Hmmmmm, I rarely get to display anything in my garden cause if it isn't bolted down it develops legs! I have lots of beautiful angels, faeries, birdhouses, and planters that I can't display here for that reason. And because I do ceramics, I have many pieces that are adorning my house inside! Although I must admit my favorite piece is Puff who sits in my vegie garden where no one can see him and he can't get out of. From the Land called Honalee!

I rarely put anything in my beds besides rocks. Can't get enough - love 'em!

cracking : I LOVE your garden space. All those amazing pots. I have a ton of garden stuff LOL. Trellis/pergola/a fountain/a Revolutionary War hospital bed/ hanging stuff and metal art and a bottle tree. Here are some pics. I just went out to take them so these are current. We are in a drought here in AL. 5 years now. We haven't had even one drop of rain on over 3 weeks. All that is to explain that I wish I had plants :( But I got art :)

pergola over carport ( has a climbing rose and clematis some day maybe they will cover it)

fountain by our swimming pool ( confederate jasmine all around)

side garden for roses/perennials with trellis and metal art :

another view :

back garden with stone wall I built a few years ago, see the old bed and the pergola/trellis in the background:

blue bottle tree and another view of pergola with the trellis on the sides- there is a jasmine planted at its base. Copper wall art on the fence. One of the old windows with mirrors fell this AM...have to get it back up on the shed/DH's play house:

other side of shed and the pergola here. I have a beautiful grape vine that is finally starting to take off...maybe someday it will cover the whole thing.

another view of this side of shed and 2 freestanding trellis: You can see how dry it is and the plants have all suffered. Any ideas for that ugly drain would be appreciated !! I hate it but it has to be there. A few more rock things...had a few extra.

last pic- entrance to back garden from other side of house :

I hope others will post their garden art as I am always looking for ideas. I can't grow plants so i am going to grow art LOL. c

I have no camera so I have to describe.

My favorite is a lifesize cement replica of the girl holding up two bird feeders from The Midnight Garden of Good and Evil.

Also have a playhouse that is Mr McGregor's farm house with a litte picket fence and white wrought iron furniture. And Peter Rabbit is caught in a net with one shoe off just like in the book.

Almost all of my beds and fences have some sort of garden art, but it is displayed to blend in with plants and does not look too gaudy.

.... another lover of rock here, never have enough :). Here's a few of the things I've used over the years, don't know if it qualifies as art tho'. I see something that tickles my fancy and just plunk it in.

Annette

I love garden art/hardscaping and have a fair amount placed throughout the beds in my little green acre.

My son & DIL gifted me with this biker boot/creeping sedum for Mother's Day 2010 since they figured (and rightly so) "no one else would have one like it"

My daughter gifted me with this stone owl the same day:

I have shepherd's hooks with windchimes throughout the garden, various rocks (in particular, one my daughter painted with a hosta on it), seashells, pottery (including a gorgeous broken planter that was my mother's), a brass sundial, a granite bench and a section of split rail fence.

My granite butterfly observation bench:

This candytuft is growing through a broken pot that's just visible at the top of the image:

This section of fence originally stood up near the road in front of the house. I moved it down behind the bed where my bench is placed but last year set it at the top of a short, steep hill behind my garage. I'm hoping to coax a clematis to grow on it.
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But the piece d'resistance is The Somers Cleat:

It's solid iron, roughly 3 ft. wide, a foot tall, weighs around 350 lbs. and could probably keep a super-tanker moored safely through a hurricane. My son saw it on his way to work, didn't know what it was but since it looked nautical and I love to sail, he bought it for me. A year later he proudly delivered the 24 ft. of bright blue nylon rope that's wrapped around it. If anyone wants a laugh, I'd be happy to share how he got his hands on THAT!

My mom has a bottle tree, she loves it!
My garden is pretty new so I don't really have any objects, but today I bought one of these on clearance.
It reminds me of my hometown, Charleston, SC (a lot of pineapple motifs there. "Hospitality").
Managed to lug it by myself about 2-3 blocks to my car. ho ho.
I'll have to decide where has a large enough plant (so far) to look good with it.

