Hamish Mackie bronze garden sculpture
Hamish Mackie’s ‘Bronze Leopard Life Size Coming out of tree’ - display at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2009. It reminds me of some of the earliest garden sculpture ever made: the Mesopotamian bas relief carvings from Babylon. Animals and drama have long been components of garden design, and long deserve to remain so. Hamish specializes in wild life sculpture.
Copper is a one of the oldest and best materials for making garden lights and lanterns. If lacquered, copper retains its reddish-gold brilliance. If unlacquered, it can turn a wonderfully soft eau de nil green. The lanterns in the photograph are wired for electricity but it is still possible to buy copper lanterns for gas light. So lets have a new Chalcolithic Age (Copper Age).
Isn’t she a beauty?
We put this photograph of her on Flickr.
The first comments were:
“Oh how absolutely cool.”
“Wow! Fab!”
“Very Cool”
The photograph was taken at the Chelsea Flower Show.
This ‘decking thing’ is getting out of hand. There are times and places for garden decks but the trend to ‘anywhere -anytime’ is bonkers.
It looks nice and warm and crisp in the photograph. But put it in your garden and wait five years and what will have happened? A little rot; a little twisting; stains, lots of moss – and a great need for timber decking cleaners, stains and preservatives.
So look at Japan and learn how best to use timber decking: under the eaves of a roof. It then becomes a delightful surface which can be swept clean and is always a pleasure to walk or sit on.
Ain’t it cute?
So sweet. Just the thing for a garden ledge. Go on: treat yourself!
I have just bought a new cherub for my conservatory. He is a charming little thing and serves as an eyecatcher. The soaring vaults were pretty good as they were but my eye kept zooming round and round. It was dizzying. Now, it is peaceful. I walk in, sit on my cushioned rattan chair and focus my gaze on the little angel. It is a good preparation for a future life in the clouds, assuming St Peter lets me in.
With surprisingly little daylight, the effect is not unlike the suntubes which are becoming popular in the west, but the colour of the light is that of a restful dawn or sunset. A lacquered Chinese screen window, looking onto a small courtyard with an orange-gold wall and bamboo tracery.
I like Chilstone Garden Ornaments. Compared to their rivals, they chose better originals to model and they have developed a superior process for casting stone. One can well believe the manufacturer’s claim that ‘once the ornament has taken on an antique patina it generally increases in value – many Chilstone items have been sold at Sotheby’s for many times their retail value’. Chilstone was founded in 1953 and later moved to Sprivers in Kent. The four terms in the photograph show progressive phases in the weathering process. Chilstone Terms represent the four seasons – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. the spring of 2009 the prices were £592.00 each (+ VAT).
Note: a ‘Term’ can be defined as ‘a bust on a pedestal which tapers to the ground’. Like other senses of the word ‘term’ it comes from the Latin word for boundary or limit. Many Term sculptures represent the Roman god Terminus, who marked estate boundaries. The word ‘Herm’ used in connection with sculpture has a similar meaning but is used for statues of the god Hermes.
Buying a pair of gardening gloves has become a lot harder than it used to be! My local garden store has about 50 varieties to choose from, all are suited to different jobs. My old leather gloves are fine for heavy digging but what I wanted was a pair of gloves for pulling out weeds. I don’t want my enemies to slip though my fingers but I do want to be able to feel when my fingers have got them by the throat. So I chose Town and Country’s ‘Weed & Seed’ gardening gloves. Apart from the baby blue colour, they are fine. Maybe the colour suggests ‘health care’. The cost was £3.99 for a pair in May 2009.
River-worn paving stones set in topsoil. Had cement mortar been used instead, the effect would have been harsh and moss would not grow in the joints between the stones. Earth joints require more maintenance but the effect is much more beautiful. The clean-cut lines of the edging blocks act as a foil to the timeless pebbles – and the paving itself is a foil to the rich glow of the pond in springtime.
