Beyond Flowers -- Decorating the Dying Garden

It is once again the time of year when summer and fall collide; when young ladies slosh forth in knee high boots and tank tops in 80 degree heat.


This is also the time of year when one must consider the Annual Demise of the Garden: the molding of the zinnias, the wincing of the cherry tree leaves, the withering of the potato vine. That sort of thing.

And are we then to wait for next spring for some measure of garden jollity?

Nyet, I say, exercising the extent of my Russian.

It is time to purpose and repurpose items that can cheer the border between now and then. The happy rooster above vibrates against the yellow house.

Don't tell the owner, who probably paid a fortune for it, but I recently saw a similar piece in the, um, statuary section of Slendy's of Culpeper, my favorite junque shoppe. (Years of junking and no Renoir. Where's the fairness in this I ask you.)

Of course it's nice if you happen to have evergreens to back-up your statuary and what nots. (It's also nice if you happen to have statuary), But a bed of mulch will do. There are actually three of these amusing giant heads lined up in a tiny patch of garden. However, it was trash day and well... the big blue cans. Feh. Multiples of most things are good. Except trash cans.

 
I love the gloom of this statue near Eastern Market. It's depressing even in mid-summer, but now it has all the cheer of a tomb, a cunning touch for Halloween. You could change the offerings in the casket at her feet, winging along with the seasons. Mums for now, fir branches for the holidays, maybe some bulbs under-planted with crocus and tulips and such for a spring show.

Bacchanalia boy usually sports shiny strings of mardis gras beads in addition to the bird cage or what have you on top of his head. Beads are always appropriate.

A yellow submarine cut-out with cut-outs espied in a Raleigh, NC front yard. Imagine this bounding through the snow.

Gates to nowhere. Suzanne's (as always) brilliant solution to a rather treacherous parking situation -- guests kept tripping over the rock border.  You do not want to over polish such things, a patina of rust adds gravitas.

Not your usual flamingo ornaments. These are cleverly composed and conjoined bits of hardware and bicycle seats are painted ballet slipper pink and stationed beside a garden pond.

In a more stately vein, a Buddah mingles with ivy and grasses. There's a large Asian thing -- I have No Idea what it is -- behind him.

I probably should have shot this from farther back, se la, so you could see what a clever arrangement this is. 

The Buddah and the ...thing...and the tree are angled just so, creating a clean and quite dramatic division between two otherwise joined townhouses.

This is a particularly fruitful idea when you have disgusting neighbors and don't want to look at them. Or pull focus, theatrically speaking.