Beautiful gardens folks.Soxxx,you really need to take some pictures,just telling us is TEASING,you know we are all visual people!!! LOL,LOL

Annette,i love all your gardens and i really love that grass that looks like blonde hair,i told my gd that if i can ever find a good size pot that is a head,i'm gonna get it and some of that grass to go n it.

Thanks for sharing everyone.
kathi

annette...what a sweet garden ...I always love to see what you have in store.

oh my gosh...that cleat...whoa...that is so cool. I rode a lot of miles through CT this June...what a treat for the eyes every garden...you get rain ...green is everywhere...so lovely.

aimee...that is so cool. I rode a LOT of miles through SC too...what a wonderful view i had of glorious gardens. Conway is my very very favorite town. A wonderful historic district which I biked for hours. I stopped and peeked at gardens to my heart's content. You live in a lovely state. c

Trailrunner, I live in California now, so I got the pineapple as a remembrance of where I grew up (Charleston) :) I'd love to go back this spring and hit the gardens there, maybe I'll be able to, I miss them!

With the growing season so short here, outdoor garden art is a valuable way to capture year round interest. My main passion is for things move in the wind - but I'm also into water features, statuary, birdwatching, wind chimes, architectural artefacts.... just about anything really.

Would it be rude if I told gardenweed that I loved her big cleat?

Here is a link that might be useful: Spinning garden art

honalee, I love your little "Puff" Why do things tend to walk off in your area?

purpleinopp, another advantage to rocks, besides being natural and pretty, is that if one doesn't mind them being moved, they entertain small children long enough to be able to do more than 3 minutes of garden work "Here, children, see these cool rocks? See if you can build an ant castle...."

trailrunner, I really like the pergola over the garage and the fountain embedded in Jasmine- gorgeous!

soxxx, I'll have to Google it, I'm curious :)

Aftermidnight, your fuschia-hung tree blew me away!! I would so want to copy that for a party (if I actually had a real yard...and a tree..) ;)

gardenweed, I love the fence along your brick path.. and I am curious about how he got the rope:)

aimeekitty, those are neat. Are they painted metal? Some new huge houses just went up down the street and they have terra-cotta shingles with a terra-cotta pineapple on the roof peak and it's so happy to look at :)

I will try to add pics of my containers later. Eye of the Day had this Gothic one that was terra-cotta with scrolled Gothic panels in a squared shape and I wanted it so badly until I realized I could buy 10 expensive plants for the price of that planter *sniffle*

I think most of you will hate this but here is "Lamby" I took the pic this spring before I filled her planter. It had a big Rex Begonia in it. A friend made her for me. I love her slightly psychotic but still cute look.

And some terra-cotta edging that I made a few years ago.

what I do put in are

gourd birdhouses
birdhouse
hypertufa leaves where I grow succulents created by a menonite lady.
hypertufa ball
Metal sculpture on a metal rod which I plunk in the middle of a garden bed. (I would get more if I could. It would resemble a pin cushion with decorative hat pins.)
fence decorative sculpture
wire baskets for the fence

What I would still like to have but won't for fear the yard would start looking junky:

I rather like anything that comes up blue and shiny so the blue bottle tree I like but haven't done. I also like a blue gazing ball if I could add one to the yard. Any modern stone sculpture I would like to have...

I also dabble in living garden art:

so I have several topiaries and right now shaping my front yard hedge in a wave pattern. Not quite there yet but will start posting photos when the 'art' in fully developed. Right now the teapot resembles a duck. Can anyone show me their photo of a teapot topiary? I've no idea how to prepare the handle.

Ianna

mandolls...how did you make that terra cotta ??? That is very cool...the lamby not so much :)

ianna...I sure would like to see your list of things that you do have...sound wonderful. I don't know how to do hypertufa.

