Art display in the garden
I saved these images from a recent visit to the Wildflower Center because they are inspiring me to think about placing art in my garden in new ways. These flying birds are part of a sculpture display, and I was really taken by the lighthearted design and mood.
A wider view.
More down-to-earth, here’s a great way to create your own plinth for showing off a sculpture or a pretty dish container planting. You’d need to make a level base by excavating several inches and leveling sand or decomposed granite. Then you’d just stack 12 cinder blocks and place a large concrete paver on top, and voila! An inexpensive, good-looking plinth.
Finally, I want to construct one of these vine or bamboo pole tepees. I’ve shown this one before, and I think it’s a really great feature, with or without the vines growing up the poles.
This one is meant for kids, but I think something like this brings out the kid in all of us.
Are you feeling inspired to add a piece of art—homemade or otherwise—to your garden this year?
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
I think I would like to add some art to my garden, but sometimes it takes me a long time to decide what I like! I do like those birds…
We started putting art in our gardens when we ran out of room in our little home. Now I cannot imagine a garden without it!
My neighbor has plinths of stacked round pavers to support small statuary.
You can change your Feed settings to ‘Full Text’ and your text and photos will show in the Blotanical Picks window rather than just 3 lines, BTW.
I’ve seen the round pavers used that way in a garden here in Austin, and loved it.
I intentionally keep my feed setting on Partial Feed to avoid having my blog scraped. It’s a security measure, like putting copyright notices on photos. I regret that it requires regular readers to click through to see the entire post. But I’ve had my blog scraped before—and seen many other Blotanical bloggers whose blogs have been scraped—and there’s nothing more aggravating than seeing one’s work being passed off as someone else’s. The partial feed makes it harder for unscrupulous blog thieves to get my posts. I recommend every blogger set up a partial feed to prevent it from happening to them. —Pam
I am always really impressed when you go to visit a garden and art of some kind is used among the plants. It just seems to work in harmony some how. So, I have started to add pieces in. I love the birds. That is so fantastic. Happy Gardening. Valerie
Yep, I have already made some art in my garden. I hope to do more. I love seeing ideas for the garden. The plinth is well done.
I love the birds! I like the way they are taking flight from the garden. :-)– Randy
Yes indeedy. Haven’t been able to find anything that screams “Cantina Garden!” in the shops, so the girlfriends and I are getting together soon to play with concrete, pot shards, giant leaves, etc. Who knows what we’ll come up with?
Those birds are lovely and I like the teepee. That would be a great addition in a vegetable garden or in the flower garden.
All super ideas. I just love the LBJ Wildflower Research Center. It is always on my list when I make it to the Austin area. You are all so fortunate to have a place like this in your neighborhood.
I love the idea of adding art to the garden, but very rarely see anything I like. Funnily enough, I saw some huge bronze flowers at the Malvern show, which I thought would be ideal. Then I looked at the price tag: £4,500 ($6,570). Er, no, I don’t think so! Those birds are great, though.
Pam, your photos always inspire. You are so talented…beautiful, thank you.
I am adding art to my garden this year Pam ~ in the form of a rock wall!! I’m pretty excited about it. It will run the length of my patio and be around 4′ high. I think it’s going to be a great structural piece. One step at a time, right?
btw, thank you so much for the wonderful compliment about my container and your recommendation for posting it on the garden forum. However, that totally intimidates me especially when I clicked on the fabulous containers featured out there!
Love the teepee — must see if I have any long branches around for one. And I’m hoping to have a tunnel of pea-plants this winter.
Tons of ideas in the last several posts; it will take a while to assimilate them all.
I love the birds! The other stuff is cool, too.
The LBJ Wildflower Center had that same tee-pee in the same spot a couple of years ago when I was visiting. I have an almost identical picture. That tee-pee inspired my bean house I built last year! Starting beans on it this year again too. I thought my son would sit in it more but then again, he’s not much of a sitter. Oh well, it’s perfect for beans.