Garden Art in My Gardens - April 6, 2022 @goldenoakfarm

The first bit of arty things I put in my garden were wind chimes. I collected them at tag sales and hung them on the catalpa tree. I had quite a large collection of many different types and styles and sounds when we had to take the catalpa down for construction in 2019.

The next thing I would consider art was when we built the first walkway and front steps ourselves in 2007. In the autumn I used pumpkins to decorate. As always, the supervisor was on the job.

At the head of the driveway my husband built me a barnboard planter in 2012 and we used large stones we found elsewhere as decoration and weed control.

In 2014 I found this frog prince at a tag sale. Ordinarily this sort of thing doesn’t attract me, but I like frogs and something about it drew me, so he came home with me.

Also in 2014 my husband bought me this fairy on a whim and she spent May to October in the V garden of the old walkway. The rest of the time she sat on a table in the living room.

In 2015 I had a helper who made peace bells and birdbaths out of old gas cylinders. He’d made this one with a repurposed wok for the bath. That didn’t work very well and the wok rusted out fast.

At another tag sale I found this large fly with glass eyes and body and it came home too. It sat on the windowbox shelf each year.

I really missed the chimes on the catalpa and in 2019 I found several branching crooks at a tag sale. I could get 3 or 4 chimes on each one.

I put them up in the New Herb garden in the various beds. They aren’t as protected as they were on the catalpa, so I have to disentangle them every so often.

In 2020 when the construction in the yard was done and I’d repaired the New Herb garden, I found a new spot for my fairy and her stump in Row 2.

I’d found a new bath for the stand at a tag sale in May 2019 and the birdbath was moved to behind the bee balm in the New Herb garden in 2020.

We had Tibetan artisans come in and build the new walkway and front steps. These are truly a piece of art and a complement to the gardens.

I decided I wanted a rain gauge because the weather had gotten so strange in the last few years. So I found this pretty one. But I have to take the glass out from October to May so it won’t freeze and break.

Another art addition to the gardens were the handmade railings for the porch. My intern’s sister’s fiancé handmade all the leaves in the upper design.

With no husband to build me a new planter, I had to resort to buying one. But it decorates under the sign and the pansies like it. This was the last addition to the gardens to date.

So, besides the care I take in planting the New Herb garden and all the other gardens, there’s not much other art involved here. Mother Nature gets to do her thing, until the weeds get too obnoxious.