Lawn Ornaments

(or "One Gardener's Art is Another Gardener's Display of Unspeakably Bad or Misguided Taste")

As with all things in the garden, I firmly believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that whatever objects you choose to decorate your own little piece of land need please no one but yourself. So whether you have a concrete deer, a tiny Deere tractor replica, an entire extended family of gnomes, or a wooden cutout of a lady bending over, HUZZAH to you, I say! I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of any of those particular items, but I will defend to the death (figuratively, you understand; don't anybody come here ready to throw down the gauntlet) your right to decorate your yard as you choose.

After all, who am I to judge? While my preferred lawn ornament is almost always rocks, I do have a limited number of garden ornaments, and they probably won't pass The Good Taste Test. Still, we enjoy them, which means they're fulfilling their lawn ornament-y destiny.

My first ornament was Sneezy the pink flamingo, beloved house-warming gift from my honorary nephew when I bought my first home. Oh sure, the flamingos are hipster-cliche these days, you'll say. But Sneezy is different. Sneezy is special. Sneezy has propellers.

Yes he sure does! You can't see them in the picture below, alas, but that's Sneezy in the foreground, peeping around the boxwood. He's shy these days because the post he used to stand on rusted off. Thus Sneezy is forced to sit upon the ground, his propeller wings no longer free to spin in the breeze and spread his classy aura about the yard.

Behind Sneezy you'll notice two more flamingos of the more traditional variety: these are Sleezy and Carl, Sneezy's half brothers. Sleezy and Carl were orphans rescued from my neighborhood's curbside, where their heartless parents left them to fend for themselves. Thank goodness I was there to save them!

The flams tend to move around the front yard quite a bit, but they are always there, lurking.

From front to back: Bunny Crossing sign I gave Mom years ago,
Sneezy, Sleezy, and Carl.

It's not all pink plastic at the Little Blue House, though. On our first wedding anniversary, Mulch Boy and I got each other rocks. More accurately, we got each other things fashioned out of rock, and the gift I received was this birdbath made of rough-carved stone. I love the rough, rustic look of it, and how it blends right into the landscape of the backyard. 

Stone bird bath, plus beagle.

For his gift, Mulch Boy picked this shiny blue-green turtle, made of carved and polished granite. In Mulch's family, it's tradition to have a turtle in your yard, and this is ours. His name is Oliver Grendel Holmes, and he tends to move around the backyard when he gets restless and bored.

Oliver Grendel Jones, left, and Charlie.

Back in the front, our most recent addition guards The Big Bed and the stone circle. She is Margaret T. Rex, a copper sculpture of a tyrannosaurus that we fell in love with at an antique/garden shop out in the Virginia countryside. Margaret is that perfect combination of decorative and terrifying we're all looking for in our gardens.

Margaret T. Rex, left, guards The Stone Circle and terrorizes innocent sheep. Also,
flamingos can be seen in the background.

It occurs to that our tasteful lawn ornaments are all in our backyard, while our "questionable" ones live out front for the neighborhood to admire. I expect that says something about us; I'm just not entirely sure what.