Sunday, December 17, 2006

The Concealing Gardener

I've gone on more tours of gardens than I can remember; large gardens and small, glorious hilltop gardens with quaint cottages, and small, fenced in patches of annuals on busy city corners... and I've enjoyed every last one of them, for I always see something new, or at least see something in a new light. However, there is something common to all of these gardens that I rarely get to see, or at least see well, and that is the gardener's junk pile; that dark corner where all the old bricks, wire, and bags of peat are piled. My tour host always points me in a different direction, and starts talking and walking faster when we near that spot. With all of the years I've been gardening (through four gardens), and with my pronounced packrat disposition, I have, therefore, in our garden the mother of all junkpiles (excuse me, garden resource area)... not really a photogenic background for the rhododendrons. I finally built a wooden fence enclosure for it (you can just see it in the distance in the picture above), using some of those ready-made pieces of wood fencing, then as an afterthought hung a statuary face on the side. It's worked so well that I'm thinking of putting one in the corner of my den. Posted by Picasa

Comments:
My junk pile concealer is called a shed. :) The fence is a good idea too though. And that's a great statue. Is it a Green Man or an old man winter type of character?
 
Anthony... I'd love to have a shed, but our property association forbids any outbuildings. The face is a green man.
Don
 
Attended a talk by Alan Armitage and he asked this question:
Why do gardeners insist on putting a beautiful speciman near the compost heap??
It cracked me up and I went home and looked at my yard. Sure enough!! I thought the JM would hide the compost turner!!
 
Sissy... Dr. Armitage is a TERRFIFIC garden writer; I'll bet he was fun to listen to.
Don
 
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