LIFE IN THE FAIRY KINGDOM
The colourful birds exist in the Kingdom too - kingfishers, robins, birds of paradise and so on - but the plainer birds do not. Sadly this means no blackbirds, wrens or sparrows. Colour is important in the magical realm. It is rumoured in the Kingdom that far from being extinct, the last male and female dodos were taken from Earth and brought to the magical realm as the monarch at that time could see how things were going and decided evacuation was better than extinction. The Palace has had peacocks in its grounds for well over 1500 years, this being something from Earth the magical monarchs liked. Eileen is not surprised by any of this - her regal family has always had a taste for the flashy and showy.
Earth’s most colourful plants have been transplanted into the Kingdom too, the vast majority being in the Palace grounds and taken comparatively ready. There are many jokes about the Queen not just being green-fingered but light-fingered with it. Eileen doesn’t entirely approve of this as the Kingdom genuinely has its own flowers of which it can be very proud. However the Queen has a private ambition to have a selection of the very best plants from every known world in her garden at some point. Her gardeners live in dread of her bringing back a triffid from somewhere! The last thing they need are intelligent, meat eating plants…. Dealing with the magical equivalent of slugs and snails is bad enough.
The royal gardeners take on the same tasks as Earth ones - planting, weeding, pruning. The Kingdom species tend to be much larger than their Earth equivalent plus there are magical plants that could not live anywhere else. Every gardener has to have specialist knowledge of the plants as well as general knowledge about watering, soil and food requirements. After all if a magical tree gets out of hand, the gardeners need to be able to control it magically as well as trim out any dead wood. FNN has one long gardening programme per day. Whespy and Stanrock swore this programme was living proof time could stop and there was such a thing as eternity as they could never abide Plant With Sherrill Flowergreen, the Friendly Witch. Everyone in the Kingdom watches it as the government decrees it educational and all should know how to deal with rogue plants when they come across them. The sprites have no problems with that but just wish it could be done in a more interesting way - Sherrill is known to go on at length. There has been speculation as to whether she’s related to Roherum but so far no proof has been offered and the pair themselves refuse to say, prompting rumours they are related and both are embarrassed by the other.
Earth’s most colourful plants have been transplanted into the Kingdom too, the vast majority being in the Palace grounds and taken comparatively ready. There are many jokes about the Queen not just being green-fingered but light-fingered with it. Eileen doesn’t entirely approve of this as the Kingdom genuinely has its own flowers of which it can be very proud. However the Queen has a private ambition to have a selection of the very best plants from every known world in her garden at some point. Her gardeners live in dread of her bringing back a triffid from somewhere! The last thing they need are intelligent, meat eating plants…. Dealing with the magical equivalent of slugs and snails is bad enough.
The royal gardeners take on the same tasks as Earth ones - planting, weeding, pruning. The Kingdom species tend to be much larger than their Earth equivalent plus there are magical plants that could not live anywhere else. Every gardener has to have specialist knowledge of the plants as well as general knowledge about watering, soil and food requirements. After all if a magical tree gets out of hand, the gardeners need to be able to control it magically as well as trim out any dead wood. FNN has one long gardening programme per day. Whespy and Stanrock swore this programme was living proof time could stop and there was such a thing as eternity as they could never abide Plant With Sherrill Flowergreen, the Friendly Witch. Everyone in the Kingdom watches it as the government decrees it educational and all should know how to deal with rogue plants when they come across them. The sprites have no problems with that but just wish it could be done in a more interesting way - Sherrill is known to go on at length. There has been speculation as to whether she’s related to Roherum but so far no proof has been offered and the pair themselves refuse to say, prompting rumours they are related and both are embarrassed by the other.