Great thread, lots of great garden art, I'm really enjoying it. I just might steal a few ideas from this thread :).
I've always wanted to get a couple of smallish easter island heads to stick in a little narrow border of assorted greenery outside the enclosed garden room, the one I call my secret garden, quirky I know but that's me to a T, haven't got the doors on yet so not so secret at the moment LOL.

Ianna, schoolhouse has a lovely topiary teapot if I remember correctly.

C, I love, love, love your bottle tree, where on earth did you find that armature that forms the framework.

Mandolls, lamby is a cutie, like the easter island heads I want, maybe not everyone's cup of tea but it's what pleases us right? I have a spot in my garden where lamby would feel right at home.

Cracking the concrete, actually my fuchsias are hanging in a lathhouse, so you don't need a tree. This lathhouse was built to house fuchsias, back in the 80's it housed about 350 varieties. This picture was taken a couple of years back only about 100 fuchsias and mostly hanging basket types. This year a montana clematis has completely covered the roof (for the second time) so it's too shady for fuchsias this year except along the edges. I only have a few fuchsia baskets hanging on a plant pole in the courtyard garden this year. If DH and I can muster up the energy we might pull the clemie off and hang fuchsias one more time.
I love the metal screen in this picture it has pot hangers if I want to use them and it does get moved around to different spots in the garden.

We also have assorted birdhouses, feeders and some hypertufa pieces, I really like whimsical, like coming around a corner and see the unexpected.

Annette

Love seeing everyone's garden art - so unique.

Mandolls, I love your "Lamby" and am reminded I have a terracotta lamb I've sometimes used outdoors. This pic doesn't show the size but he's about 15" at the base.

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This year I've used very little garden art altho in the past have probably over-used garden junk and glass garden totems.

Lots of glass garden totems (old pic from several years ago) and somewhat decorative glass insulator hose guards.

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I like my glass totem birdbath but the birds won't use it so it's a high maintenance decoration which I don't always have out.

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Metal garden angel.

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I love my large barnboard birdhouse which DH made for me for Mother's Day years ago. It usually sits over the well head in the garden.

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I have 2 of these cast iron pot holders and use them with various pots.

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I like my concrete 'green man' and would like more concrete statues or metal art but haven't yet found the ones I want at a price I'm willing to pay.

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I have several decorative birdhouses, metal lanterns, wire roosters, and cast iron urns and we've made concrete rhubarb leaf stepping stones and hypertufa pots. I've made a couple of bowling ball gazing balls and plate plant markers. I have a few pretty stained glass stepping stones as well as plainer concrete ones, several from yard sales. Need to take more and better pics!

I love the concrete green man above!

Bird baths, benches, solar lights, and this little garden statue are my favorites:

I like this thread too.
So many lovelies!

I like all your garden things, especially the waterfall (spring), the tufted grasses with lanterns, the fuchsia lathhouse, and your darling little Hedgehog. Cute little critter! I like your beautiful green plants around your basement window. Our basement windows need to be redone. Right now they are boarded up - I want them fixed and I love how you planted things framing that window. Lovely. I like the lattice work marching down the slope with all the green plants.

I like 'gardenweed's' split-rail fence and the multi-colored pavers - gorgeous. That is a beautiful area. Like your owl and the butterfly observation bench.

I like 'luckygal's' Greenman and cast-iron potholder. And your backyard and view into the wooded meadow is heaven to me. (I'm still thinking hard on moving up to BC and pic like that make me feel the itch even more strongly).
The crystal birdbath is beautiful, but not practical for my yard. I would use it for a wedding or 50th anniversary for champagne or the cake or something like that. Lovely though.

'trailrunner', I really like your garden pics. Everything is so pretty and absolutely says, "Southern Gardens". Beautiful.

"honalee', that was my favorite song when I was a little girl. "Puff, the magic Dragon, lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called Honalee". Of course, everything Peter, Paul & Mary sang was my favorite songs for many years. (I was the girl in the park, playing the guitar and singing folk songs. :)
My Chinese sign is the Wood Dragon, which I only discovered about 9 years ago. So, dragons have always been a favorite to me and your "Puff" is really great. I like him!

