6 – on – Saturday 23.06.18

Six things in my garden today.  If you want to join in and share 6 things from your garden then here is to how to participate https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/ It’s fun, you see interesting things in other people’s gardens and lovely 6ers chat and comment on your pics.

After last week’s post which included the sundial and the week before which included the crow, Nat asked  me about sculpture in the garden.  So I thought this week I’d share some with you.  Not really ‘sculpture’ but a look at some of the non-plant decorative stuff we have dotted about the garden.  You’ll likely laugh at some of these, and that’s fine, we have some of them because they make us laugh, and all of them have a story and often memories.  I shan’t picture the statue of the Blessed Virgin that you can see in the header picture above because I’ve written about that before, but here is a selection (yes, there’s more than I am putting on here!).  None of these were expensive pieces – some clearly not expensive – but they’re all valuable to us.

1. This is a figure called ‘The Wood Nymph’ by a relatively local artist, Christine Baxter.  We’ve had this for a few years now, but she has finally found the perfect spot overlooking the new teeny-tiny wildlife pond.  The birds perch on her, poo on her, and she is getting a nice ‘aged’ look.

2.  This painted tin Blue Tit is one of a pair I bought on a visit to a National Trust garden.  I think it was Tyntesfield, but I can’t be sure.  I kept one and gave my sister the other one for her garden.  It sits on this left-over retaining post just in front of where the old wooden lounger chairs are.  Every time I see it I think of my sis and I often end up texting her from the garden.

 

 

 

3.  This is the rhubarb forcer.  I’ve only used it once to actually force the rhubarb – usually it gets moved around the garden to wherever we think needs a bit of extra interest.  It’s just a cheap one from the local garden centre, but again, it’s ageing nicely and has lost that ‘brand new’ terracotta look.  Quite often it is full of ants….

 

 

 

4.  I call this ‘The Japanese Woman’.  I don’t know if she is or not, but it seems to suit her.  This was a serendipitous buy one year when we were on holiday in Suffolk.  We’ve had her at least 15 years.  She’s made of moulded cement (cheap and cheerful) and has suffered in the frost over the years with bits of the surface flaking off, but she’s a great favourite and reminds us of windy holidays on the Suffolk coast.  She’s another object that gets moved around the garden.  A bit of a gap?  Put the Japanese Lady in it!

 

5.  A tortoise.  I took this little chap from my Dad’s garden after Dad died.  Dad was 92.  The tortoise had been in the garden for years and years and years.  I think one of us kids must have bought it for him (I have a brother and a sister) and it lived on the rockery outside the sitting room window.  When we cleared the house this is one thing that I wanted to have to keep.  One of his front legs is chipped and moss is growing on his back but he is kept in a sheltered spot underneath a suitably tropical-looking Fatsia Japonica.  When I catch sight of him, I think of my old Dad.

 

6.  Those of you who have been reading the garden blog for a while will recognise this.  A cast iron bird bath that doesn’t hold the water, rusty and chipped and vintage-looking.  I don’t think it is vintage, I think someone just made it rusty and chipped and waited for someone like me to come along and buy it.  I bought it at a flower show.  I know, they saw me coming, but I really like it.

 

 

 

Cheating a bit on the 6 theme, I also have a penchant for garden gnomes.  I’ve got about six in varying sizes and sometimes they’re on show, and sometimes they’re hidden away.  In the winter I line them up on the patio, looking in through the window.  MrOG says I’m weird.  And then there’s this pig. My mom bought it for me as a gift when she went on holiday once (Mom, why?).  It’s quite big.  It used to be bright pink, but the weather and the years have turned it grey.  It has a cheerful look though and I can’t bring myself to throw it out.  It usually lurks somewhere near the compost heap.  Mum died just six months before my Dad in 2016.  She was 89.

So, there we are.  Another 6, another insight into my garden, and into me!  Happy weekend.

The Optimistic Gardener