Cait's Garden

The ornaments and trinkets we choose to display in our yards are often haphazard, but that is the charm in it, I think. Years of accumulating odds and ends through art shows, garden centers, garage sales, and your own ingenuity is the best way to achieve a customized-to-your-yard approach. I personally have a very casual, whimsical yard in terms of my flower choice. Lots of bright and unusual flowers, many of them tall, with no set color palette. So I will not be the person with the faux marble Greek lady with an urn statue. That looks great in some gardens, but I prefer my rusty metal ostrich, made by an artist from old shovels and tools. And you can’t go wrong with metal obelisks and trellises, especially those with pretty scrolled designs. It’s so easy to “redecorate” those from year to year with a can of spray paint. And they are easy to move around throughout the year if you need to cover bare spots or prop up a tall plant. And I love tiny cement animals (think frogs and bunnies) that I can tuck here and there. I prefer the unpainted kind (they never wear out) and they can dress up a blah corner in a second. This year, I finally added my own version of a “bottle tree” with brightly colored wine bottles hung from the ends of a few sturdy tree branches I stuck in the ground. I imagine the branches will rot eventually and I’ll have to re-do those trees, but that’s part of the fun. Things rust, things change. You try new things.  Just like with plants!