Even though a lot of it looks just too cute in the store, I can resist almost ALL of it, but still have a lot of cutesy stuff.

Here's what happens: whenever you talk about your garden, someone will immediately see that as a 'category' of gift they can buy for you.

When you mention that you grow plants that are attractive to butterflies or hummingbirds, your mother and sisters will inundate you with butterfly & hummingbird dodads, many of which will be smiling and have eyelashes.

Your dear friend, whom you love for so many reasons, will send you bizarre garden angels, in those primary color-mixed-with-black-Mary Engle-Blight patterns.

Your kids will think anything from the "garden decor" department will be great for mothers' day presents.

I love the people, even if the clutter makes me nuts! So it goes out there somewhere, in with some fast-growing plants.
Luckily, in this climate, everything that is outside melts or fades or disintegrates pretty fast.

Cranky old Annie

Oh yes, the garden clutter of gifts from friends and families. How long do you have to keep them? As for our garden rooms needing decorating, that is just the seller trying to make us buy more stuff. The "rooms" in my old gardening books were the utility section of the yard where the coal man could drive up without smashing anything or being viewed from the rest of the yard. The drying yard for clothes. I never could figure if it was enclosed so people couldn't see your undies hanging out or to keep dust and critters out and kids from running thru them. The cutting bed, the veggie bed. The division of the garden into "rooms" had a purpose, not just for more decoration to buy.

MMMnum! ladies butts. Fun thoughts ladies, made me laugh and look at me, talk about "bizarre garden angels" let me give you some lessons in how to refuse unwanted gifts, ok maybe not. Fun, nice picture susanargus, lightened it up nicely thanks.

How to beat the clutter urge...I just don't look at the stuff! Regardless, it manages to find me :-)

Much of it is cute and I like frogs so people have given me a few frog items (couple frog statues, a frog pot hanger, toad house etc.). I try to hide them under shrubs so they are more like surprises. In the wetter parts of the yard I have baby tears; I put little "gifts" into those beds and they eventually disappear, engulfed by the tears. I also group things together so they look less random. For example, I have a set of (cast iron?) insects, each about 5 inches long. They sit together on a piece of bark near the sprinker control.

I don't mind small things in people's yards but our neighborhood sports not one, but TWO different homes that have a life-size deer in the front yard. As if it was passing through the suburb. I definitely draw the line with large animals. ;-)

when i was in high school, i was in the play 'alice in wonderland' for the croquet scene,with a wink and a nod, the director said that we needed ALOT of pink flamingos (and he KNEW how we were going to get them) so, although i am a reformed klepto, i feel that i have done my part for garden beatification (kids, don't do this at home)

Great topic, what a laugh.

Before we got married, we were discussing the idea of buying a house together and (because I was devilish back then) I told my husband-to-be that I couldn't wait to own a house so I could put lots of those cute little statues of animals all over the front lawn. He replied, "Great! Because I've always wanted to get a shotgun, but I never wanted to shoot real animals." I knew right then that this relationship would work out.

As it turns out, though, he's the worst offender as far as buying me garden ornaments, and he has expensive taste so I don't feel like I can recycle or even hide the stuff - bronze, mostly. I try to place things so that you can never see more than one "treasure" at a time. And none of it is visible from the street, except for one little item I bought myself, an oh-so-subtle plastic pink flamingo.

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I have a friend who has eight siblings, and she said whenever she gets on her mom's case for having too much cutsie stuff around, she blames it on the grandkids! :-)
When I was a kid I loved garden ornaments. We had a little pond with a fountain in our backyard, and didn't I go and make a ceramic frog and toatstool to sit by it. I'm sure my mom was thrilled with that Mother's day present. I would have flipped if I had seen the fairy fountains that are all the rage now in the big box store. I could only dream about such things in my youth.

No cutesy signs, but I do have, uh, more than one birdbath. Uh, three, actually. Oh, and a couple of frogs left in the garden by the previous homeowner. Well, yes, 20 years ago, but....? Did you say bunnies? (cough) Well, my *mother* gave them to me! Besides, they're nicely made and get a little moss going on them, they're, well, yes, _cute_. But I only have one stone alligator from Mexico. Maybe I should position him so it looks like he's creeping up on the bunnies? Would that be better?

