In article , "Shell91"
wrote:

Recently I read on another bulletin board quite a lot of people were
derisive about people who put up gazing balls and other such decorations in
their gardens.

I think gazing balls have gotten pompously cliche; there's nothing
inherently tasteless about something being round, but when everyone &
their dog has a gazing ball, plus they keep calling them gazing balls, it
can seem awfully unimaginative at the least. The best ones I've seen were
actually glittery bowling balls! Had all the "plusses" of cloyingly named
"Gazing Balls," yet editorialized on the absurdity of fads. 99% of the
gazing balls I've seen for sale were gawdy crap that'd look perfect in
trailer court gardens, but a few I thought were quite nice & probably only
the cliche of it keeps them out of my yard.

On the other hand I do have a couple of glass floats picked up along the
Olympic coast, & they are floating in an oak barrel. To some these would
appear no different from the commercial "gazing balls" but to me they have
a more personal feeling because I've lived in this area since childhood &
always thrilled to spot one of these floats on coastal beaches after
autumn storms, knowing many of them have been months, years, or decades
floating out in the Pacific getting here from Asia.

Any thoughts on things like gazing balls or those copper
garden stakes with beads or glass balls on them in gardens? How about solar
powered gazing ball / light combinations or other lights in the garden?
Just wondering what the general feeling is about these things. I'm not
talking about plastic pink flamingos or plastic deer or even garden gnomes.
I do think some of this stuff looks good and some of the deer and gnomes are
cute.

Gnomes & flamingos can certainly seem to be the low-end of a lot of either
junky or kitschy stuff, but if they have some emotional appeal, I wouldn't
avoid them just cuz OTHER people think they're trashy. My great-grandma
had a couple super ugly hanging pots on her front porch, & if I had those
today, I'd love them because they were hers, but not likely anyone but me
would think they were nice. If garden gnomes touch your soul, don't
criticize your own soul, just be happy to have one.

I've a friend in Oregon who had something like a hundred pink flamingos in
her front yard -- all of them stolen from around Eugene over a great many
years. Though no one ever proved they were stolen, everyone had to have
realized it was something of a mania, she'd see one & she had to steal it.
For the most part, people seemed to regard it as a perverse honor that her
flock included a bird that had once lived in their yard. Sometimes a
worn-out old flamingo would be left near her porch by secret gift-givers
apparently wanting a nice way to get rid of an unwanted plastic pet. And
she'd often look outside & see strangers & tourists standing amidst her
flamingos, taking pictures of each other.

Then one morning she woke up to discover ALL HER PLASTIC FLAMINGOS WERE
GONE, & in their place was one plastic blue heron. Over time, she'd get
pictures of the flock in the mail, postmarked from all around North
America, as though her flock was actually flying from place to place &
seeing the sites. Then about two years later, she got up one morning, &
the flamingos had come home!

Whoever pulled this stunt remains unknown to this day, but C. still has
attached to her refrigerator a collection of photographs documenting the
flock's travels.

I have put some copper garden stakes in my small garden and hung a solar
powered gazing ball light as well as put one of those solar powered path
lights in. Personally I think the path light is pretty neat since it has
settings for red, green, amber light and a setting for all three colors to
flash. And of course my pvc fence is there to keep the lawn guys from
mowing or weed whacking my plants.

If you find it pretty, it's probably pretty, & if it serves as a garden
light, I wouldn't even qualify that as a tacky gazing ball, but as a
light. Now it doesn't sound like something i would personally want in my
garden, but a garden should appeal to each gardener's own tastes, not to
some uptown designer's idea of what would be better.

One of the most tasteless yards I ever saw was crammed full of whirligigs
& windmills & weatherveins, anything the wind could move. There were also
colored plastic ribbons & tape & triangle flags woven through a chainlink
fence, & the lawn was never mowed, the windmills & stuff being too closely
packed to even let a mower through. Yet to any child's eyes, it was great.
The old couple's grandkids & great grandkids gave them most of that junk.
I'm sure the first couple windmills & propellered things looked fine, but
when an extended family's population of grandkids & cousins decided they'd
all & always continuously give whirly garden junk to the family patriarch
& matriarch, it was bound to look awfully silly after a few years. But it
was all for love, & if any neighbors hated it, **** 'em.

