Garden Art
Saturday, June 14th, 2008
Every year, Galveston has a Backyard Garden tour of selected well-maintained yards about town. I try not to miss the occasion, both because it is a good way to be introduced to plants that may not die in our humid summer air, but also because there are some excellent examples of garden art. It is not difficult to have artistic touches in your yard. Gazing balls abound and bird baths and fountains turn what would have been a grassy corner into an oasis. But really good garden art is not just art “in” the garden; it is art that has become part of the garden.
Much of the knack of developing good garden art is placement. I’m attaching two examples here from this year’s tour. The brick wall makes the cat bird house come alive. The ceramic frog doesn’t even have to be seen as a frog because it is so much a part of the shady kaleidoscopic cranny dominated by the caladium.
