By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Maybe I have an undeveloped sense of whimsy,  but I've never understood fairy gardens.  I like the dwarf plants used in them well enough.  (The tiny Cotoneasters that look like wizened old apple trees in an abandoned orchard are particularly charming.) But the little people and wee furniture that fairy garden devotees use to complete their scenes have always made me a little queasy.  Why do they all have to be so treacly sweet?

Here's the same idea but with a little attitude.  The toy car, the gravel road it is traveling on, and the big boulders turn this container from just a group of plants into a desert diorama.  I can imagine myself touring in Joshua Tree.  This was spotted at Pot-ted in L.A.'s Atwater Village.

So here's my challenge.  Change my mind about fairy gardens.  Email me an example with a wicked witch, an evil gnome, or a bawdy satyr hiding in that tiny forest.  Fairy tales should have a little menace, don't you think?

P.S.  Pot-ted will custom make one of these dioramas for you; you pick the theme.