Shoot, you're really taking the wind out of my sails, I was sketching plans for a topiary mermaid...

Oh, did I mention the skulls and too many pots?

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Susan - I think that person's relatives live in my town.

I really dislike garden clutter and most things that scream kitsch. However, I firmly believe that EVERY garden needs a pair of flamingos.

TaDa!

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I have one cutesy thing that was left by the previous owner. It is a metal rooster that stakes into the ground with a quote on it.

"The rooster may do all the crowing, but the hen delivers the goods"

Don't worry, it is on its side at the edge of my demo heap. It has a destiny that will be met.

DtD - Your little story cracked me and my husband up! Thanks!

Let me ask this--are those signs that say "Garden Tours 5 cents" for real? There's one yard up the street I'd really like to see.

How true this is!

I use a lot of containers and it is a struggle to try to find the right materials. I use large ones, so some form of plastic/resin works best for being able to move them around (on casters or by brute force). Styles and colors change over time so a hodgepodge develops.

As some of you know I have been slowly reducing a large area of white gravel. That has created some new dilemmas, but one benefit is a reduction in what I call "color clutter". The white was such a contrast to the dark of deck wood, tree trunk, and the adjacent and underlying brick, whereas now that I have exposed some brick and some soil, the colors are more soothing. The upshot is that some of my container colors now look different in this color/material situation and so I am trying to see what materials will best create a less "cluttered" backdrop. Once I recovered the brick patio, even though it is not in great condition, I began to see more clearly how much I like the look of the brick, or stone, or wood and how that would drive the choices of what other materials to use with them. (While I have been "down" on gravel, I think in my case the problem was the large area of WHITE--I probably would have tried to work harder with the gravel ---restoring or maintaining--if it had been gray or natural color.)

susanargus, I also think this is lined up with the Wal-Mart thread and a recent book on the effect of Wal-Mart. (not to get started on whether it's good or bad!). Just that we have developed an idea, what with all the imports, resins, and other low-cost things available, that certain things should only cost a very little. This leads me at times, and I imagine other people, too, to hesitate to buy a $300 (or more) teak bench and get something much cheaper--then a few years later wonder why I have not achieved the kind of classic, timeless look that I would like. Similarly, if one does not do building projects, it's tempting to try to buy everything ready-made and avoid the trouble of trying to find a crafts-or handy-person to build what is really needed for a given problem or purpose. So I am tempted to buy the resin storage closet rather than hire someone to build me a little shed.

If some of you are like me, there is also a real problem if you try to buy something a little cheaper and replace it "someday". It is hard for me to discard something that is still usable EVEN WHEN I could afford to replace it. So I am learning that there is a psychological thing going on, and it is going to be much better to leave an area blank and wait until I find just the right thing, because otherwise I will more likely keep the thing that was not quite right. Or worse, maybe, I will end up with both, and.....clutter!

Rambling again....

I'm a firm believer in buying only what you really love---if you wait long enough, it will go on sale (and sometimes into clearance bins).

I have a gazing ball (she admits sheepishly). It's stainless steel, on a three-foot black iron stand that coordinates perfectly with the clematis arch in the foreground. Oh, and there's a "green man" sundial over on the other side of the garden, also on a black iron stand. I hope that doesn't constitute clutter -- especially since they're of a theme of sorts, with the black metal.

Interesting thoughts...I think age may have something to do with it-and also where you are in that circle of life. At 60 I now openly tell people what I want regarding my gardening needs-and I have narrowed them down very nicely. Want to get me a great garden gift?-how about a superior hose-or an automatic watering timer for the vegetable garden. I also suggest a gift certificate-something I would never have done before.. As I have aged I have become more selective-in my home, my clothing, and all things around me (even people). After by Mom, and then my husband, died I spent (and am still spending) hugh amounts of my time and energy dealing with their "stuff"..Nothing worthy of being an antique, just "stuff" So ask yoiurself-will this be something loved ones and friends vie for, and hope they inherit after you are gone-or will it be more "stuff" to haul to the curbside.

