Art in the Garden

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Alisdair

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #15 on: December 18, 2011, 08:48:18 AM »
Good idea for a new topic, Carole, on what makes people start gardening - so see here.
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

Umbrian

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2011, 09:00:06 AM »
When we bought our old farmhouse in Umbria we also inherited a decaying tobacco drying tower. Tobacco still is grown extensively in our area but is now a very modern ,mechanised business with central drying facilities and most of the old towers have either been converted to other uses or left to fall into disrepair. Apparently we could have left it to fall down or actually demolished it without the need for any kind of permission but we decided to restore it to a degree because they are a part of the heritage of this area. The cultivation of tobacco brought some work and prosperity to the contidini who previously had suffered very harsh lives. Ours is home to all my gardening requisites and also used to store wood for our wood burning stoves - in other words a bit of a "glory hole". When embarking on the restoration work we found a large iron "ring" a bit like you might have found on an old cartwheel but much more substantial and with an "S" form across it - part of the simple machinery connected to the drying of the tobacco leaves that were hung from wooden poles and suspended within the tower we assumed.
At that time my grandchildren were quite small and I made them a "secret garden" within mine, somewhere they could go and get away from us. I placed the iron ring in on the ground and filled each side of the two areas formed by the "S" with different coloured gravel. Here they placed their "treasures". The gravel all looks the same colour now but some of the "treasures" remain.
MGS member living and gardening in Umbria, Italy for past 19 years. Recently moved from my original house and now planning and planting a new small garden.

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JTh

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #17 on: December 18, 2011, 08:06:13 PM »
When we walked down from the Bahà'i Garden in Haifa this spring, I saw this rather special little garden, I have never seen anything like it. I would have liked to see what the owner was like.
Retired veterinary surgeon by training with a PhD in parasitology,  but worked as a virologist since 1992.
Member of the MGS  since 2004. Gardening in Oslo and to a limited extent in Halkidiki, Greece.

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John J

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2012, 03:14:25 PM »
When this topic was started I posted a photo of our old front door that my wife had converted into a table top. This photo is of an old table top she has converted into a wall decoration. One day I'll have to get a shot of the area under the clothes drying carousel where she has made a mosaic of washing hanging on a line. I'm not sure what archeologists might make of that in future millenia.
Cyprus Branch Head. Gardens in a field 40 m above sea level with reasonably fertile clay soil.
"Aphrodite emerged from the sea and came ashore and at her feet all manner of plants sprang forth" John Deacon (13thC AD)

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Alisdair

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #19 on: May 09, 2012, 04:27:18 PM »
Does she take commissions, John?  ;)   Really lovely!
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

Umbrian

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #20 on: May 10, 2012, 06:12:09 AM »
Yes,really lovely John, she has captured the feeling of movement perfectly!
MGS member living and gardening in Umbria, Italy for past 19 years. Recently moved from my original house and now planning and planting a new small garden.

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anita

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #21 on: October 02, 2012, 01:30:35 PM »
Hi,
Not sure if this is truly "art in the garden" but here are two examples of art... both useful and purely ornamental.
We saw an old garden support in a neighbour's garden and had a craftsman create a near replica for us.. as it's something every garden needs .. amusingly since we've had the new... but rusted supports in our garden.. our neighbour has "rescued" their neglected support, sand blasted it and painted it a glossy black (losing some it's charm in m.h.o.).
My better half has also made some of our garden ornaments.. there are are millions of kilometres of rusty barbed wire lying around Australian farms so friends of ours were mystified when we asked if we could have some of their old wire for garden ornaments... they were most amused on a recent visit to see them turned into "garden art" in the form of three balls.. A practical aspect of the balls is that they are light enough to move when the lawn requires mowing and transparent enough that they don't shadow the lawn.
Anita
Dry mediterranean climate, avg annual rainfall 530mm, little or no frost. Winter minimum 1C, summer max 45C

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Alisdair

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #22 on: October 02, 2012, 05:45:54 PM »
They work really well! Thanks for showing us, Anita.
They remind me of a rusted iron "tree" that we saw in a California private garden:
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society

Joanna Savage

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #23 on: October 03, 2012, 03:58:08 PM »
Hello Anita, I very much enjoyed your barbed wire balls. It must have been a difficult task persuading the wire to take the form you wanted. They make me think of huge Blowey Grass seed heads that are blown in from the dry interior plains. Do you experience the hot north wind which debilitates Melbourne?

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anita

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #24 on: October 07, 2012, 11:45:13 AM »
Hi Joanna,
Adelaide is a little hotter than Melbourne so we frequently suffer hot northerlies which can drive the temperature into the 40sC for days in summer. Most unpleasant and tough on the garden.
I hadn't really thought about the balls as stylised plants... I had some vision of them being laid by a passing dinosaur.. but now that you've mentioned it they do look like tumbleweeds which blow about sunburnt agricultural paddocks in summer. I'm looking at them from a completely different perspective now. Thankyou! Anita
Dry mediterranean climate, avg annual rainfall 530mm, little or no frost. Winter minimum 1C, summer max 45C

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JTh

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #25 on: October 26, 2012, 10:03:22 PM »
For those of you with a larger garden and who are interested in cars, I have seen the perfect garden ornament. Just below the little town Taxiarchis in the Holomonda mountains) I have seen this old car gradually being buried under a mound of Clematis vitalba, it is almost nicer in the autumn with the fluffy cloud of seedheads (bottom photo).
Retired veterinary surgeon by training with a PhD in parasitology,  but worked as a virologist since 1992.
Member of the MGS  since 2004. Gardening in Oslo and to a limited extent in Halkidiki, Greece.

Joanna Savage

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #26 on: October 28, 2012, 07:17:05 AM »
Excellent observation, J Th. As ever, nature does it so well, whether it be art or gardening.

Umbrian

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #27 on: November 07, 2012, 08:21:39 AM »
Natural art in the garden! This lovely grouping of "toadstools" sprang up in a crack in the top of one of the wooden risers of the steps leading down to our pool.
MGS member living and gardening in Umbria, Italy for past 19 years. Recently moved from my original house and now planning and planting a new small garden.

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John J

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #28 on: January 22, 2013, 06:46:07 AM »
While searching through some old photos I came across this chap taken a couple of years ago in the gardens at Heligan. Does this come under the heading of art?
Cyprus Branch Head. Gardens in a field 40 m above sea level with reasonably fertile clay soil.
"Aphrodite emerged from the sea and came ashore and at her feet all manner of plants sprang forth" John Deacon (13thC AD)

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Alisdair

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Re: Art in the Garden
« Reply #29 on: January 22, 2013, 01:07:35 PM »
Definitely garden art, John - thanks for showing us such a cheery naughty-looking chap!
On the MGS trip to South Australia last year we were struck by how so many of the gardens we saw there featured artworks, often witty. One of the most unusual was this life-size ceramic-tile "chaise longue" commissioned by Di Wark from her fellow-artists Kate Jenkins and Kristin Wohlers. It's called Don't Get Too Comfortable!, because the local plants, birds and animals featured on it are all ones which don't have a guaranteed future unless people take care of their needs. It's on the far side of a paddock beyond the garden of Di's Stonewell Farm - in this other picture from the Euphorbia thread you get the same sort of tantalising glimpse of it as you do in the garden itself.
Alisdair Aird
Gardens in SE England (Sussex); also coastal Southern Greece, and (in a very small way) South West France; MGS member (and former president); vice chairman RHS Lily Group, past chairman Cyclamen Society