Newborn Fairy Gardens in Raleigh

Newborn fairy gardens are my current passion. When I moved my studio from Holly Springs to Raleigh the building of the newborn fairy gardens began.  It has taken a while and I generally work on them every week,  but they are amazing.  Below you will read about and see samples of the different gardens that I am building. The gardens are my customer’s favorite place to take photos of their new babies as well.  I am slowly getting used to using large farm equipment around the property.  This is in stark contrast to my former life where I never even mowed grass.  Just to humor you, I was 49 years old the first time I moved grass.  You are not laughing are you? May you would be if you saw me on the tractor last week with the nose of it up in the air. It was popping a wheelie but in horse country I say the darned thing “reared up.”  Thank goodness it does come with the safety features of roll bar and seat belt.

I now have five newborn fairy gardens right outside the door of my Raleigh portrait studio.  Having them right at my fingertips makes getting a wide variety of outdoor newborn images for my clients super easy.   Posing the babies happens inside the warmed up studio.  Then we take them out to the garden to be photographed.  We then go back into the studio to set up a new shot.  My areas are as follows and sample images will be posted down further in this blog post.

1. The Woodland Fairy Garden

2. The first and traditional Fairy Garden

3. The Grapevine Garden

4. The Rain Forest Garden

5. My blue garden

Last year I began the construction of the Woodland Fairy Garden.  I started this area with newborn boys in mind.  The area is coming along well as I plant mostly perennial flowers in my gardens.  It was really nice last year but it’s amazing this year since the flowers come back in abundance.  Collecting moss as become thing to do.  This year the woodland gardens has moss as well as logs, ivy, hostas and tons of ferns.  These plants love the shaded environment provided by the huge live oak.  Transplanting moss is not fun my friends… but in the end the moss makes amazing color and texture in images.  Here is an  examples of a newborn photographed in the Woodland Fairy Garden.

My first and traditional fairy garden is beautiful and filled with different types of flowers all spring, summer and fall. I even keep pansies planted to survive the cold months for photographing toddlers.  The area is surrounded by moss covered tumbled brick and hosts a flagstone path that makes a nice leading line into any portrait.  Every week I go out and new flowers have emerged. It’s a nice surprise to me as well. I have planted so much that I sometimes forget what will be coming up next.  Here is an example of an images taken in the Traditional Fairy Garden.

One of my favorite gardens is the Grapevine or “Greek” garden.  It blooms in late spring here at my Raleigh newborn studio. It blooms through summer and fall.  When I first moved to the farm I replaced all the dirt under the grapevine with good soil and planted tons of perennial flowers under it.  The pole that holds one side of the vine tipped years ago and makes the perfect V shape for images.  The nicest thing about it from the perspective of a photographer is that the limbs hang in such a way around that triangle opening that we have a tunnel of light so to speak under the vine.  The newborns are shaded by the huge mass of grape vine at the opening of this tunnel and the background falls off nicely with light being diffused by the vine.  It’s really beautiful. See what I mean?  The grapevine is also a beautiful place to hang my round hammock swing.  It hangs just an inch off the ground so super safe for infants.

Additionally, I have my Rain Forest Garden. This garden is very popular with my customers who book images in the newborn fairy gardens. There is a funny story about this one.   When I first used this area my son Zach was in college at ECU.  He had seen the images and was wondering where in the world the “tiny rain forest” was in our yard.  He got a huge laugh when he finally was able to visit and see the area. Hence, it’s name, the rain forest garden.  These areas are designed with my lens in hand.  It only matters what is in the view of the lens so  this area is very small. The plants added to the area and overhanging branches just give it a tropical feeling.I have been in business specializing in newborns for 15 years. I am licensed and fully insured with Allstate in Cary.  If you like my style and know someone who is pregnant please share this post.  You can find it in a shareable form on my Facebook business page HERE   In warm months it’s pinned to the top for easy access. You can also look up newborn fairy gardens on google and surely I will pop up.  Thank you in advance for sharing.   My phone number is 919-637-7985 and my website has a special information page for newborn parents to be…. HERE

This is an older blog post, follow THIS LINK for a more more updated version with many more images for you to see