We have been busy making the fairy Sanctuary garden pretty by planting some of the fairies favourite plants in our fairy bed. We thought you would like to see what else is growing here at the Sanctuary and tell you a little bit about fairies and flowers folk law.

Here is the fairy bed we have planted specially to attract fairies.

Snapdragons are fairy favourite as they use them for hats and boots.

The Fairy Bed

Ivy , stock, winter pansy

Ivy is a favourite fairy plant in the garden as it provides so much cover and food for wildlife. It has always been popular with Druids who revered the ivy and used it in their rites.

In the language of flowers ivy means constancy.

Buttercups and daisies

Buttercups, cowslips, sweet rocket

Rannunculus was a boy who lived in the enchanted forests a long time ago. Always dressed in golden yellow from head to foot, he would skip around the forest singing from dawn till dusk.

The forest nymphs turned him into a golden yellow flower and sent him to the meadows thus restoring peace and tranquility to the woodlands.

It is named butter cup because of it’s friendship with the cows who graze in the meadows producing butter and cream. Othe rnames for buttercups are Butter and cheese or bachelors buttons.

As buttercups have a bitter taste and are poisonous they are left alone by the cows and not eaten. They are poisonous to people too so you mustn’t eat them.

What most people do with buttercups is to hold them under someones chin to see if the yellow colour of the flower is reflected there, thus proving if a person loves butter or not. I am sure everyone has tried this at some time.

In the language of flowers buttercup means childishness.

Daisy chains represent the sun, the earth and the never ending circle of life so they should always be joined up into garlands.

Some people used to believe that wearing a daisy chain protected you from being stolen away by fairies.

The game of plucking petals from daisies as you sing he loves me he loves me not is a Victorian game. Girls would pluck the daisies to test if their suitors were true or not.

In the language of flowers the name daisy means innocence and modesty.

The banks of the Fairy Sanctuary are covered with fairy moss. As well as providing cosy soft nests for fairies it is much loved and widely used by birds for nests.

Moss symbolizes maternal love. How fitting for Mother Earth to offer this gift to the birds and  fairies to sleep in.

Here are a few more photos taken around the Fairy sanctuary garden.

Flora

bird table

We provide plenty of places for the birds to feed. Fairies can often appear as birds.

We also attract fairies by leaving offerings of food for them. Bird food, cake, bread and honey are popular choices but we are not sure yet if they like marmite or not. Maybe you know ?

fairy house