Dressing up the garden

I love using found elements to help dress up my garden. Here are a few things I've done. The first one is a birdbath and sunface wall art next to the back patio. In this area I'm growing garlic chives, irises, yarrow and creeping oregano for a ground cover.



This is an iron shelf I recently found at the Goodwill Store for $5.00. I got the idea of adding shelves to my fence so that I can do some vertical gardening. I'm also adding lots of brackets for hanging baskets along the same side of the fence.



I mentioned that I'm "pink-washing" my old ugly fence using watered down clearance latex paint. Here's a pic where you can see the difference.





This is a cactus that neighbor dug from her yard and gave me. It's spineless, so it's not a huge problem. It's growing in an old iron trough and accompanied by another decorative orb.



This is one of my two apricot trees, growing near the back patio. A pot of Texas esperanza sits nearby, which attracted bees that pollinated the apricots. A colorful pot of geraniums adds to the colorful group.



And here's another old iron cauldron with salvias, bulbs and who knows what else growing in it! Funny, my great-grandmother used to use the exact same type of cauldron to grow portulaca in her cottage garden. That's the ONE memory I have of her.




I hope these have given you some ideas for dressing up your own garden!

Dig it!

bobbi c.

How does your garden inspire you?

The Earthly Gardener by Bobbi A. Chukran
March 28, 2007

Mornin’ earthly gardeners!

The theme today is “garden as inspiration.” How does your garden inspire you? While flipping through some photos we took last year in my garden, I ran across this arty shot of my sundial. It sits on an old dead cedar stump and is one of the first things you see when you walk into my front garden gate.



Of course, being silly, I want to plant “thyme” underneath it, or perhaps “four-o-clock” flowers. It could be the beginning of a whole theme garden based on the word “time”.

I love garden ornaments, and have several. Birdbaths, sundials, little gargoyle guys, even a few gnomes, a “Welcome to my Garden” sign that a neighbor/friend gave me, and a great aged-looking cement rabbit with really long ears. Plants are definitely the reason for the garden, but the ornaments add to its inspiration.

How does your garden inspire you? Come on, I wanna know!

dig it!

bobbi c.
All text and photos are copyright ©2007 by Bobbi A. Chukran. All rights reserved.

Gargoyles in the Garden

april 11, 2007 by bobbi a. chukran

Mornin’ earthly gardeners,

New visitors to my garden always comment on my small and growing collection of garden ornaments. There really isn’t a theme, although I do tend to go for the quirky.

This little gargoyle fellow called out to me from the shelves of a craft store. I didn’t think it would last long in the garden, but I’ve had it for years now. It’s made of resin and fiberglass. I like placing the ornaments in pots with plants, in the middle of garden beds, etc.



He’s sitting in a pot of oxalis, which I planted ten years ago when we first moved in. Oxalis comes as small bulbs, and it multiplies nicely over the years. I have it all over the garden now, in pots, in beds, along edges. It stays green much of the year, and blooms off and on throughout the year, too. It’s just one of those small pleasures that make my garden so special to me.

Other garden ornaments include the birdbaths, a wonderful sundial, a long-eared rabbit, a “Welcome to my Garden” sign that my neighbor gave me, and several bizarre garden gnomes, which you will meet later. Gnomes are camera shy, you know.

dig it!

bobbi c.

Copyright ©2007 Bobbi A. Chukran. All rights to photos and text reserved by the author.