"schoolhouse' has a Lion statue in her sunken garden that I would almost die for. And she has a big Greco-Roman head. Her beautifully sculptured topiaries are stunning and I love her Romanesque-style garden. And she did all that rock-work herself.

I love rocks! I have rocks in my gardens. I have trays of rocks; Pots of rocks; Bowls of rocks. I collect rocks from every place I go. I used to go rock hound hunting with my grandparents in the desert regions of Southern Calif. and since then, I have this "thing" for collecting rocks. Not pebbles. Rocks! My DH knows to leave lots of room in the car for my rocks when we go on trips. :)
I collect Seashells and beach rocks and use them in the garden and in my potted plants. I have one pot covered in seashells that I treasure. I have a big seashell windchime that I love (it needs to be repaired). Oklahoma winds broke the twine. I even have jars of sand, bits of seaweed, seabird feathers, dried palm fronds and dried grasses from the beaches I have visited.
I love fossils and have them on the patio (and in the house)
I have an old enamel wash pan filled with bits of broken china, bits of colorful ceramics, little broken bottles, and bits of colored glass. If I find a piece in the yard, it goes into that wash bowl. That way I add to my pretty glass and clean up the yard at the same time. Everyone likes to look through it.
I have intact colored glass bottles of all shapes and sizes that are in the garden. Most are very old, but some only a few decades old.
I have old glass insulators of green, cobalt blue, purple and clear.
I have two old well canisters from my Great-grandparents old homestead. Instead of them being buckets, they are long tin tubes with a trip lever on the bottom for emptying the water into your carrying bucket or barrel. I cherish them. One is on my Roman well (Cinder block pillars cemented together and painted white with a heavy timber beam across the top)
I have baskets of pinecones which I collect everywhere I go and from my own trees now too.
Of course, I have my Roman statue in the White Garden that you all have seen.
I have a matching set of big concrete urns.
I have two smaller concrete urns.
I collect drift wood and use it in my gardens.
I have a can filled with walking sticks I make and collect from walks in the woods, desert, mountains or even driftwood I found on the beach.
All these things, except the walking sticks are outside in the gardens or on the porch where I can see them every day.
I like to make things from interesting things I find in Nature Walks. I make Grapevine and Honeysuckle vine wreaths and hang them everywhere, inside and outside. I even have a barbed wire wreath. :)
I like interesting objects and things in my garden that make me think and wonder, or things from Nature that are naturally beautiful and/or look like they have always lain there where I set them. I am not one for whimsical things.

Keep em coming!
~Annie

annette...a local antique junque shop had them in a couple sizes. I had the bottles and had been putting them on single rebar poles in the garden. If you look online they have several folks that make them. This one was cheap but online they are pricey. Because you and your DH are handy I would suggest getting rebar and the special tool they make for twisting/shaping it...you can make your own tree easily. Glad you like it :)

oldgardener...wow...those roses...where in 8b are you ??? I never ever have such pretty roses...would love any hints.

Annie would love a pic of some of those gems that you describe...I need to take some of the shells I have collected and make a wind chime too..hadn't thought to till you mentioned it...you are a wealth of creativity. c

Annie ~ When I was little I used to pretend I was Puff and I am that same girl you are with the guitar and folk songs. Still love P,P and M and have all of their music, Puff being my favorite. An ageless piece of music!

I love garden art of any sort! Each to their own tastes! That's what makes us each so wonderfully unique and special and all our gardens our canvases! I shared this quote on another thread but it is worth repeating here.

Gardens are a form of autobiography. ~Sydney Eddison

Great thread as are many others! I love to come here and share ideas, see into the lives of fellow gardeners, view the pictures they have painted, the stories they have writen! It all colors my world with LOVE! Thank you all for sharing!

