There are magical fairies hiding in Austin.
Your best chance of spotting them is in a Hyde Park garden filled with ceramic mushrooms, heart-shaped stones, gold-dusted pine cones and cozy wooden nooks.
At least, that's what the kids at AHB Community School say.
AHB is a private school with about 90 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. You can find the kids' two fairy gardens by the fence around their playground and in the parking lot near 40th St. and Speedway.
A tree is reborn for fairies
The story of the gardens starts with a beloved tree by the school’s parking lot. The students used to climb the tree, but after part of it collapsed, the city approved its removal.
“It was a place our kids used to play inside of as one last play before we got into our cars,” says Anne Rowes, an AHB parent and the school’s facilities coordinator. “To just let that go didn't seem right.”
AHB parents helped transform what was left of the tree into a fairy haven, turning the stump into the base for a miniature village in the fall of 2022. The garden eventually expanded to its second, larger location by the playground at the start of 2023.
Parent Navassa Hilbertz led the project. A big part of her fairy design philosophy is using natural, recycled materials.
“We have, for instance, a fairy shower that's made out of a dried seed pod,” she says. “Almost everything that is used in the garden is made from repurposed materials, and there's something just really fun [about] finding little things and figuring out a way to put them together.”
She gets a lot of stuff from Austin Creative Reuse, and the school also encourages families to bring their own knickknacks.
The closer you look at the gardens, the more surprises you find.
Yes, you see the traditional flowers, butterflies and mossy pebbles. But there are also lots of bottle corks. Empty thread spools. Figurines with missing arms. Little things that might have seen better days, way back when — but they’ve been given a second life as a fairy offering.
Rowes, the facilities coordinator, picks up a small cup that has been turned into a vase for a budding plant.
“This was my mom's teacup. She broke the handle, was getting [it] ready for the garbage, but I brought it in because I love this kind of magical take,” she says. “We can find beauty in everything. This will not stay forever, but for now it is part of our garden and our whimsy.”
A lesson in impermanence
The fairy gardens are always changing. A few times a year, AHB organizes big decorating days, but the gardens are open to all sorts of interference — mystical or otherwise.
Students get free rein to add things or move them around, and the school incorporates the gardens into lessons. When the students learned about ancient Egypt, for example, they created a miniature Nile for the fairies.
“I just really like how the fairy garden is open to everybody, and you can just mess around with it,” says Ellie, an 8-year-old AHB student. “You can reach through the gate and grab something to use during your recess and just put it back later.”
What do the fairies think?
After all this time and effort, there’s one big question: Just how successful have the gardens been at attracting fairies?
“I would say extremely,” Hilbertz, the parent in charge of the gardens, says. “Every time you come back, things have been moved around, rearranged.”
KUT didn’t witness any fairies. But the kids say that’s all a part of their magic.
“I think the fairies are skittish. They think we're huge,” says Elaine, a 7-year-old student. “They run away when we come.”
When humans aren’t looking, the fairies are up to a lot. On hot days, Ellie says, they turn the bigger garden's fountain into “a little water park.”
But it’s not all fun and games in fairy world. The kids also made room for a hospital, a cemetery and even a prison.
“Sometimes they're naughty, like dropping ink on people's heads,” Ellie says. “So when they're naughty, they can get put in jail.”
When the fairies aren’t relaxing in AHB’s gardens or making mischief, the students say they stay at other magical places in Austin.
“I think they’re visiting other fairy gardens and helping other people make them,” Elaine says. “I think they really like to go in trees to see everything because you won't see a lot when you're so tiny.”
There's only one surefire way to keep Austin's fairy culture alive — building more gardens. You don’t need a whole lot to get started. Just some corks, spools, a bit of time and imagination.
Quick, before the fairies drop ink on your head!
