Fair. Trusted. Reporting in Rappahannock County and across Virginia’s Piedmont.

Donate

In partnership with the

Amissville welcomes new LeFay Enchanted Garden

by | Sep 7, 2026

Laticia Headings and her mother, Jan Headings, from Middleburg, holding trays of decorated flower and faerie cookies. (Photo/Ireland Hayes)
Laticia Headings and her mother, Jan Headings, from Middleburg, holding trays of decorated flower and faerie cookies.

A new LeFay Enchanted Garden was dedicated Saturday at Ingleside Manor Farm in Amissville, marking the third garden established through a grassroots environmental initiative that combines folklore and whimsy with native plant restoration and biodiversity.

The LeFay Enchanted Garden Initiative was founded by Sally-Anne Andrew, known as Faerie Queene Morganna LeFay of LeFay Cottage at Little Washington. The project encourages communities to create native gardens as sanctuaries for plants, pollinators and wildlife while promoting environmental stewardship.

“May this garden forever bloom as a beacon of our mission: Healing the land, preserving the future,” Andrew said during Saturday’s dedication.

The Amissville garden, filled with milkweed, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans, is stewarded by Brandy Clarke, known within the LeFay Enchanted Circle as Faerie Lilliath.

For Clarke, an Amissville resident, watching the sanctuary take root at Ingleside Manor Farm has been nothing short of magical. 

“It’s all about magic, saving the planet, and doing all the things we need to do to take care of Mother Earth,” she said during the gathering.

The initiative began locally with its first official garden along the Sperryville Trail before crossing the Atlantic for a second garden in Stamford, United Kingdom. The group also recently attended the World Biodiversity Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The initiative eventually plans to map participating enchanted gardens around the world.

“These are not merely decorative plots of earth,” Andrew said. “They are living, breathing waypoints in a worldwide web of stewardship.”

As the initiative expands, organizers are developing an interactive global map to track participating gardens. People interested in establishing their own garden can contact the LeFay Enchanted Garden Initiative to learn about the dedication process and how to join the growing network.

Author

  • Ireland Hayes

    Ireland joined Foothills Forum as a full-time reporter in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a degree in journalism and minor in music. As a student, she gained valuable experience in reporter and editor positions at The Red & Black, an award-winning student newspaper, and contributed to Grady Newsource and the Athens Banner-Herald. She spent three years as an editorial assistant at Georgia Magazine, UGA’s quarterly alumni publication, and interned with The Bitter Southerner.
    Growing up in a small town in Southeast Georgia, Ireland developed a deep appreciation for rural communities and the unique stories they have to tell. She completed undergraduate research on news deserts, ghost papers and the ways rural communities in Georgia are being forced to adapt to a lack of local news. This research further sparked her interest in a career contributing to the preservation of local and rural news.
Republish License

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our website. AP and Getty images may not be republished. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of any other photos and graphics.

By Ireland Hayes

Read more articles by Ireland Hayes
Ireland joined Foothills Forum as a full-time reporter in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a degree in journalism and minor in music. As a student, she gained valuable experience in reporter and editor positions at The Red & Black, an award-winning student newspaper, and contributed to Grady Newsource and the Athens Banner-Herald. She spent three years as an editorial assistant at Georgia Magazine, UGA’s quarterly alumni publication, and interned with The Bitter Southerner. Growing up in a small town in Southeast Georgia, Ireland developed a deep appreciation for rural communities and the unique stories they have to tell. She completed undergraduate research on news deserts, ghost papers and the ways rural communities in Georgia are being forced to adapt to a lack of local news. This research further sparked her interest in a career contributing to the preservation of local and rural news.