah

Even though it is November, the front garden still has flowers blooming. The Global Warming mums are doing a great job of keeping color in the garden (I'm up to three varieties in the garden now, but my favorite is Autumn Moon). A delphinium (that still needs a permanent home) is reblooming, as well as one of my yellow roses.

Tonight, in the dark, I went outside to cut flowers to bring indoors. Tonight might be our first frost of the season (which is late this year). I wanted to bring in some of the color before it disappears.

Click to enlarge.

Do you have anything blooming in your garden now?
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