Anyone else put stuff like this in their gardens?

I think at first glance people would not see much knickknackery in my
garden because it's pretty much all hidden among greenery, & is pretty
much of earthy colors; but in fact I have quite a lot of stuff sitting
here & there. I even select my gardening tools in part on the basis of how
attractive they look if I leave them in the yard, like this wooden bucket:
http://www.paghat.com/knickknack2.html

The BEST garden decorations are rocks & limbs, though.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

In article , "Stu Redman"
wrote:

Don't ask other people their opinions -- do what YOU like. After all, it's
your garden. You worked hard to create it, now you should enjoy it!

Right! From my point of view there is absolutely NOTHING odd or worthy of
complaint about my gardens, but that's not an opinion shared universally,
& anyone who feels they need to please the tastes of others is going to
get very frustrated trying to conform to confliciting opinions. My
neighborhood overall seems to be divided between those who think my
densely gardened yards are rather eccentric, & those who ask me to help
them plan out new landscaping in their own yards to look more like mine.

I have a neighbor who thinks the perfect yard has to be 95% concreted over
like his own. He's a retired police officer, lonely & cranky & often
cussing in the worst mofo language at his elderly dog. He thinks that my
style of gardening (duplicating a woodland experience) is messy & chaotic,
unlike his concrete pad with a couple square planters of tomatos in the
middle. If I let a limb of something grow out over the sidewalk, he calls
the fire department & tells them to tell me to cut it back. The woman in
charge of these complaints told me he's on their list of crackpots, but
that even so, I can't let my garden overhang the sidewalk below twelve
feet.

So while I might regard what i've created as a woodsy piece of paradise,
there's always SOMEone who thinks it's terrible. This kind of pressure may
explain why so many suburban yards are block upon block of look-alike
patches of boring green lawns. The only way to please everyone is to be as
blandly unmaginative, sterile, & homely as a neighborhood standard devoid
of aesthetic understanding. It's also why most cars look exactly alike
nowadays -- only a completely strango-weirdo would drive around in an art
deco rocketship-shaped Thunderbird, & even just a little hood ornament is
too risky. Banality rules. Better to have ten garden gnomes & a row of
rubber tire planters painted white than bow to the sameness of the world's
tendency toward mediocrity & sameness.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

"paghat" wrote in message
news

Then one morning she woke up to discover ALL HER PLASTIC FLAMINGOS WERE
GONE, & in their place was one plastic blue heron. Over time, she'd get
pictures of the flock in the mail, postmarked from all around North
America, as though her flock was actually flying from place to place &
seeing the sites. Then about two years later, she got up one morning, &
the flamingos had come home!


Just like the traveling garden gnome in the flick Amélie.

He's a retired police officer, lonely & cranky & often
cussing in the worst mofo language at his elderly dog.

Well dogs and wives CAN be hard of hearing you know...;-)

(No excuse for the foul language, mind you)

One of my neighbors has a set of those wire pink flamingos that have the
lights on them in their front yard. They don't look too bad
Shell


"Gloria Lenon" wrote in message
m...
Hey! I like my pink flamingoes! Of course they are in the backyard, not
the
front. And my gnome is there too! Actually, they all are next to the pool
and keep the iguanas amused.

--
gloria - only the iguanas know for sure

Sounds a bit like my next door neighbors who hate my hedges. The one
between the yards was well on the way to being trees, beautiful and healthy.
They asked if they could cut it back some and thinking they meant trim it on
their side of the yard my dad said yes. They cut it back from nearly 8 feet
tall to about 2 1/2 feet tall, almost totally denuding it of leaves and
nearly killing it. They have complained about the front holly being over
the sidewalk and called the city to tell us to have it cut, and have
coplained about not being able to see when they back out of their driveway.
Strangely enough the huge tree they have planted in the sidewalk easement
doesn't block their view and the holly only bothered them when we made them
move their security light which came on and shined right in my parents'
bedroom window (cars on the cross-street set the thing off). They also put
their heavy trash out in front of our holly well onto our side of the
sidewalk easement. And I won't go into the open sewer line the still
haven't managed to get fixed (it has a rubbermaid tub turned over it and
semi burried).