Frankie - you are so right about buying quality. I bought an oak and iron garden bench a few years ago for less than $100. It was my intention to give it a few coats of lacquer so it would stand up to the elements, but of course I never got around to doing it. Now it looks awful and is reaching the point where it may not be safe for heavy people to sit on. :( Like you, I hate to throw it away because the metal work on the back is still very nice, but it really does have to go.

I had forgotten about your white gravel. Whatever inspires people to decorate their yards with gravel boggles my mind. Unless they live in a true desert climate like Phoenix, it just shouldn't be done. I actually prefer garden cutsiness and a bit of clutter over the stark look of gravel. Some have seen these pics before... NOTE - This is NOT my yard!

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If the kids bought it/made it for me it get puts out, usually in the herb bed behind the garage. I succumbed to the fountain urge and now wish I hadn't. I have avoided the other stuff by reminding myself that I have to mow around it. I also only have look at a house down the street that has 40+ teasures in the yard to reaffirm why I don't like this stuff. Life size deer that's nothing. HOw about a pair of lifesize lions and a knight in armour!
They have sevral deer too. The month that THAT yard was voted yard-of-the-month by our local garen club was too much for me. I wish I were making that up.

Frankie, I am so sorry for you about the gravel. My inlaws inherited a yard with gravel. What a nightmare. We never could get rid of all of it.

This thread is making my day.

I came a across a most peculiar property myself last weekend. How to describe it? A, uh, well...house, or...um, castle, I guess you'd call it (crenelated top, turrets, etc.) made of cement blocks(!) is about half built (no interior work done, no doors or windows fitted to the openings, muddy torn up ground, construction vehicles and piles of cement blocks everywhere) in a residential neighborhood near my home. Now I'm not talking about a McMansion type thing, which would be bad enough, I'm talking about a full-on spook house of a castle here. The house...um...castle is at the end of a cul-de-sac, the neighboring houses are all modest (and by modest I mean neat and unassuming as well as of a modest size) colonial type homes with broad lawns, perennial borders and a few old maples in the yard. To segregate itself from these neighbors the house/castle's "grounds" (about an acre) are surrounded by a 15 foot high black iron fence laden with gilt trim (falling off) and a giant gilt fleur-de-lys thing lofted above the entrance on a grand arch (kind of askew as the footings hadn't been poured properly). Inside this great wall of tack there are numerous giant concrete classical statues of heroically proportioned ladies and gentlemen in various states of undress. Also there is a muddy trench that look like it might be a moat. Now never mind garden rooms and perimeters, who puts up their moats and their statues when their house..uh....castle isn't even done being built yet?

Vicki,

I agree. I think they add both color and a bit of whimsy at the same time. What are yours hiding in? The flamingoes coordinate well with them.

Sue

Sue,

The flamingos are hiding in Nicotiana mutabilis. I highly recommend it. Plant it once and you'll always have some (unless you pull the seedlings, which is easy to do. It is one of the longest flowering plants in my yard, and very easy to grow. It is multi-branching and bears an airy mass of almost 1 inch flowers in white, pale pink, and deep pink all on the same plant.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:17515}}

O.K. now I get it. You are bunch of nutters over here and the fools day is only tomorrow. I am not sure I am up to your crazy. but wait a minute is it too late to cancel my gravel order? I will bury the big fella, honest.

Great photos, all. Love the nicotiana and all the flamingos. Mine are not nearly as nice - those neon ones are particularly wonderful, foxesearth.

Frankie you are so right on! When we bought our house I needed everything for the garden. But I hate taking the time to shop properly. So I got a resin shed to store all the tools, just until I could get a cute wooden one built. (still there, and it works just fine, and I don't even see it anymore, but it's still ugly) I needed a couple of benches. Picked up some cheap wooden ones, and they still look cheap, but hey! they still work, I'm still sitting on them.

And someone else gave us a horse skull that the kids think is so cool so it's sitting in the bed by my driveway. I had forgotten all about it because the plants completely hid it, then the snow hid it, and now that it's spring it's just sitting there looking tacky and stupid.

