First, let me say, I love the term "objet d' junk". I'm chuckling with you really. A little Fred Sanford in me too! And reference to The Doors. Very clever!

Last year someone commented that something in my garden looked just like a bunch of discarded junk. Of course they meant no compliment. Quickly thereafter, I had a sign made for my garden that says "The discarded garden". Fits me well.

My kids make fun of me and my penchant for "Rusty junk". I resemble that remark. Don't care. I love it.

I like your tricycle. It looks like some very enthusiastic child rode into the yard and then got called in for dinner. It's just there waiting for them to return.

I had already wondered if The Rider on the Lawn would help deter the one very bold deer eating my crocus flowers down there. I'll have to think about kicking it up a notch. I like painting things and rusty things. Sometimes it is hard to decide which to do.

Nooooo....no paint! Okay you do what you like. But I would never paint that beautiful patina.

As a kid, I'd decorate my folks yard like that but they didn't appreciate it.

;-)

There is a certain feeling of loneliness that it evokes. Perhaps a more intimate spot would be better? But, after all, it is your yard and the important thing is how you like it.

tj

Ok. No paint for the tricycle popmama.

Tsuga it is interesting how the very same objet d' junk can evoke such different feelings in people. I totally see the loneliness it evokes. I also see a call back to childhood, to a time of play welcomed into the garden.

One place we rented for a week’s stay in WI had bicycles suspended in various orientations throughout the stretch of trees fronting the road. Do I recall that you also have at least one suspended bicycle?

Yes NHBabs I do have a red bicycle flying through the forest trees up by the scenic byway. People do stop, gawk and photograph it all the time. A different late spring picture of it was published in the book 'Buffalo Style Gardens' that just came out.

The tricycle all alone in a big area like that evokes a sense of loneliness in me as well, and (dare I say) is even a touch reminiscent of a scene from a horror or natural disaster film (picture empty swings and dead autumn leaves blowing listlessly in the wind). I'm sure the dormant state of the landscape isn't helping any. But! In the right location, it could have loads of charm.

For me that sense of loneliness aims straight to a sense of loss. I am good with making a statement like that in and about gardens. While its placement on the Great Lawn will keep it in a regularly - when I'm in the mood - mowed open space, the lawn very much changes with the seasons and has a very high bloom content. The mood of the objet d' junk throughout the garden very much changes with the weather and the seasons. The placement of things is prone to change often enough as well. It will be interesting to watch the moods of the Rider on the Lawn.

This wet foggy morning.

I tend to accumulate "junque" in my garden as well :-) But it is usually intentional and on a much smaller scale. My favorite was an 8' section of wrought iron screen in my old garden that was part of an old movie theater I found in an architectural salvage yard....and lent itself very handily into a support for a big clematis. I also had a collection of old rusted garden tools that I hung outside my shed.

My current favorites are a herd of recycled sheet metal goats in various sizes. I have a thing about goats and would have the real deal if I could but unfortunately, these have to suffice. I placed them where I hoped they would deter the deer.....yeah, well good luck with that!! I think the deer think they are just fellow browsers and ignore them completely!!

And then there is the flying pig (wood) and the purple (never pink) flamingo colony......

I am much more prone to stumbled upon finds than intentional. The deer and I have been on fine terms until this past year. A combination of factors seems to have them spending more time in the gardens and expanding their diet. Damn varmints!

Intentional only through the conscious acquisition :-) I didn't exactly go out hunting for these items!! (the pig and flamingos are actually recycled from another family member's garden when they moved into a condo). The goats were an obvious must-have for me when I saw them for sale at a local nursery. LOL!

The mood is forever changing.

I love the little tricycle. But I was born with a can of spray paint in my hand, so I would have to paint at least keep it from deteriorating more. My husband never throws anything away and I have learned to live with it. A lawnmower that would not die. The handles rusted out and he would cut them down and weld back together again. Over the years the handles got shorter and shorter, eventually he decided that the only person who could mow the grass had to be 3 1/2 feet tall. And yet we still have it. The old metal wheelbarrow with no bottom in it rusted away. I found a can of spray paint, did a terrible job, put in a hay bale and plants it did the job as a fall display. Of course you couldn’t move it as the tire was flat and rotted away.

Years ago I parked my kids' tricycle, put a basket on it and planted the basket with impatiens and then put some in the garden around the front wheel to look like they have jumped out of the basket. You could widen its impact.....

How about now? Too big? Too small?

What? The cat? I can't tell if that's all fur or some belly hanging down. ;-)

tj

I think a child size mannequin sitting on the tricycle holding a BB gun would help with the deer. But then it may not. The tricycle looks good to me and I love the color of the crocus.

The Mayapples Have Arrived.