Much of my garden art probably reflects nature in all Her loveliness with animals, rocks, texture and color. Then there is the magical, zanny, childlike side of me who can't help but throw in the whimsical fantasy stuff.

CTC ~ I wish I knew why others like to take what isn't theirs but then I would probably have to write a book! Until I have the front yard fenced so my dogs can patrol, I will keep my art in the back yard behind the fence. I have even had new plants go missing! :(

As I put my gardens together, I will share pics. Still don't know how long we will be here yet so right now everything is sort of everywhere getting a good root system. :)

I like using rocks too, and we have plenty of them around here.

Trailrunner, I'm in western Washington. The rose in my picture is the climbing version of The Fairy. I have it in shrub form too, love it, very easy to grow.

Mini clay statue of a muscular man chained to a pillar-It was made by my husband when he was eighteen, many many years ago! I love and cherish this art accent in my patio garden...

ah..Washington...always see gorgeous gardens from that state. I have 2 Fairy in shrub form . They sometimes do great and others not so much. We are just so darn dry here and water is expensive so nothing gets as much as it should. Your pic is wonderful. c

I'm glad that a couple of you like Lamby, it seems most of my friends equate him with that scary "chucky" doll from the movies.

Trailrunner, the terracotta edging are just made from big slabs of clay that are cut into shapes & sort of poofed out and then attached together. Clay is what I do professionally (though not like this) so I have a full studio etc.

Here also are a couple of tables - I really like outdoor furniture. The white one I picked up a flea-market in Maine (wish there were pots in the holders for this photo) the other is a beat up bird-bath base that was $3 at an auction that I had a piece of glass cut for.

Oh, mandolls,
Very pretty. Like them both. The seahorse table is awesome.
I like things that have wear - gives them so much character.
Your colorful plants are gorgeous!

Yes, mandolls, that is really cool! Your begonias are awesome!
luckygal, I really Really really like your glass totems. Your gardens are lovely, and I've never seen glass totems ever! So neat!
greenzzz, that's so neat that you have something your husband made. I have a heart-shaped rock that my husband and I found when splishing through a stream when we first got married, but not quite the same as something homemade. :)

Here are a couple of my faves: Gnome, bear rain measure, frog and some fairies.
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'ladygladys',

I really like your faery with the butterfly. She is lovely. Can you take a close-up of your rabbit. Rabbits are among my faves too. I don't have any in my garden, but have lots of ceramic rabbits that I display in the Spring in my house.
Birds and birdhouses, too.

All these lovely things have me itching to go "garage-selling" this weekend to see what I can find! Haven't done that in years, and I love it!
~Annie

Annie,
Here is a big closeup of my rabbit from Spring 2011

Most of the fairies I got from kmart in 2009 but sadly they no longer sell any of this series of fairies. I had 2 more in the collection to go before I was done. The butterfly has come off that fairy but I am planning on reattaching it with some glue once I bring her in for the winter. I am also itching to go to the goodwill stores and garage sales this weekend as well.

Ctc,
Just curious -- what is the name of the floral design place in Manhattan with the great containers? Do tell!

Silvergirl, it's Accent on Flowers and it's right near the bridge on first or second avenues (can you tell I'm great at directions?) I went in once when they were creating all these amazing wedding decorations involving ivy and gloriosa lily (really unique and gorgeous) , but what gotme was I'm shy about calling people and when I called to see if they had containers/pottery, the guy was So friendly and then said, "come on in" , and later when I was telling the woman working there how great he was she was like, "Yes, I've been married to him for....years. " lol
Anyway, I haven't been in literally in a few years. I should go again :)

A local Native American artist makes copper sculptures loosely based on petroglyphs in and around the Great Lakes.