I don't really have the cutesy stuff like bunnies and frogs - yet. But my kids are just getting to that age when I know what I'm going to be getting for mother's day, birthdays, sigh . . . My problem is GENUINE junk. I have a pot ghetto because I am forever potting things up to give away, various sizes and styles of stakes leaning against the house, infrequently used tools that come out for one use but never go back, various bits of hose and nozzles that I am constantly swapping around. I actually took a "before" picture of all this junk and considered posting it, but it is truly too embarassing. Now I need to quick move it before someone comes over and wants to actually see my garden. The best part is it's all leaning up against the house, so it's the first thing people see when they go around the corner.

Is it too late for New Year's resolutions?

lpinkmountain said --"Sometimes I like gardens with little surprises here and there."

That is how I feel. The surprises shouldn't be out in the open, but something you happen on. Tucked away to be discovered once you come across it, instead of being seen from across the street. Kind of like the surprise you have when you find a bird's nest.

Personally, I don't think anyone needs to apologize for accessorizing their garden. The most appealing and engaging gardens tend to be very distinct expressions of their owners' personalities and as many of us tend to accessorize or decorate our homes with meaningful objects that personalize our space, the same can be done in the garden.

Obviously, that nebulous quality of "taste" plays a significant role. In the same way that the velvet painting of Elvis is not everyone's cup of tea for a dining room wall hanging, some thought needs to be applied to choosing accessories or decorations for the garden. I am not a fan of gnomes or wooden cutouts as they appear to me as tacky and a little too cutesy, but a well selected sculpture or piece of statuary can add a lot of interest as well as personalize the garden.

My own garden tends to include a lot of accessories but I try to keep them to a theme. There is a collection of rustic birdhouses that are both attractive and well used. Because my garden is heavily populated with birds, there are several birdbaths as well, but they also tend to be very naturalistic in appearance and blend into the plantings. Trellis, arbors and other supports are all oxidized iron and they compliment a collection of rusted antique gardening implements that decorate one blank wall of my house in the back. And because I have rabbits (my fertilizer factories), here and there in the garden are tucked in a collection of terracotta and cast concrete bunnies. And I have an extensive collection of containers with mostly permanent plantings that are shifted and arranged to suit the season or the location.

Removing clutter is fine but sterility in the garden leads to......well, a sterile and impersonal place. While I tend not to include accessories in my client's designs, believing them to be a very personal choice to be added at their discretion, I have on numerous occasions designed to accomodate accessories, including sculpture, statuary and birdbaths. And containers, window boxes, raised vegetable gardens or potagers, even fountains or other water features can all be considered as accessories or decorations as well. To exclude them all is to omit adding a lot of character to a garden. Context is everything.

Welllll....

I will confess--I have a concrete garden fairy. I'd post a picture--but I don't have a good one, and the digital camera is at college with Elder Son.

I also have a thing for pots--have recently decided that all my pots (with the exception of the one Harry Lauder is in) should be terracotta. At least that provides a unifying color/texture.

melanie

Melanie, you hit one of my pet peeves. Pots. In every size and color, haphazardly placed in clumps around porches and along walkways. Now I'm as guilty as the next person, I'll admit it. But really, it's not a good look.

Wish I could send you all my terra cotta pots. I don't like the color in my scheme. I didn't realize how bad it looked until I dug out a picture and yikes...welcome to my pot parade.

This year I'm getting some large pots. Blue ones.

gingerblue--I wish you COULD send them to me. Though I wonder if they work with MY color scheme? I've always viewed terracotta as a "neutral." Now I'll have to go look and see if I still feel that way...

oy.

melanie

Naw, Melanie, your place looks great. It's one of my inspirations, in fact.

I've got this blue thing going in my garden and the orange of the terra cotta stands out a bit too much. But in a normal garden with a normal range of colors, it IS neutral.

*blushes*

Well thank you!

What color blue are we talking here? Cobalt?

melanie

Great photos and stories, all.
I confess to have a plan to mount my childhood sled on the side of the house over narrow side garden out of public view. My folks sold their house and moved to a retirement apartment community, and had to divest of 46 years' worth of tschotchkes and "stuff." So, I had to rescue a few things, the sled among them. Where else could it possibly go but in the garden?

Quite an interesting thread!

