Garden ornamentation I

triceratops with echinacaea

Plastic dinosaurs were not my first choice for garden kitsch.  Kitsch was not even my first choice for the garden.  However, there was the newly built perennial bed dug across the entire front edge of our property (actually most of it over the line and into city property), and very little of it filled in with perennials.  I could have spent a fortune on transplants, following a long drawn out decision over what to plant and where, but I chose to go slow and see what would survive.  In the mean time, some extra visual interest could be provided by traditional adornments such as gnomes and cherubs.  They would, of course, have to be inexpensive and pre-enjoyed objects, because we could not justify consumption of raw resources for the sake of the that "visual interest", nor did I wish to part with any substantial quantity of dollars in exchange for something that would sit within an arm's length of the passing public.

My first garage sale tour was disappointing in terms of the availability of gnomes and cherubs, until I came upon farm animals and dinosaurs.  It seemed best not to mix the two.  I'm rather conventional that way.  Livestock went into the backyard vegetable garden and have always seemed most content in the garlic patch.

grazing in the garlic

taking cover in cliff green

Dinosaurs make their habitat in the large perennial bed, often half hidden in the foliage.  They are visible if one looks for them, but not so obvious as to be the defining feature of the garden.  Some have wandered away and not been able to find their way home.  As winter approaches they have to come indoors.  Snow and cold don't harm them, but they look sad on the grey-brown ground when the snow blows away.  They are also at risk in late fall of being raked up with the leaves and put through the shredder, which is bad for both dinosaurs and shredder blades.

king of the onions

New this year is the African collection.  Checking out a garage sale for dinosaurs, to replace last summer's escapees, I found instead: elephant, hippopotamus, gorilla, rhinoceros, crocodile, and an unstable ungulate.  The gorilla doesn't quite belong, but it's not as bad as having Cretaceous and Jurassic reptiles cohabiting in the rock garden.  A zebra would be nice.  The lack of a terrestrial carnivore bothered me until I got home and noticed that we already have a lion in the herb garden.

lone moose

The moose was never a good fit for either the dinosaurs or the livestock areas.  It has always been alone in the largely clear cut asparagus forest. It doesn't stand up well on its own, so having a few adjacent stumps to hold it up has been something of a blessing.


McKillop United Church held its rummage sale yesterday morning and I scored big.  It was sale by donation; I tossed $20 into the basket for this lot and considered half of that to be donation and the other half to be purchase price, based on your typical garage sale offerings.  No way will I spend nearly a dollar per critter.  The bulk of the dinosaurs were packaged in a large plastic zipper storage bag (awkward but responsible avoidance of brand name) that also held a Godzilla, a Shrek, and a few other unsuitable characters that will find better homes via the MCC store.  It's always good to have extra dinosaurs on hand, to make up for attrition, but I'm most pleased about finding forest companions for the moose - bear, bison, snake, skunk, lynx, deer, and wolves.  This might be, finally, enough.

rummage sale riches