Garden Designers Roundtable: From Junk Pile to Garden Art

I’m taking a little liberty with September’s Garden Designers Roundtable topic of renovation and restoration to focus on one of my favorite ways to breathe new life into a garden:  Repurposing tired lawn ornaments, found objects and plain old junk into garden art.  Instead of my usual chatter, this post is all about the photos.

From my own garden, my beloved Peace Lady sculpture, made entirely from reclaimed metal by artist Chad Glashoff.

 

This chic container started out as a fountain in my backyard.  I later painted it blue, and turned it into a focal point at the end of a narrow side yard.  When I renovated the space last year, my friends and fellow Master Gardeners Mary Lu and Bob Burchard disassembled the pieces, added a jaunty mosaic cowboy hat and poised them at the entrance to their blue garden.  They even deviated from their mostly native plant palette and snuck in a few succulents.  I wonder where this fountain will turn up next?

The next photos are from some of the gardens I visited at the Garden Writers Association symposium in Dallas last week.  Fortunately for me, ace photographer Kerry Michaels of About.com:Container Gardening   had camera troubles and asked to borrow mine, so I wound up with a file full of beautiful photos without lifting a finger.  To see a larger image, just click on the photo.

Planted chairs are all the rage these days, but I like the minimalist look of this example.     

 

This one was Kerry's favorite.  Not sure if the homeowner created this fabulous piece of wall art, or if it is the work of a professional artist.

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On the other hand, why go to a lot of bother, when you can just stick a tricycle chassis on a rake and call it a day?

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And finally, bathtubs repurposed as planters are so last season, but how romantic is this charming water feature?

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Interested in hearing what other designers from around the country and across the pond have to say about restoration and renovation in the garden?  Check out these posts:

Andrew Keys - Garden Smackdown - Boston, MA

Carolyn Gail Choi - Sweet Home and Garden Chicago

Genevieve Schmidt - North Coast Gardening - Arcata, CA

Jocelyn Chilvers - The Art Garden - Denver, CO

Lesley Hegarty and Robert Webber - Hegarty Webber Partnership - Bristol, UK

Rochelle Greayer - Studio G - Boston, MA

Susan Cohan - Miss Rumphius' Rules - Chatham, NJ

Comments

[Robert Webber]

Wonderful approach to the subject and so many great ideas here. I saw three old grass rollers the other day in a row and thought that if they weren't in a row they would make a great sculpture! The pink chair as plant support wins hands down.
Thanks
best Wishes
robert

It's amazing how ordinary things can become extraordinary, simply by changing their context. There's a modern gas station I pass that has a collection of old-time gas pumps along one side. I LOVE it! If there were any way to get a picture without standing in the middle of a busy street, I would.

[Germi]

I LOVE your chatter, Susan!!! But your posts, are always illuminating, with words or without. I confess that I am a little out of my element where garden art is concerned: I'm SHY about it! Isn't that silly? It is such a personal expression. I love your Peace Lady, and what I love so much about these moments in a garden is that they say so much about the gardener. So PEACE, LADY - you always teach me something and j'adore that!
XOXOIvette!!!

It IS personal, Ivette. Truthfully, from a composition standpoint, my Peace Lady doesn't really look good where I have her placed, but I don't care. Just having her close by makes me happy. But OF COURSE you don't have a lot of garden art. With all those vegetables cluttering things up, you don't have any room!

[jocelyn/the art garden]

Susan, you are right on target here! Moving and rearranging art pieces to give the garden a "lift" really works---I know, I've done it in my own yard. Thanks for the reminder that a quick refreshing of an existing space is often the best solution.

Jocelyn, with a blog called The Art Garden I expect you're an expert on this topic! FYI, I loved your side veggie garden with the trellises and seating areas. Any chance you have more photos focusing on that part of the garden specifically? Rebecca and I are looking for examples like that to promote some of the concepts in our vertical gardening book.

[Andrew from Garden Smackdown]

Love all of it, and hate I missed the house in Dallas with all that cool found object art! I like using repurposed stuff, but I have to use it in juuuuuuuuust the right way. That bathtub is amazing. Ideas, ideas, ideas... Why don't you and Rebecca come over and we'll discuss it over drinks?

