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The quest for free garden art continues

April 20, 2011

You know you have issues when you set out to just take the dogs to the beach for a walk and you end up 45 minutes later driving your lawn mower down the beach. But that’s exactly what happened on Sunday.
Find1
This was the view from the lawn mower on Sunday. It’s way too early for lawn mowing here, but who doesn’t like to go for a relaxing ride on the beach? That’s Mr. Much More Patient and Rita (Hudson is in the water off to the left) following. He got to drive the lawn mower down the beach and I drove it back.


You know I have a thing for driftwood. I love it for a lot of reasons, but I really do like it in the garden. Sunday was a good day to be on the lookout because last week we had a couple days of big storms, which had the good fortune (for me) of causing some rocking waves that pushed a lot of stuff up on the beach, followed by a big seiche to uncover a lot more of it.
If you’re not familiar with seiches, and you didn’t realize that the water level in the Great Lakes changes (and not just seasonally but sometimes hourly), think of it as sort of a tide, although some descriptions say it is better compared to a tsunami. Basically changes in air pressure, move the water in the lake around, and on Sunday, the high pressure that had come in dragged a whole lot of water eastward toward Michigan, meaning that my next piece of garden art had been unearthed.
Find2
Don’t you collect garden art with a set up like this all the time?
 
It’s a lovely tree trunk portion, with a root that juts out to look a little bit like a whale vertebrae. It’s got a lot of character.
The problem with these little finds, though, is that they are often water logged, which means they are really heavy. Fortunately Mr. Much More Patient knows that finding free garden art in front of our unsuspecting neighbors’ houses means I won’t be buying garden art and he’s happy to help.
Find3
So that’s how we ended up hooking up the garden cart to our decrepit freebie riding lawn mower, cutting through our neighbor’s yard and driving that baby down the beach to collect our little find.
We’ll see where it ends up, but I think one of the new gardens I have planned for the back yard would be a pretty great place for it.

driftwood garden
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
4 Comments

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previous post: P. Allen Smith: Gardening’s secret funny man?
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Comments

  1. Kim says: April 20, 2011 at 4:54 am

    This is too funny! I love it.

    Reply
  2. Kathy@ Gone North says: April 20, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    That is a fun piece… make sure you post a pic when you have it in it's new place.
    (from the other side of the lake:)

    Reply
  3. Erin Schanen says: April 20, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    @ Kim … It's probably a good thing that most of our neighbors who actually live on the beach are summer residents only because I'm sure they'd all think we are nuts for driving down the beach on the lawn mower!

    @Kathy … So all that water was pushed over on your side of the lake! Thanks for taking some for a little bit so my little "treasure" could be uncovered.

    Reply
  4. Ms. Wis./Each Little World says: April 25, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    Great piece of art and thanks for the mini lakes lesson. I knew the water level changed but not really why or how.

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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