How the Mediocre Gardener's fairy garden brought her neighborhood together

Can you guys see if you can see any insects here? Gardening can be really complicated. I decided to build these little worlds, almost like fairy gardens, so that kids could know what these plants do. Yeah, this is where the butterflies stop. Hi, my name is Idel Howland. I'm also known as the mediocre gardener. I'm originally from County Kildare, Ireland. Yeah, these are all me growing up in Ireland. My mom was a gardener. I sort of watched her. I didn't take part. In 2020, I started getting into gardening. By 2023, I decided to become a master gardener. Sort of a year of learning and education and volunteer hours through Penn State. And I decided to build a native plant garden out the front of the house. Today, I saw my very first monarch caterpillar. The more milkweed you plant, the more monarch butterflies that we get. The idea was that I was going to educate my neighbours. And really, it's taken off in the last couple of years. my garden's gotten so big and full of little fairy worlds. This is one of my favorites, the pollinator pit stop, the bird buffet. No garden would be complete without a caterpillar cafe. One of the most important parts of it is I have a little library. There's so many people who come and leave little notes and everybody's writing all of the plants. It's kind of built this conversation between me and my neighbors. People are stopping, they're looking at the garden and they're writing what they see and it just blows me away. Well, you have been like our number one fan. Yeah, I just love it here. All the decorations made it like so fun. When I walk down the street, I just spot new things and then I'm like, oh, look, look at that. Everything's cool. That one's great blue lobelia. I had my own garden for many years, but when Adele moved in and started doing all her planting, I learned so much about the benefits of native plants. The joy on the little kids between the books and the little vignettes here. It's so wonderful. So this is my favorite note. This used to be my granny's house. I've been in awe with how much life and greenery has resurrected the house. Didn't leave any information. Just left this note. And this happens all the time. I thought about this more as a gift for nature. But really, I've gotten so much generosity of spirit from neighbors. It's just, it's magical. I wanted to be the whole neighborhood, but I will absolutely settle for just being able to influence this little block in Glenside.