My Fairy Garden - Magical Cottage

The My Fairy Garden Cottage Playset receives a 3/5 stars. The product itself contains two levels for planting, a flying fairy, table and chairs, watering can, gardening tools, soil, seeds, and cottage. I must note, after planting there was little-to-no playing with the fairy and fairy cottage. In theory I thought this would be fun, but because the product is full of soil and water, I kept it out of reach from my 4 and 2 year olds. Of course I understand a planter has water and soil, I failed to anticipate the potential mess of such a product for regular play with little ones.When we opened the package, my 4 year old daughter was extremely excited to start planting. She and I have planted gardens outside in the past and I purchased this as a fun gift for us to enjoy together. Upon opening, she was a bit frustrated at the amount of time the compressed soil took to decompress with water. The instructions state to place the hard soil discs in water for 30 minutes to expand. For a 4 year old waiting, this seemed to take forever (but is not a primary reason for a lower rating in my review).Next, we mixed the soil and started planting. The seeds come in one assorted pouch. There seemed to be a fair amount of seeds, but there could have been more. I would have also liked to know if any of these were special flowering seeds to place them nicely. We spred the soil (there could have been a bit more) and planted and watered. I was overly surprised with how quickly all of the plants bloomed, but it all seemed like clover...nothing special grew in ours.The cottage planter itself is cute, but could function better. The picture shows a girl pouring water into a plastic mushroom on the box. I would not recommend this as it will only water a small area. I would have liked a base at the bottom and for holes to be drilled for excess water to drain from the soil as most planters typically contain. Because these holes didn't exist we constantly have a mold problem (and we're experienced planters). Because of the mold, it was extremely hard to control watering levels. The plants have since mostly died. I like that we can use this again with our own seeds, but this planter fell below expectations. I would not purchase this again. Thank you for reading and rating!

This was a Christmas gift for my 3yo daughter, and was initially a major hit! However, I do feel a need to update my original review now that it has been a few months.First, the pros:1. Playset is as advertised, and super-cute. My (now) 4-year-old loves it, and I love the educational experience she gets from growing her own garden!2. Customer service from the manufacturer has been amazing - I needed a couple of replacement pieces (a new wire to float the fairy from because my then 3-year-old daughter was a little less-than-gentle with it, and a new squirrel because hers was accidentally thrown away with the packaging. I emailed the company to ask if I could buy replacements, making it clear the errors were on us and not them, and still they shipped new pieces out to me, free of charge!! Fantastic company!3. We followed the directions exactly and had plants growing accordingly.4. Still provides lots of fun for my daughter, who loves playing with the fairy in her house.Now the cons:1. The plants - oh my goodness. These are NOTHING like the pictures showed. Most of them are broadleafed weeds, and then there are the crawlers that send long unruly and unsightly shoots out every which way... I do recognize cilantro in there, which is probably the prettiest thing growing, so that says something right there. All in all, the whole thing ceases to look like a fairy house and starts to more closely resemble a stubby round troll having a bad hair day. Finally saw a few teeny white flowers after about five months, but nothing at all like what I expected. These are not the right plants for something like this - you have to buy your own seeds, or small plants to transplant.2. Watering issues. The mushroom watering idea is adorable in theory, but doesn't work. It only waters a small bit of soil directly under the mushroom, which will leave plants to die while the soil grows mold. We quickly realized we needed to stop using the mushroom and just water the plants with the watering can. Same goes for the rain gutter on top that is supposed to water the bottom tier - there are only three holes to let water through, so the plants don't get even watering unless you do it by hand. Again, mold becomes an issue.3. You have to water these things EVERY DAY in very small amounts. There is no drainage, so you have to be careful not to over-water, but at the same time the soil on the bottom level is extremely shallow and dries out very quickly in the sun. Tough for a small child to get the balance right, but with some help from a parent it can be done.4. Fairy furniture keeps coming apart. I finally super-glued it together to keep from constantly having to re-assemble it.Overall, I'd still recommend the set to friends, as long as I also made it clear that they'll need to purchase their own seeds or plants and make the changes in watering habits that I described above. Last week I'd finally had enough of the unsightly mess that was my daughter's fairy garden, and I threw the whole disaster of plants and soil out. I bought some pretty little flowering plants from my local Walmart and some good potting soil and my little daughter and I transplanted them. She has a beautiful garden now at last, and if nothing else, she's learning a lesson about perseverance and problem-solving, as well as gardening. Probably a really good thing in the end. I hope the company makes some revisions to their designs and choice of seeds, but considering how many things needed to be changed or fixed, I can only give it two stars as-is.

Got this as a gift for our 4 year olds birthday and she loves it. We put it together and planted everything. We tried getting her to wait a couple months for spring but she didn't want to. So, we plants everything and put by a window. The plants started sprouting in 2 days. It came with dirt disks you out in a bowl with 3 cups of water and break up. Once added to the places oin the cottage you have a seed mix you sprinkle all over. Plenty of seeds to spread everywhere. You can either have your fairy "look over" the garden by attaching her to the top of she can be stored inside with her bunny, garden tools, chairs and table. Comes with a little watering can which is perfect for little hands and easy to get into the watering spots. I plan on purchasing this as gifts for friends kids for birthdays. It's such a neat little craft and also can have some playtime with the fairy and accessories.Edited... I dropped it down a star. The plants, even though they sprouted, never actually got flowers. They sprouted, grew a bit and died. Very disappointing for a little girl. We still love the cottage and fairy stuff so we plan on trying different dirt and some of our own flower seeds and hopefully will be successful.

Decent size. Missing parts. No assemble instructions. Overall product not worth the price. I will not recommend this for that price.