I plan on putting up one of those pretty decorative fences around the front
yard. The nice vinyl ones that look like painted wood Should really
tick them off

Shell


"paghat" wrote in message
news
In article , "Stu Redman"
wrote:

Don't ask other people their opinions -- do what YOU like. After all,
it's
your garden. You worked hard to create it, now you should enjoy it!

Right! From my point of view there is absolutely NOTHING odd or worthy of
complaint about my gardens, but that's not an opinion shared universally,
& anyone who feels they need to please the tastes of others is going to
get very frustrated trying to conform to confliciting opinions. My
neighborhood overall seems to be divided between those who think my
densely gardened yards are rather eccentric, & those who ask me to help
them plan out new landscaping in their own yards to look more like mine.

I have a neighbor who thinks the perfect yard has to be 95% concreted over
like his own. He's a retired police officer, lonely & cranky & often
cussing in the worst mofo language at his elderly dog. He thinks that my
style of gardening (duplicating a woodland experience) is messy & chaotic,
unlike his concrete pad with a couple square planters of tomatos in the
middle. If I let a limb of something grow out over the sidewalk, he calls
the fire department & tells them to tell me to cut it back. The woman in
charge of these complaints told me he's on their list of crackpots, but
that even so, I can't let my garden overhang the sidewalk below twelve
feet.

So while I might regard what i've created as a woodsy piece of paradise,
there's always SOMEone who thinks it's terrible. This kind of pressure may
explain why so many suburban yards are block upon block of look-alike
patches of boring green lawns. The only way to please everyone is to be as
blandly unmaginative, sterile, & homely as a neighborhood standard devoid
of aesthetic understanding. It's also why most cars look exactly alike
nowadays -- only a completely strango-weirdo would drive around in an art
deco rocketship-shaped Thunderbird, & even just a little hood ornament is
too risky. Banality rules. Better to have ten garden gnomes & a row of
rubber tire planters painted white than bow to the sameness of the world's
tendency toward mediocrity & sameness.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

"paghat" wrote in message
news
In article , "Shell91"
wrote:

Recently I read on another bulletin board quite a lot of people were
derisive about people who put up gazing balls and other such decorations
in
their gardens.

I think gazing balls have gotten pompously cliche; there's nothing
inherently tasteless about something being round, but when everyone &
their dog has a gazing ball, plus they keep calling them gazing balls, it
can seem awfully unimaginative at the least. The best ones I've seen were
actually glittery bowling balls! Had all the "plusses" of cloyingly named
"Gazing Balls," yet editorialized on the absurdity of fads. 99% of the
gazing balls I've seen for sale were gawdy crap that'd look perfect in
trailer court gardens, but a few I thought were quite nice & probably only
the cliche of it keeps them out of my yard.

On the other hand I do have a couple of glass floats picked up along the
Olympic coast, & they are floating in an oak barrel. To some these would
appear no different from the commercial "gazing balls" but to me they have
a more personal feeling because I've lived in this area since childhood &
always thrilled to spot one of these floats on coastal beaches after
autumn storms, knowing many of them have been months, years, or decades
floating out in the Pacific getting here from Asia.

Mine looks like green carnival glass (which I collect) and has a solar
light in it. I hung it from the soffet between the front door and front
window. Its not getting enough light though so I need to move it. I think
maybe to the back yard near the birdbath which is a large drip tray bolted
to a 4x4 fence post. The birdbaths in the stores were all too shallow and
not big enough around. The blue jays love it and won't let any other birds
use it when they're out there.


Any thoughts on things like gazing balls or those copper
garden stakes with beads or glass balls on them in gardens? How about
solar
powered gazing ball / light combinations or other lights in the garden?
Just wondering what the general feeling is about these things. I'm not
talking about plastic pink flamingos or plastic deer or even garden
gnomes.
I do think some of this stuff looks good and some of the deer and gnomes
are
cute.