It's a date! But only if I get to sit at the table made from the repurposed door. :-)

[Debbie/GardenofPossibilities]

Susan, What a refreshing take on this month's topic. I love the planted chair and the way the foliage sets off the iron details. And even though I agree bathtubs are so 'last season' they still make me smile everytime I see one in a garden.

Thank you Debbie! I think context makes a difference. The garden with the bathtub was rather sparsely planted around most of the repurposed art; in contrast the bathtub area looked unusually lush. No question that made it stand out more.

[Susan aka Miss R]

I'm glad that the two Susan's took contrary approaches to the subject. I saved your delightful post for last. Love the wall piece. Thanks for sharing your 'found' images!

You were actually more daring than me. Between you and me, I misread what the topic was supposed to be about. By the time I realized it WASN'T about recycling, I was mentally committed to garden art as I had so enjoyed some of the gardens we saw in Dallas.

I love the wall piece as well. Next time you're in SF we'll have to visit Eric Powell's studio. You'd love some of the amazing things he does with found objects.

[Lisa Ueda]

Please, anytime you want to rotate out any of your "junk" lmk ;). Love the vignetts you've created, very charming.

Thanks Lisa! That's the best part about junk. You CAN move it around and if you decide you don't really like it, no agonizing over a bad decision.

[Pam/Digging]

I liked your fun approach to this topic, Susan. I did a double-take on that bathtub photo. Looks like Kerry played with the depth of field to create the illusion of a miniature garden with that one.

Uh oh, Kerry's gonna get mad at me! She offered to photoshop the photos for me, but there wasn't really time. I actually ran the bathtub photo through Tiltshift to give it that miniaturized look, which I originally learned about from Gardening Gone Wild. Have you tried it? It's easy and free. Here's the website:

http://tiltshiftmaker.com/photo-editing.php

[Genevieve]

Wow, Susan. I'm not actually a fan of any kind of garden art, usually. It usually seems to compete with the plants, and I'm all about the plants. But the examples you show actually really enhance the plantings! I think that's what most people aim for with their garden art and miss. Nice job.

I miss sometimes too (see my response to Germi's comment). But I love experimenting, and in the last year have found myself much more interested in adding objects rather than plants, which is particularly surprising as my garden's not that big. One of these days, you need to take a trip our way and visit in person!

[Rebecca Sweet]

You know me and 'found art' (aka: junk) - I'm a HUGE fan of it. Especially when it has personal meaning for you! Beautiful photos, but I have to disagree with one thing: your Peace Lady looks perfect where she is. I know, I've seen her! She's a star and should most definitely stand out in your garden space!!

What can I say? I love her, spiderwebs stuck in her peace sign, and all.

[Rob(ourfrenchgarden)]

"why go to a lot of bother, when you can just stick a tricycle chassis on a rake and call it a day?"...... ha, ha.

Is it safe to go out at night with that chair around? Looks too alive to me.

I agree, subtle, it's not! There were several planted chairs for sale at a recent garden club plant sale I was at, but they were very painted and flowery. I liked them at the time, but confess I now prefer the garden-ate-my-chair style of this one.

[Scott Hokunson]

What a load of JUNK! I love it! The personality each item portrays brings the garden to life and shares with us a little bit of the gardener. What better way to surround ourselves. Well done!

Thanks Scott! I decided on this one not to get hung up on perfect photos, and instead just capture the idea of how something worn out can be turned into something meaningful for the gardener.

[compostinmyshoe]

I wanted to see a creature pop his little head from the water being held by that old tub in Dallas. Great shot. Love the blurring. Makes it look miniature like.

Jim, it IS miniaturized! I learned about the Tiltshift sight on a Gardening Gone Wild post. It's an easy, fun way to give a photo a different look. I've actually used it in my portfolio to jazz up a close-up shot of a non-living garden element.

http://tiltshiftmaker.com/photo-editing.php

[lostlandscape (James)]

Ooh I really like Mismatch Mystery!

I'm inspired, although no matter how much I try to pass off my junk piles around the garden as art, most people aren't buying it...