Camp Mary Atkinson Fairy Garden Trail

The 2024-2025 Juniors of Troop 249 (Rosewood/Wayne County) are proud to present their Bronze Project!

The Girl Scout Bronze Award is the highest honor a Junior Girl Scout (4th or 5th grade) can earn, achieved through a team-led "Take Action" project addressing a community issue, requiring a minimum of 20 hours of work.

The team decided to install a series of Fairy Gardens along the Lauren Trail at Camp Mary Atkinson (Johnson County, NC). The gardens not only add value to the trail and can be enjoyed by campers & hikers for years to come, but the team has incorporated pollinator-friendly flora. 

For years, our youngest Girl Scouts have loved creating Fairy Gardens at camp using naturally sourced materials. These fond memories inspired the project - this time working hard on recycling materials, creating something sustainable, and ensuring the fairy gardens can be enjoyed for a long time. 

Keep scrolling for a map of the trail and information on how you can support the sustainability of this project.

A fairy garden is a miniature, often whimsical, garden designed to look like an inviting spot for fairies, incorporating small plants, miniature accessories, and sometimes even fairy figurines. 

Birds, bats, bees, butterflies, beetles, and other small mammals that pollinate plants are responsible for bringing us one out of every three bites of food. They also sustain our ecosystems and produce our natural resources by helping plants reproduce.

Without the actions of pollinators agricultural economies, our food supply, and surrounding landscapes would collapse.

Gardeners can play an important role in establishing habitats for critical pollinators like bees and monarch butterflies.
Source: https://www.pollinator.org/

The Fairy Gardens are installed along the Lauren Trail at Camp Mary Atkinson. The trail can be easily accessed behind the Leadership Center and follows the edge of the lake. 

Along the trail you can find 10 fairy gardens. Keep your eyes on the trees and see if you can find Fairy Doors too! 

One of the important mottos of Girl Scouts is to "Leave it better than you found it!".  We encourage you to use good judgement and help with the sustainability of this project. 

See something broken? Email rosewoodtroop249@gmail.com and let us know! 

Did something fall over or become displaced? Feel free to fix it if you can.

Have fallen leaves or other natural debris cluttered the gardens? Please give the gardens some TLC and remove anything that doesn't belong.

Would you like to support the pollinators? Feel free to spread some wildflower/pollinator seeds along the trail. 

While every effort has been made to ensure the Fairy Gardens are study and weather resistant, they are certainly not indestructable! We encourage visitors to look, gentle touch and enjoy - but please don't tug/pull on or remove any part of the gardens.