This one is called 'Stream'

The idea is the Earth gets the rain from God and turns it into a stream.

tj

That is so neat and kind of joyful-looking. Thanks for posting. I like the idea :)

This is really interesting. I had never seen stuff like this until I wandered over to Garden Junk and saw the totems and things. Can't say it's my taste but that's probably a question of what you're used to. Maybe in climates where there is more hot dry weather there was a need to add colour and form to gardens and also in a pioneering country people had to invent their own art with what they had. I've never seen a totem, a birdhouse, or a bottle tree etc over here. DH even has doubts about the tastefulness of my sewing machine and marble top garden table. He's also prevailed and persuaded me to put my chimney pots way back in the foliage.

flora
All of us do not like the same garden junk.

I would never put an indoor commode (potty) with flowers planted in it in my front yard. Like your DH I was embarrassed when my mother put one in her yard.

I do not care for totems or plate flowers, but love bottle trees and rusted metal things.

I would like your sewing machine table. I have one also. It has a large goose made from a tree stump sitting on it.

Flora, I do think that Americans often wander a far pace from "good taste", with the garden "art". I should take a picture of the yard in front of the trailer court a mile away from where I live. Other than a few potted plants and a few day lilies, it is nothing but objects. Most of them really tacky in my opinion, but because there are so many (gnomes, plastic deer, plaster dogs, etc.) the whole thing becomes a surrealistic diorama that is kind of amazing in its own way. There is even a tree that apparently died, that they cut back to about 8 foot, left a few main branches and painted it white. In my travels in England and Europe, I have never seen anything that even approaches this kind of classic American "bad taste". But I secretly kind of love it.

tj I love that ! My whole interior house is Native American art...do you have the name/contact of the person that does the art ? I have a friend right outside Green Bay and he comes to see me a couple times a yr. Maybe he could bring something from this artist ....would love to know how to get something.

flora and soxxx can you please post pics of the sewing machine tables ? I have an old sewing machine on a base but I could remove the wooden part...it is in bad shape and there is no machine inside anyway....would love to see yours. c

@ trailrunner - See the link. I got this piece back in 1998 when he was just getting going.

tj

Here is a link that might be useful: Mark Fischer

Oh wow tj those are gorgeous. I sure wish I could afford them :( Really really special. What a talented man. Thank you for sharing I enjoyed reading his story. c

I think my favorite garden accent is/are rocks. Especially when stacked into stone walls. I grew up in MA and still miss all those gray, mossy stone walls lining the roads. We have some stone walls here in Pa, but they're not the same.

I had a stonemason build a stone wall for me, and it's my favorite garden accent. Here it is in the spring:

And here it is in the early summer.

I tried stacking up my own little retaining wall in front of the porch, and while it's certainly not as nice looking as the professionally built wall, I still like it.

Those are nice! I know I had never seen anything like those stone walls until I moved to NY and traveled upstate where people have massive ones with large gates or remains of long ago walls in the woods. Very pretty!

Love stone walls! Guess I carry a bit of my Scottish ancestory in my veins. Those pics are awesome Lois! I like the front one you did yourself. I have even considered learning masonry for myself but decided I could do it for the garden an easier more crafty way. :)

This is a really fun thread. I like to see what everyone has in their garden and how thoughtful about art and creative you all are. I often think I'm going to "make" some garden art but then never get around to it. I don't decorate the garden with a whole lot of art. I have a few decorative stakes and then a few glazed birdbaths and some copper sprinklers that I use more for decoration than watering.

My mom has a very cute piece of garden art. The story behind it is that we were at Hever Castle in England and they were selling all kinds of cement statues. We fell in love with so many of them. My mom couldn't part with this guy. Hever Castle was down a hill so we had to hike back up the hill, carry him on the rest of our tour and then carry him home on the plane. He weighed between 30-35 pounds so it was like carrying a little person around. He was well worth it though!

honalee, I have Scottish blood, too, so that must be why I like stone walls so much, LOL.

That gnome is really cute, thyme!

This is a great thread! I have just started getting garden art, this spring I got three monks following each other which curve around a tree in my back bed, really enjoy them. I sure wish everyone would mention where they purchased their garden accents if online; I got mine at a local nursery in our area.