Looks like I’m talking magic again. No smoke, just mirrors. Mirrors are a way to fool the eye, making a small space seem larger, even outdoors.

Here is my latest. Not some expensive glass globe. It’s an oversized plastic Christmas ornament snagged last season at Canadian Tire for $1.99. I’ve been saving it for the garden, where it’s now tucked happily into this pot of ivy.

Putting mirrors around your garden doesn’t have to make you feel like you’re in the funhouse scene in Lady from Shanghai. Mirrors work best when they don’t really look like mirrors.

For example, I purchased a semicircular, commercial fish-eye mirror — the kind they have in stores — when the Don Mills Centre was being torn down. Set at ground level behind the foliage planted by the house, the mirror makes the narrow garden bed seem deeper.

Another old mirror hangs from my back fence in a dark corner, nearly concealed by the shed. Looking through that narrow pathway toward the hanging mirror reflects my own garden, and all the sunlight in it, right back at me, and seems to be a magical doorway into the neighbour’s yard.

And there I am, back to the magic again.