Fairy gardens are an enchanting and manageable way to introduce kids to gardening (and mythical beings).

From appetizers to train sets to babies, everyone loves miniature things. A fairy garden – self-contained miniature gardens populated by fairy figurines, their dwellings and accessories – can be as small and quaint as your space and time allows.

Or they can be as sprawling and involved as your ego needs it to be.

They’re delightful projects for kids and adults, engaging the imagination, spacial reasoning, thoughtful consideration of the fragility of eco-systems and a sense of play and wonder. And kids like ’em too.

There are tons of photos of fairy gardens all over the Internet. Avoid looking at them. Some seem to have been built by professional and obsessive-compulsive landscapers with nary a child’s hand involved. “That’s b.s.,” my wife says of these showcases. “I have a job.”

And, apparently, there are haters out there. TodaysGardenCenter.com lists fairy gardening as No. 3 on their list of Top 10 Most Hated Gardening Trends: “[Some gardeners] despise associating fairies with something they are so passionate about, feeling the term cheapens it.” They used the word “despise” to describe fairy gardening. So go ahead and check in with the Internet to get started, but get in, get the info you need, and get out before it takes you to a dark place.

There are pre-packaged kits being sold. I found one comprising patio furniture with a gas barbecue grill, which seems antithetical to the very phrase “fairy garden.” Because the best part of it, as with a real garden, is the DIY element – getting your fingers dirty, moving things about, coming up with scenes and scenarios. They can be as individual as the people building them.

And they don’t have to be expensive. The one my family put together (well, not the baby, who actually wasn’t helpful at all) cost less than $100. That included four Waldorf School-inspired fairy figurines, clay for a house and furniture, tiny potted plants, river rocks, soil and a big clay bowl.

Free items we found: Spanish moss to drape over structures, a house plant cutting for diversity and shade for the fairies, and sea glass for a walking path.

Ours also contained several tufts of lush Irish moss, which I wanted to turn into golfing greens – we could, I figured, equip the fairies with golf clubs instead of magic wands. There are also drought resistant succulents (including string of pearls, split rock and baby toes), which invited a lesson about California’s drought and water conservation. Two red star cacti and asparagus fern added bursts of color in the otherwise earthy environs. There is an aloe plant in there because we want our children to know and value medicinal plants. When watering, the water trickles down from the thirstiest plants to the ones that need water the least.

There are seashells in there because… well, because our little girl thinks they are awesome. ’Nuff said. Rules don’t dictate the configuration of each fairy garden; the imagination does. Throw in some other figurines: Wolverine can aerate the soil with his claws, Spiderman can keep the aphid population down.

My wife made a wading pool, insect houses and a fairy house – an amalgamation as if Tim Burton built a Hobbit Shire house – using quick drying clay available at most local craft stores. I carried the rocks to and from the car, and poured potting soil into the clay bowl in which our fairy garden dwells. Our little girl, who is 7, added the backstory, an adaptation of the Stone Soup folk tale, which she and her classmates were performing as a play.

Fairy gardens are not another means for parents to demonstrate on Facebook their superior crafting skills. If you consider your fairy garden too immaculate and fully realized to actually let children play with it, you’ve missed the point. Take a step back, and watch The Lego Movie again.

From start to finish, it took us about three hours to complete the project.

Think bonzai, but instead of years and years of careful tending, expect up to 10 days of delight and care before the boredom sets in, followed by years of subsequent neglect (which claimed our gnome garden – same difference – that we built last year). Just kidding. Kids are fascinated by plants, flowers and bugs, by their growth and evolution (our mini plants were showing visible growth in just a few days, and hosted a happy little inchworm). And the kind of play that miniature worlds offer is invaluable to their sense of empowerment. A fairy garden can turn the work and duty of nurturing life into the rewarding journey it is.

Besides, there are no prizes or competitors. Judgements are moot (it’s all yours, after all). It’s the experience that counts. And if you don’t like how it’s turned out, you can always start over.

Garden fairies, much like fairy gardens, are very forgiving.