Most of my family realized long ago that I like to choose what goes in my garden, plant-wise and ornament-wise. My mother has given me a couple plants I wouldn't have chosen on my own (double flowered rose of sharon shrubs), but I made the best of them and they are nice enough. It wasn't worth hurting her feelings. Another friend gave me a climbing 'Blaze' rose that I keep pruned as a large shrubby mass instead of a climber. Mercifully, my MIL is just as, um, well - "particular" is a nicer word than "anal" I guess - particular as I am about her yard, and she totally appreciates that I like to choose my OWN things. So, each Christmas she and my FIL give me a gardening catalog gift certificate. The perfect gift all around.

I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to garden ornaments, but I do have a few. I have a small birdbath, a functional squirrel-proof bird feeder, a small assortment of containers, and a few "fake" birdhouses painted by my kids. Oh, I do have one nice garden bench. (I've also got two cheap green plastic chairs, and a green resin lounge chair from my mother - not a fashion statement, I'm afraid, but they're usable.) I do like sculpture in the garden (bronze or stone especially), but so far the right piece at the right price hasn't come along. I'd FAR rather wait until I can get a good piece than put in a cheap imitation I'd be reluctant to replace because it's still usable, even though I spent $ or $$ instead of $$$ on it.

Still, gardening is SO personal, I don't like to criticize other people's yards. I always try to find something to praise about it (even if their choice and/or quantity of garden ornaments makes me cringe).

But, I've got my own white elephant to work around:

Our older house came with a decrepit old stone and brick "fireplace" in the back corner of the yard - about 10 feet wide, and 7 feet tall to the top of the chimney, painted in peeling brown paint, and roughly shaped like a volcano with a fireplace and two wide table-like extensions on the front. It is HOMELY. And it's going to STAY there because it's HUGE and HEAVY. I've had an ongoing campaign to make it more presentable (because it's certainly un-ignorable). When we first moved in (almost 9 years ago), I teased my husband that I was going to grow some violently red/orange colored climber up through the chimney to cascade down the sides, and pose a scantily clad Barbie doll on the "rim" of the "volcano." My husband was NOT AMUSED. No sense of humor. . . . (Last year, though I DID grow Mina lobata up through the chimney!)

Laurel

Laurel, I am wondering, why don't you have it torn down? Or is it functional as an outdoor fireplace? I'm wondering, not because I always fix things, but because I often don't...

No urge at all.

I hate the stuff. I'll use a functional bench, bird bath or feeder, or working path, but dislike "props" for the most part.

If it has no use, I have no use for it. There are exceptions to everything of courseÂ

I think you guys are a little harsh. There are some tasteful ornaments out there. You just have to find them. The standard bunnies, frogs, (flamingos!) and gnomes are no fun because they are so easy to find.

I've a lovely and small garden angel. She is rather rustic, her wings are like a wronght iron fence with blossoms. She reminds me of a friend's daughter. This little angel stands in my rose garden and is a focal point (along with the roses) of the view out the window. We enjoy her most during the winter when the roses are sleeping.

A whimical catapillar and a wrought iron windmill are other favorites. Dh and I have lived on a farm where our water came from a windmill, so that piece is for nostalgia. I have garden benches and swings in stragetic places around our acre, as well as functional birdfeeders and houses.
I enjoy the garden 'art' more in the winter when we are bare and brown around here.

I garden for my pleasure and comfort, not the taste of passing joggers or motorists. ;)
Live and let live.

Happy

Cady, the sled is a different category - that's part of your history, not clutter!

Laurel, a couple of years ago my husband and I went on a pond tour, and saw one of those old outdoor fireplaces turned into a small, functional, working pond at the left back corner of the garden. This was in one of the older parts of town that is famous for being arty and trendy.

It was one of the most hilariously funky things I've ever run across on these annual tours. The link for the organization has pictures from 2005.

So Laurel, just how arty and trendy are you feeling??

Annie

Here is a link that might be useful: Austin Pond Society

Let me say, firstoff, that some special souls can fill their garden with a zoo of mismatched statuary and tiny residences for all of them, and it will still look great. Their lush plantings drape over the terracotta frog huts and resin beehives and the porcelin angel peeks ever so sweetly from between two cannas.

