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tomf
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Do you do yard art?

We got a few new things for the yard. The tractor wind thing, the spiny multi colored thingyand the pointy spiny thingy. My hedges are I planted last year got shaped. Where the lawn is next to the house will become a patio.
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rainbowgardener
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My partner would love to have a yard full of stuff. Left to my own devices, I would probably have nothing not natural. We compromise and have a few things. Garden flag, bunny statue, ornamental bird baths and bird feeders....

Looking for a new bird bath for the front yard landscaping. I saw one about like this:

Image

Inside the openwork part, there are battery powered LED string lights, which of course you could use or not. We will get either a little solar powered fountain for it or just a water wiggler. But I thought it was kind of artistic.

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!potatoes!
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Location: wnc - zones 6/7 line

I put up a rock stack / cairn a couple days ago to draw the eye a bit on a hillside I've got a lot of things growing on recently...that's about it.

thanrose
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I've had to experiment with repair of old concrete yard statues, and of repainting them. I prefer not to paint them, but when they are already painted and now peeling, something needs to be done.

My sister has my mom's old St Francis statue which I repainted white, only I added a light pink to his toenails. She was suitably horrified. My sister, not my mom. My mom had complained that when I repainted her huge basketball sized frog he was too natural looking, so well disguised. I called it esthetic choice. Also did turtle and white rabbit in more realistic colors, using the same pale pink toenail paint inside the rabbit's ears.

Did some pavers in concrete squares with embedded stuff for a rosary garden. There were already Stations of the Cross, so mine were just at my sister's directive to intersperse with other commercial paving blocks. I'm not that keen on decorated pavers, mostly because I want pavers to be more useful. Stuff in them can actually make them more susceptible to cracking or slipping on the decorations.

Oh, I've made planters from large ceramic and slate tiles, but they didn't last more than a couple of years each. Want to try molded hypertufa next, probably with embedded shells. I have a large concrete urn from my mother who gave it to her mother in the 1940s.

I've always had birdbaths, both purchased and made by me. I try to have a platform that will allow butterflies and tiny birds more security. I want to make my next ones with concrete and those different huge leaves for texture and interest.

Love those welded sculptures with old shovels and gears and rakes and rebar. Never made one, but had one from a farm sale that looked sort of like a sandhill crane. Fell apart with rust after twenty years maybe. It had already started on its dotage when I acquired him.

Often thought when seeing new subdivisions going up that the unadorned backs of houses should be decorated a bit more. I wish people would think about those 1950s concrete relief sculptures or plaques of mermaids or starfish or roosters or whatever. Seeing the backs of greige two story homes with few windows, and no trees just looks so naked and lacking in personality.

may91
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tomf wrote:We got a few new things for the yard. The tractor wind thing, the spiny multi colored thingyand the pointy spiny thingy. My hedges are I planted last year got shaped. Where the lawn is next to the house will become a patio.


very nice I don't see any lights do not use them in your garden

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I thought this is pretty amazing. They are building a wooden deck — so far no hardware (nails/screws)

The thinner wooden peg “pulls” the larger pieces tightly together so they fit perfectly when sufficiently hammered in — that’s why they keep yelling “Kimochi ii!” (“Feels GOOD!”


https://youtu.be/ujwXMFVdics

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Gary350
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Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

I don't do yard art. I like the yard to look natural with, dandelions, wild flowers, white & red clover, a few weeds, a few fallen sticks from the trees, etc. I hold off cutting grass long as I can it makes the yard look so fake. Last summer wife bought me 5 spinners for my birthday for the garden that never arrived, she called & complained the company sent another order of 5 that never came. Wife got a refund then 2 weeks later 10 spinners arrived then a few days later 10 more spinners arrived, some type of a mix up the company said, keep them we don't want them back. I put 20 spinners in the garden it looked a bit cute then I took them all down. I like the natural garden look. When garden is dead & soil tilled I like the natural soil look.

I use to live next door to a women that had a yard full of yard art. Every day she spent hours rearranging yard art. She moved the, round colored glass balls, moved the bird baths, moved the cement people & cement animals, moved the noisy wind chimes, moved all the spinners, moved all the other things too. She trimmed, plants, bushes, trees, then put all her trash across the street in Larry's yard. Larry move her trash back to her yard so she called the police and claimed Larry threw trash in her yard. Police told her to keep her own trash in her own yard city truck will pick it up. When police left she moved trash to my yard I called the police it turned into a yelling contest with the police she was almost arrested. When police left the women moved trash to Donna's yard police came again. After police left she moved her trash about several houses up the street. Police officer said, it is good I don't live next to that woman I would probably get fired from my job. I am glad I don't live next to her anymore. One night all the noisy wind chimes vanished she replaced them & they vanished again. LOL. Not sure who trashed the wind chimes I was glad that noise is gone, I think it was Donna.
Last edited by Gary350 on Thu May 26, 2022 11:50 am, edited 5 times in total.

imafan26
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I admit I am partial to statuary. My dog broke my fountain, so now it is a pile of broken concrete. I do have a couple of Grecian themed Statues. One is a planter, the other is a bird bath. I use them as plant stands once in a while. I have a concrete garden frog (now I have a real toad too) and a turtle (a concrete turtle). I have a couple of urns and a base of a thing, that I got from a garage sale. I use it as a base for displaying flowering plants. I have a St. Fiacre and St. Francis garden statues. I did have a bunny but the painter accidentally broke it. I have a garden plaque someone gave me. I just washed it off a couple of months ago. I have rain bells, and some fake garden stones, but those are in the house. I also have gnomes in in my vegetable garden. Or at least I did, I haven't seen it for awhile. The HOA does not let me keep the gnomes in the front yard. They think it is too tacky. Later, I will put out a terra cotta saucer on a concrete pedestal with some small river stones in it. It will provide water for the insects. I have plant stands, those I mainly use for orchid shows and to keep some of the plants off the ground. I am using the terra cotta pocket pots as stands now for the herb bowls. Otherwise they are kept under the benches. They turn out to be good for strawberries, but impractical for most other things. They also crack easily so they cannot have things stacked too high on them. I do have a double shepherd's hook, and my garden thermometer and rain guage in the garden. I don't know if that counts as art?



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