I recently shared a few (if 60 is a few) of my favorite photos of art in the garden with the Indianapolis Hostas Society.
I clarified to the audience that I was indeed not an artist, by any means.
But after years of writing and taking photos for garden features for various magazines and simply touring gardens for pure enjoyment with the Johnson County Garden Club and similar garden groups, there is some garden art that you fall in love with that you want to either buy it or duplicate it because it will fit perfectly in your garden.
I had a few garden-art friends that mentioned they couldn’t make it to the Monday far-northside meeting, so here’s a very brief recap of my local tips:
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1. Tour a myriad of gardens — private gardens are one of the greatest sources to find unique ideas for affordable garden art. (Yes, there is Pinterest, but I prefer sauntering through a garden using all of my senses and exclaiming to a fellow gardener: “What an ingenious idea!”
From the 2016 American Hosta Society Convention tours in St. Louis, Greg and Karen Frimel’s garden was a favorite of mine because as soon as you walked into her garden you knew instantly two things about Karen: 1) she is an artist 2) she loves antiques. These two photos show two small, yet unique details that she created: glass door knobs threaded on copper piping to reflect the sun and old water nozzles threaded on piping to add height and texture to her Hosta and fern gardens.
2. Pottery doesn’t have to be expensive. I continued to tour gardens with huge, impressive pottery. But, I am quite frugal; some might say cheap. Three years ago, I began looking for a large cobalt blue pot at least 3 to 4 feet tall, but was not going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a piece of pottery. I knew I had been looking excessively when I heard my husband talking to a man in Vietnamese — pricing the cost.
The Hubby reported: “the good news is we can get them enormously cheaper — the bad news is that we would have to by a shipping container full of them!” I reminded him I only wanted one or two. That’s when we found a place called Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, which had just received a shipment of — yep, you guessed it — pottery! The Hubby actually told me not to share this tip, because he likes our little secret find of quality glazed pottery — but unless we open up a pottery shop, I think we’re good!
3. Like Kryptonite to Superman … Teak Benches are my weakness. I’m not sure when I fell in love with Teak benches that weather perfectly, but they are spectacularly beautiful to me. My latest find was a beautiful 8-footer that I found in the middle of winter and ended up dragging home for 10 percent of it’s worth.
Although I rarely find time, one of my favorite places to look for teak or metal benches is at Christy’s Auction, where they conduct live auctions every Wednesday — you can check them online to see if they have anything you’re looking for beforehand. Just promise you won’t bid against me if I’m there.
Happy gardening!