The rest of us, however, are victims of "buy before you know why" and, instead of investing real thought into the Less vs. More debate, we buy that $120 little cutsie village plastic fountain at Lowes because it's so marvelously inexpensive for what we think prices should be. I mean, I HATE those kinds of village things, yet I stopped and stared, coveting, at this fountain because it was so darn cheap, so huge, so easy to just plop into my yard and *poof* I have a fountain. If all of my preconditioning barely saved me, what am I supposed to do when China starts cranking out Frank Lloyd Wright fountains? I'll drop like a ninepin on league night!

It is _ever_ so hard to have restraint. It doesn't just apply to objects - I'm trying very hard to declutter the actual shapes of the garden beds, and the edging choices. Plopping circles around trees clutters my hard, as does edging with fieldstone over here, treated wood there, and a dug trench around here. The hardest part is seeing the issue in the first place - I'm so used to looking at the parts that it's hard to look at the whole.

Susan,
It sounds like you're saying that clutter is born of inconsistency and lack of unity. "...edging with fieldstone over here, treated wood there, and a dug trench around here" causes too many visual disruptions and no flow.

It's like interior decoration -- designers will advise clients to use the same color flooring or wall paint in rooms that run into each other so the eye will have visual continuity from one room to the next. It makes the area seem larger than it is. Lots of bric-a-brac also disrupts the visual flow, so it's recommended that "tschotchkes" go together in one display case or on one table as a "collection."

The principles apply in garden design as well. Using one type of edging - or very similar (for instance, rust-finished wrought iron edgers can be a fleur-de-lis in one area, and pinecone-topped in another, but if they are the same size and color and basic shape, it will work - will give the eye a continuous flowing scene that isn't broken up by unrelated elements. Plantings follow this pattern too. Daylilies and strappy ornamental grasses or irises can appear in different parts of the garden, providing repetition, while a gravel path that meanders throughout the garden offers the "same color carpet" effect that works indoors.

And the garden "effects" -- the outdoor tschotchkes -- can work nicely if they are treated the same way that indoor collections are, or nestled naturally among lush plantings so they are not glaringly exposed in the open, but instead serve as little "double take" details. It helps if they serve a function, too. I wouldn't even mind setting a porcelain "commode" in an informal or rustic garden if said container were overflowing with lush water plants and creeping jenny.

And, I'm happy to know that my childhood sled is "history" instead of clutter. But I probably can't get away with hanging my old bicycles on the side of the house with it... Unless I train clematis up them. Hm. lol

Frankie and annieinaustin,

That old fireplace - well, there are a couple reasons why it's still here. The main one is that it's built into the back CORNER of the yard, and forms part of a 3 foot tall retaining wall. I'm afraid if I take out the fireplace, the wall will collapse (it's not in great shape), and our neighbor's yard will schlump into our yard. The other reason is, I really don't mind it. It's there, and I'm used to it, and I've had other much more annoying garden issues to solve (like turning part of our very sloped back yard into a patio terrace with a dry-laid stone wall and an upper and lower level, and a new planting bed - more functional and not a hazardous mowing situation).

I have toyed with the idea of putting a recirculating fountain in the "grotto" of the fireplace. My husband is totally underwhelmed with that idea; I guess I'll just plant more lava-colored climbers in it this year and enjoy a chuckle. (Maybe if I prop a bikini-clad Barbie up on top he'll think about getting me that fountain instead!)

Laurel

If it's gotta stay, is there any way it could morph into a potting area, like if the table extensions are at any usable height?

Starting with a blank slate, building from scratch and the ability to demolish unwanted objects are lovely ideals, but for most people, there is something we are compelled to work around. With or without Barbies.

Annie

LOL Annie! That was one of the things I "created" in the yard when I was a kid, a "Barbie Garden" next to the sandbox! My mother didn't have quite the enthusiasm for it that I did. But heavans, where else could Barbie park the camper?!

I count myself fortunate I never had a clutter bug. (Don't have a sweet tooth either, so I must be a real mutant! :-) If it isn't quality material and have a "larger" purpose in the overall setting, it stays out of my yard.