Garvan to hold dedication for Fairy Garden feature

Garvan Woodland Gardens will dedicate its new Fairy Garden at 10 a.m. Aug. 11, in addition to celebrating and recognizing the team of dedicated volunteers who have spent the last 21 months designing this amazing space.

The public is welcome to attend and light refreshments will be served in the Garvan Pavilion adjoining the Fairy Garden.

According to http://www.fairygardening.com, a fairy garden is "a miniature garden complete with structures and actual living plants. It is designed to give your green thumb a place to tend year-round and to lure fairies and with them, good luck, to your home. It's a tiny space created and tended with love. The design and components are limited only by your imagination."

Near the Garvan Pavilion, visitors will find the most fantastical woodland fairy garden, made from found objects and plants on the gardens' 210-acre peninsula. The Fairy Village, which debuted as one of the five features for the 2014 Mystic Creatures exhibit, began as a fairy house and fairy playground and has now grown into a magical diminutive fairy world, according to a news release.

The brainchild of operations manager James Scallion and 2014 Volunteer of the Year Jerry Lewis, with support from Chuck Clark and Scooter McKinney, the fairy garden began as a single "sculpture" made from an enormous walnut burl stump recovered from the gardens' grounds.

A crew of about six men worked through the winter of 2014 on the "Devil's Cut Tavern," inspired by ancient Irish "faerie" lore. Using only found objects of wood, sticks, bark, stones, moss, ferns, and even vacated turtle shells, the fairy world began to grow, adding structures reminiscent of the actual Garvan Woodland Gardens to the fairy world.

In fact, the fairies have their own wedding "Chapel of the Fairies" and an amphitheater. Other imaginative fairy structures include a Grand Hotel, a Wing Emporium, a Tooth Fairy house, a Playground and a Lighthouse.

"Whether visitors believe in fairies or not, the Fairy Village at Garvan is an enchanting space representing creativity in craftsmanship and imagination," the release said. Guests are encouraged to contribute to Garvan's fairy tale world by leaving "treasures" in a drop box with the intent that "Garvan fairies" will add these items to the Fairy Village.

As Bob Byers, former GWG associate executive director, wrote in the Topiary Tales Fairy Village story, " ... a fairy's work is never done. If you want to make them really happy, find a little something they can use while they're working and leave it here. It's the best 'thank you' a fairy can get for sharing her magic with us!"

Entertainment on 08/03/2015

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