Garden Ornaments for Impact with Garden Landscape Ideas

'Hard' Garden Ornaments:

I suppose that garden ornaments or ornaments in the garden could be divided roughly into three basic types: dignified restraint, cheerful vulgarity and over-the-top fantasy. In the first category, belong urns, obelisks, genuine classical statuary, pillars, balustrades and similar conceits; while the second collection would be garden gnomes, etc and the third collection would have tropical murals, classical trompe l'oeil vistas, the wilder flights of topiary, and pavilions and follies of every sort, and from every culture.

'Soft' or Plant Garden Ornaments:

Garden ornaments and ornamental features can be 'soft' or 'hard'; that is, from growing plants or from construction materials. Two plain clay pots, placed on either side of the front door and containing a mop-headed standard or an obelisk of Ivy, trained up supporting canes, would be a delightful combination of both, and not expensive if you grow and train the plants yourself.

A mop headed Bay or Box tree is a wickedly expensive luxury to buy, or to receive as a special present; but a jolly little standard of golden Privet that you have trained yourself is within everyone's budget, especially if you have grown it from a free cutting or hedge trimming (and these are often found lying around on the pavements).

Ivy, too, is easy to grow from cuttings and layerings, so that all you need is time and patience. If you have space to take evergreen cuttings, there is no end to the number of green, silver and gold 'ornaments' that you can grow; cones, obelisks, squares, balls, diamonds and every variety of creature can be trained and clipped into shape. Yew, Box, Lonicera and Privet will be suitable for this kind of sculpture, while almost anything can be trained as a weeping standard or a mop-head. Fuschias, some roses, buddleias, brooms, etc., make good weepers, while bay, eleagnus, Euonymus, daisies, other roses and a host of plants can be trained into mop-heads. Any plant material which you can obtain for nothing, or for very little cash, would be worth experimenting with.

Something fun that you could try is to wind the shoot of a pliant climber round a cane or stake until it hardens into maturity and will keep its barley-sugar shape when the support is withdrawn. Remove all side-shoots that grow on the twisted portion of the stem and allow the shoots at the top to develop into a weeper or a mop-head, according to type of plant.

Wisterias look wonderful like this and honeysuckle is an easy one. I see no real reason why any reasonably resilient climber could not be treated in this way As you need a young plant to train, material that you have propagated will be ideal and free.

Young plants are cheaper to buy than large specimens, so would not be likely to upset the budget. For obelisks and cone shapes, etc., plants can be trained over a framework of canes and wire, or battens and netting, into a dense, glittering surface. Nothing gives a young garden more of an instant 'lift' than these high-spots.

Other plants are so striking in their natural state that they need nothing but the simplest of containers to set them off, and thus become an ornament in themselves. These are the so-called 'architectural' plants, and very fashionable, too. They are usually evergreen or whatever else keeps its foliage throughout the year, although sometimes a deciduous plant has such attractive foliage in the summer and interestingly shaped branches in winter that it would qualify for inclusion.

Some of the Japanese Maples and the small Crab-Apples that hold their fruit in winter are possible choices. The evergreens include Magnolias, Fatsias, Yuccas, Phormiums, Palms, Bamboos and the larger Euphorbias.

Once again, the humble Privet can be a cheap and is an excellent choice. It has many forms, as well as the familiar green or gold hedgers. There are gold, silver and cream variegations, some of them just flushed with pink; whilst others have such large glossy leaves that you could mistake them for Camellias, and carry heavy heads of cream flowers with a distinctive scent which I love.