It took me a long time to earn enough coins to buy the required royal buildings, earn more coins for the expansion price and then make enough wisp lanterns to qualify for the expansion.
Finally, this morning I completed everything and bought the expansion - A new goal came up asking me to request more things from my neighbors (plant essence) ; so I did that and as soon as I came back a few seconds later...the magic garden land was locked again!
BTW, the game did not return my $75,000 coins or my 10 wisp lanterns!!!
I have deleted and re-installed the game...force closed (3x!) and nothing has changed - The land is still locked and my coins and wisp lanterns are gone!
On my other device (iphone), the request for the plant essence went through but what good is that when the land is locked again on my ipad game and the money and wisp lanterns were not returned?!