#26 Ornaments in the Garden
“Ornaments are the backbone of the garden,” says the madman. I’m not sure if that’s original, but I know he didn’t always feel that way. In fact, at one time, he agreed with my grandfather who said, “If you can’t eat it, don’t plant it.”
Over the years, the madman has mellowed. Not sure exactly why, but maybe the change started during our first trip to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. The madman had dragged me to a NASCAR race in Dover, DE (I actually enjoyed the race!) But he threw me a bone – instead of driving straight home, we would spend the night in Delaware and the next day visit Longwood Gardens, just over the Pennsylvania border.
Surprise
We both planned a quick walk through – one to two hours tops. Boy, were we pleasantly surprised. At two hours in we had barely scratched the surface – marveling at the different plantings and garden themes. And, the statues and fountains. Just talking about the garden sets the madman’s mind in motion – I definitely sense a road trip in the near future. Back then he realized that ornamentation can actually highlight the plantings and create some added interest.
I noticed when we returned from this road trip that he looked at my garden things a little differently. In fact, he even began buying me things for garden displays. Most of these things are tucked in the shed for the winter. But, they come out in the spring.
Moving Them Out
Moving these garden elements back to the garden is a fun exercise because each piece has its own history. We load the wheelbarrow and wagon and drag everything to the back where we have what we call a staging area. Things are cleaned off and inspected before being placed in the garden beds and paths.
First The Gargoyles
The gargoyles are the first out – mainly because they spend the winter watching over the garden. The madman just moves them back a row. These solemn creatures were the first statures the madman gave me, and they are so perfect for the garden. The gargoyles are joined by the concrete rabbit that peers over a garden bed – often making us think that he is real. I think the birds watch us do this back bed because the centerpiece is a birdbath – a ready source of water for the summer.
Where does This Go?
With each piece the madman picks up, he looks at me and asks, “Where does this go?” This always starts the Where dialog.
“Where was it last summer?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Where should we put it this year?”
Seems the only thing we remember is where the item came from. The angel for the center path came from Chris and Jenn. The birdbath came from Mike and Harley. The concrete rabbit came from the long-gone Farmington Garden Nursery.
We start in the back and work our way around the house placing things in their appropriate spots. But, every once in a while we hit a spot where we think something should be. We aren’t sure what it is, or where we put it, so we just move on.
New Cactus Garden
As we told you in an earlier post, we moved the cactus garden this year. That means new homes for the talvera animals and Mexican tiles. Final placement in the cactus bed is not a priority, but we need to get them out of harm’s way. After all our gardens are planted and well on the way to establishment, we’ll revisit the cactus garden – for now, the plants and other stuff will just have to wait.
Meadow
When we moved the cactus garden, we enlarged our meadow area – opening new areas for ornamentation. When we create a new bed, we put down a layer of cardboard followed by a 4” layer of bark mulch. Not much planting happens year one, we are waiting for the bed to begin decomposing. Instead, we use a lot of plants in pots or succulent plants that don’t have a large root system – and we add a variety of garden ornaments. We needed to find a new home for the lady from Mom’s garden because she fell last year in the stone patio. The meadow had a spot waiting for her.
Not Just Statues
Not all of our garden ornaments are statues. Remember, I am gardening with a madman. Curious looking limbs and tree trunks found in the woods sometimes get pressed into service. In fact, some of our morning glory supports started their lives as trees. We tie twine at the top and set the “tree” posts into the garden. The twine gives morning glories an easy path to the top of the support. On our frequent walks through the woods, the madman keeps his eyes open for suitable deadfall that will make an interesting garden artifact.
Artifacts
Perhaps my favorite garden ornaments are the artifacts our kids have unwittingly left behind. One of the back garden beds was created over the former sandbox where Chris and Mike spend countless hours. As the madman was removing the sand to make way for soil and compost he unearthed a variety of plastic soldiers, animals and miniature construction vehicles. A sane man might have tossed these. Not the madman. Two of his finds, a road grader and a kangaroo, occupy a prominent position. When people ask what purpose the kangaroo serves, the madman simply says, “He is standing guard over memories.” You might guess that we can see this bed from our breakfast table.
Potted Plants
Most recently we have been experimenting with groupings of potted plants. We started with black and green nursery pots and graduated to brown terra cotta pots. Occasionally a very bright or unusual pot will catch the madman’s eye (remember, he is part crow), and it gets added to the collection. Our only rule is that plants in a group must all share the same care and water requirements.
Folly
The folly used to hold flowering plants. 
Succulents on the folly require less water.
Probably the madman’s favorite garden ornament is the garden folly – a completely useless structure in the middle of the lawn. Actually, it’s not totally useless; it holds 108 6”x6” square pots of plants to form a living roof. We saw the concept of a living roof on display at the Hartford Flower Show one year. The madman looked at it and realized that he finally had a plan for his folly.
He had been jabbering for years about needing a garden folly after reading about them in some long forgotten book. A garden folly (sometimes spelled follie) is a garden structure that serves absolutely no purpose – it was built to impress or surprise guests. In Eighteenth century English and French gardens follies were built to resemble such things as Roman ruins, Egyptian pyramids, and Chinese pagodas. Ours resembles an oversized dog house.
Generally, when he went on about a garden folly, I let the ideas go in one ear and out the other. But, suddenly, a folly with a living roof sounded intriguing. He talked to Angelo and one day the structure arrived. A building shell which could hold 108 pots to create the living roof. And, if a plant died, we could replace it just by changing the pot. The folly has changed over the years as we work our way to less water and maintenance requirements. As much as I loved the flowering roof, the time and effort to water outweighed the beauty.
Garden as a Whole
We are fortunate that we have a large garden area with a number of different destinations so all our memories and ornaments don’t have to be lumped together in the front of the house. The madman does draw the line on gardener’s rear ends, plastic flamingoes and kissing Dutch figures. You see, garden ornamentation is personal.
As we wander through the garden, I understand what the madman means when he says that ornaments are the backbone of the garden. The plants and flowers attract the pollinators and make the gardens beautiful. But the ornaments make the gardens ours.
Getting Busy
We are entering a very busy time in our lives, not the least of which will be welcoming a new grandson to join Liam and Patrick. Teddy is expected any day now. With this great news, we may not be up to posting our garden adventures on a weekly basis. We’ll do the best we can.
No call yet, so we have time for lemonade.
