garage sale – Summerhouse Art

One day this summer, on a whim, Will suddenly built this driftwood chair. It’s not exactly sit-able so I think of it as being more of a sculpture. I’ve put off posting it because he keeps adding to it. But for now, it appears to be done… at least until he finds something new for embellishment.

chair2wm

henchickswm

The seat creates a nice spot for my little dish of Hen and Chicks.

chairdetailwm

Right now we are trying to decide if his latest embellishment, a spiral hanger attached to the back, should be painted something colorful. I’d like that since it would relate to the mosaic chimney in the herb garden.

chimneywm

More color, I always say.

We have these bits of found art all over our garden that, to us, add a great sense of whimsy to the place.

basinwm

We found the old basin at a demo site years ago, and it’s nicely weathered. It’s a great place to grow succulents and we love it. So do the succulents.

One day, while out walking, Will found this rock tangled up in a piece of rusty wire and it hung on the wall for a long time before we found the perfect circle of rusty wire from an old pot, to pull the whole thing together.
The chime came together last year, oddly enough just before our wedding anniversary. The silver goblet found that day at a garage sale, where else, celebrated some other couples long ago anniversary.

chime2wm

Will put the whole thing together that day as a special gift for me. Friends and relatives have loved it too and he’s made quite a few now from bits and pieces. Seems we’re always looking for good old silverware for another one.

Some of these serendipitous sculptures never really get finished. Will just keeps adding to them.

colanderwm

I like to call this one his bird playground and one day he added this rusty colander to it. Just the right addition.

I devour garden books. I read them voraciously to learn how to plan a garden, what to plant where, how to design the space, all of that. I admire the well ordered designs, the borders made up of drifts of flowers that I see in those books. But somehow none of this takes.

The foxglove self seeded and the Humming birds love it.

Our garden always ends up being a sort of a wild tumultuous space. I used to apologize my way around the garden when company came over, for it’s messiness, it’s over-grown-ness, it’s haphazardness. Part of me wanted something much neater and organized, like those pretty gardens in the books.

But then, I don’t know when exactly, I started to appreciate the way plants just pop up where ever and to enjoy the delightful surprises. And most of all I came to accept our way of gardening. I’ve decided to call it Serendipitous Gardening.

Why is our garden as it is? I suppose it’s because we hate to pull anything out. If it looks ok, we leave it. And I can’t throw anything out either so if I have to divide plants I’ll just pop them in another spot or we’ll create a new bed to house them. Or it could be because the compost with the seeds of spent flowers gets spread all around in the spring and those seeds just get a chance to grow and have a change of view? Or is it because I can’t say no to some plant or other that I don’t need or even have room for that I find at a garage sale? When I get home the poor thing gets bunged into any available space just before it expires in the pot. Who knows? A bit of all of it I suppose.

The flox among the iris — The phlox among the iris

Sometimes being sort of laissez-faire about it all has it’s rewards. Plants that were seeded somewhere else re-seed themselves in unexpected places. Like the phlox that grew up in and around the iris bed. How did they know they would set off the irises so well?

Or the bluebells and rose campion that pop up around the orange day lilies creating just the right mix of complementary color.

Or the mallow that I left in with the squash plants just to give the veggie garden a bit of color. As artists, I suppose, we have come to appreciate and delight in the serendipitous results.

Tag: garage sale

Will’s Driftwood “Chair” Sculpture and Other Found Garden Art Whimsies

Serendipitous Gardening or How We Came to Accept a Wild Gardening Style