Magical Ideas for Your Garden

I've always had these crazy ideas for what I called an "enchanted garden", but it turns out that to most people "enchanted garden" means lots of little houses for fairies grown amongst herbal remedies.  To be honest, I find that a little creepy.  My version doesn't involve fairy houses, but would still be an awesome garden for imaginative kids or adults.
Lets call this the "Enchanted Rainforest".  My idea of an enchanted forest is one where lush ferns carpet the forest floor and exotic flowers "magically" appear from the finely textured foliage.  The best flowers for this are bulbs that appear to have no leaves that pop up without warning like these suggested plants, most of them commonly called lilies though they bear no relation.

Rain lilies are also known as "Fairy Lilies" and they usually spring out of the ground following a heavy rain.  Since their foliage blends well with grass, they can be naturalized on a lawn and eventually cover huge swathes of white, pink or yellow. 

Blood Lily forms bright red puffballs that appear to float over the ground as if by magic.  I once saw a photo of a drift of these with two kids in the middle and thought, those kids are so lucky!  They are poisonous, but only if eaten.

Surprise Lily (or Naked Lady) collectively describes several plants in the Lycoris genus.  They appear on long stalks in late summer and open up to reveal pink flowers similar to those of amaryllis.  Hurricane Lily is another Lycoris, but instead has wildly exotic red flowers with long stamens.  Because they open in late summer or early fall they are associated with the hurricane season.  Photo courtesy of Floridata.

Gloriosa Lily actually is a lily, but is unlike any other!  It rambles up adjacent plants as a vine and bears a magnificent show of flaming downward facing flowers with upturned petals fading from yellow to scarlet.  Like blood lily, these are poisonous but only if eaten.
Siam Tulip is a ginger in the Curcuma genus that holds its pink inflorescence high above the foliage like a torch.  I can see a resemblance between these and tulips, but these are much more exotic looking. 
Other Flowering plants for your consideration are Coral Hibiscus, Passionflowers, Globba gingers, Medinilla and Billbergia bromeliads.  If you live where its warm enough, try growing orchids from the branches like Encyclia Tampensis or Oncidiums.

Theres more to this garden than elegant flowers, though.  As you walk down a winding path, stone relics become grown over by ferns, mosses and creeping vines, and gazing balls are scattered around and clumped together to play tricks of light on your eye.  Use whatever ferns and mosses you have available for a soft and dreamy look, and use Asiatic jasmine and creeping fig to grow over walls, pottery and relics of statues.  Just be sure to control the creeping fig so it doesn't get away from you!

Shaving Brush Tree also looks magical!

Make your way to the end of the path and in a corner of the garden would be a resting place with a bench and a pond with mirrors submerged to form something of a looking glass for deep introspection... maybe there would be strings of foil or tinsel in the water to catch the light.  Surrounding this opening would be large leaved alocasias to make you feel dwarfed in an "Alice in Wonderland" way but without Johnny Depp or Tim Burton, who I also find more than a little creepy.  Just imagine sitting under the leaves of an Alocasia Odora or a Xanthosoma Sagittifolium and listening to the sound of running water.  The only thing cooler than that is having an Easter egg hunt in this garden!  For the kids, I mean.  Yeah.