Gnomes & flamingos can certainly seem to be the low-end of a lot of either
junky or kitschy stuff, but if they have some emotional appeal, I wouldn't
avoid them just cuz OTHER people think they're trashy. My great-grandma
had a couple super ugly hanging pots on her front porch, & if I had those
today, I'd love them because they were hers, but not likely anyone but me
would think they were nice. If garden gnomes touch your soul, don't
criticize your own soul, just be happy to have one.

I've a friend in Oregon who had something like a hundred pink flamingos in
her front yard -- all of them stolen from around Eugene over a great many
years. Though no one ever proved they were stolen, everyone had to have
realized it was something of a mania, she'd see one & she had to steal it.
For the most part, people seemed to regard it as a perverse honor that her
flock included a bird that had once lived in their yard. Sometimes a
worn-out old flamingo would be left near her porch by secret gift-givers
apparently wanting a nice way to get rid of an unwanted plastic pet. And
she'd often look outside & see strangers & tourists standing amidst her
flamingos, taking pictures of each other.

Then one morning she woke up to discover ALL HER PLASTIC FLAMINGOS WERE
GONE, & in their place was one plastic blue heron. Over time, she'd get
pictures of the flock in the mail, postmarked from all around North
America, as though her flock was actually flying from place to place &
seeing the sites. Then about two years later, she got up one morning, &
the flamingos had come home!

Whoever pulled this stunt remains unknown to this day, but C. still has
attached to her refrigerator a collection of photographs documenting the
flock's travels.

I remember hearing about this on the news and while I don't condone
breaking the law I think its pretty neat. Its especially neat your friend
seems to have taken the whole thing in the spirit it seems to have been done
in.


I have put some copper garden stakes in my small garden and hung a solar
powered gazing ball light as well as put one of those solar powered path
lights in. Personally I think the path light is pretty neat since it
has
settings for red, green, amber light and a setting for all three colors
to
flash. And of course my pvc fence is there to keep the lawn guys from
mowing or weed whacking my plants.

If you find it pretty, it's probably pretty, & if it serves as a garden
light, I wouldn't even qualify that as a tacky gazing ball, but as a
light. Now it doesn't sound like something i would personally want in my
garden, but a garden should appeal to each gardener's own tastes, not to
some uptown designer's idea of what would be better.

One of the most tasteless yards I ever saw was crammed full of whirligigs
& windmills & weatherveins, anything the wind could move. There were also
colored plastic ribbons & tape & triangle flags woven through a chainlink
fence, & the lawn was never mowed, the windmills & stuff being too closely
packed to even let a mower through. Yet to any child's eyes, it was great.
The old couple's grandkids & great grandkids gave them most of that junk.
I'm sure the first couple windmills & propellered things looked fine, but
when an extended family's population of grandkids & cousins decided they'd
all & always continuously give whirly garden junk to the family patriarch
& matriarch, it was bound to look awfully silly after a few years. But it
was all for love, & if any neighbors hated it, **** 'em.

Anyone else put stuff like this in their gardens?

I think at first glance people would not see much knickknackery in my
garden because it's pretty much all hidden among greenery, & is pretty
much of earthy colors; but in fact I have quite a lot of stuff sitting
here & there. I even select my gardening tools in part on the basis of how
attractive they look if I leave them in the yard, like this wooden bucket:
http://www.paghat.com/knickknack2.html

The BEST garden decorations are rocks & limbs, though.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

I do believe the worst thing I've seen in my area is the yard on the oposite
corner from my house. They have a nicely cut and trimmed yard which is very
neat and ordinary looking. They have one of those concrete fake wells in
the yard, a small one sitting all by itself with nothing around it. It just
looks unfinished.

Shell

In article ,
Shell91 wrote:
Sounds a bit like my next door neighbors who hate my hedges. The one
between the yards was well on the way to being trees, beautiful and healthy.
They asked if they could cut it back some and thinking they meant trim it on
their side of the yard my dad said yes. They cut it back from nearly 8 feet
tall to about 2 1/2 feet tall, almost totally denuding it of leaves and
nearly killing it.



Heh. Reminds me of driving around Palm Beach. There are a couple of roads
next to the ocean where all the really rich people live. They have
hedges that must be 20 feet high. It sometimes seems like you are driving
down a maze or topiary tunnel.


I plan on putting up one of those pretty decorative fences around the front
yard. The nice vinyl ones that look like painted wood Should really
tick them off


Paint it red, white and blue. That way you can call the newspaper
and complain that they are being unpatriotic when they yell about
it.

Show 'em who's really the boss -- take out the hedge and plant
Leyland Cyprus. God knows there's not enough of *them* planted
along property lines nowadays.

billo

Shell,

Don't listen to what other people say. This question will draw tons
of different answers and leave you right were you are now. Wondering
if it is acceptable or not. Who cares. As long as you like it, that
is what is most important.

Mary

On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 19:40:08 GMT, "Shell91"
wrote:

Recently I read on another bulletin board quite a lot of people were
derisive about people who put up gazing balls and other such decorations in
their gardens. Any thoughts on things like gazing balls or those copper
garden stakes with beads or glass balls on them in gardens? How about solar
powered gazing ball / light combinations or other lights in the garden?
Just wondering what the general feeling is about these things. I'm not
talking about plastic pink flamingos or plastic deer or even garden gnomes.
I do think some of this stuff looks good and some of the deer and gnomes are
cute.

I have put some copper garden stakes in my small garden and hung a solar
powered gazing ball light as well as put one of those solar powered path
lights in. Personally I think the path light is pretty neat since it has
settings for red, green, amber light and a setting for all three colors to
flash. And of course my pvc fence is there to keep the lawn guys from
mowing or weed whacking my plants.

Anyone else put stuff like this in their gardens?

Shell

If I was sure it wouldn't take over my yard I'd plant some wisteria It
would eat the neighbor's yard in about a week

Shell


"Bill Oliver" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Shell91 wrote:
Sounds a bit like my next door neighbors who hate my hedges. The one
between the yards was well on the way to being trees, beautiful and
healthy.
They asked if they could cut it back some and thinking they meant trim it
on
their side of the yard my dad said yes. They cut it back from nearly 8
feet
tall to about 2 1/2 feet tall, almost totally denuding it of leaves and
nearly killing it.



Heh. Reminds me of driving around Palm Beach. There are a couple of
roads
next to the ocean where all the really rich people live. They have
hedges that must be 20 feet high. It sometimes seems like you are driving
down a maze or topiary tunnel.


I plan on putting up one of those pretty decorative fences around the
front
yard. The nice vinyl ones that look like painted wood Should really
tick them off


Paint it red, white and blue. That way you can call the newspaper
and complain that they are being unpatriotic when they yell about
it.

Show 'em who's really the boss -- take out the hedge and plant
Leyland Cyprus. God knows there's not enough of *them* planted
along property lines nowadays.

billo

Yep, the only people I listen to about the yard are my family. I did manage
to talk them out of a pond in the back, we've got enough snakes in the yard
and more than enough mosquitos

Shell


"Mary" wrote in message
...
Shell,

Don't listen to what other people say. This question will draw tons
of different answers and leave you right were you are now. Wondering
if it is acceptable or not. Who cares. As long as you like it, that
is what is most important.

Mary

On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 19:40:08 GMT, "Shell91"
wrote:

Recently I read on another bulletin board quite a lot of people were
derisive about people who put up gazing balls and other such decorations
in
their gardens. Any thoughts on things like gazing balls or those copper
garden stakes with beads or glass balls on them in gardens? How about
solar
powered gazing ball / light combinations or other lights in the garden?
Just wondering what the general feeling is about these things. I'm not
talking about plastic pink flamingos or plastic deer or even garden
gnomes.
I do think some of this stuff looks good and some of the deer and gnomes
are
cute.

I have put some copper garden stakes in my small garden and hung a solar
powered gazing ball light as well as put one of those solar powered path
lights in. Personally I think the path light is pretty neat since it has
settings for red, green, amber light and a setting for all three colors
to
flash. And of course my pvc fence is there to keep the lawn guys from
mowing or weed whacking my plants.

Anyone else put stuff like this in their gardens?

Shell