What I Learned: Garden Art Done Austin-Style

It continues to be hot (shocker!) so instead of doing lots of work in the garden, i went back and looked at Austin pictures for inspiration. There are a few exciting projects happening in the garden, however - now if i could just remember to take pictures!

One thing i don't have a lot of is garden art. No particular reason, although the fact that I buy too many plants is probably one. I'm also not sure what i like, or what looks good, or what will hold up in our sun/heat/cold/wind. I also tend towards minimalist tendencies (well, except for plants), so "extra stuff" was never high on my list.

However, just like with plants, and everything else, the gardens we saw during the Austin Fling had all kinds of inspiration for garden art. Here are some of the ones that caught my eye, from the small:

this cute metal lizard (?) in Diana's garden

To the large:

the labyrinth at The Natural Gardener

And the cute - in this case bushes with some decorations to make them look like caterpillars!

Also at The Natural Gardener!

At Mirador, the garden art was more sculptural and very much blended with the rest of the design.

although it was blocking the gate - on purpose?

Austin had lots of metal lizards - this one in Pam's garden:

I like how it blends into the rock

Pam's garden had lots of cute garden art that really fit in with everything else in her gorgeous garden

a carnivorous plant i might be able to keep alive!

Ditto on the fish!

Some of the art looked like it was part of the plants, like these metal stalks on an agave:

not the world's best picture of Pam's garden...

In Hutto, there were more small sculptures:

and a bottle edging - there were a lot of bottles (trees, bushes, edges) in the Fling

The back gate at Zilker had metal cacti!

The whole gate was gorgeous! 

While at Lucinda Hutson's garden, there were all kinds of metal agave, in different colors:

these were great - they really fit in her garden, but i can see them work in lots of places

A lot of Austin gardens had beautiful rock work. At Kirk Walden's garden, there was also a sculpture near the top pool/spa:

it looked like a dinosaur to me? Fitting with all that rock!

We saw a lot of bottle trees in different gardens - this one from Donna Fowler's garden was among the most colorful:

especially with that blue sky and lime-green trees behind it!

I will admit that while i admire explosions of color like that, I think i can see more subdued art fitting better in my own garden, like this crocodile out of Tait Moring's garden:

hiding in the gravel - i could do this with DG?

Or this combination of spheres and stepping stones in Jenny Stocker's garden. She recently did a post showing how to make these spheres:

i like how they are nestled into the plants

She also had this cute frog statue hanging off the edge of a rock wall:

cute, and looking great on that awesome Texas/Austin rock!

She also had this little "theater", which made the plants themselves look like art:

so neat! And a great focal point on the wall...

Thoughts on how to apply this lesson to my garden:

• While i admire some of the very colorful art, i'm not sure that's my style. Over and over again in Austin, my eye was caught by art that blended into the gardens. 
• All the metal (rusted metal, in particular) sculpture was really nice. And maybe the rusted color would keep it from getting too hot in the desert sun? I know i would really like glass, but i don't like setting the garden on fire, so that's probably out...
• I liked all the spheres - maybe i could get some more for the garden, including glazed ones that match the mostly-blue pots I've been using? I have some small ones scattered around the garden already, but i think the hillside would be a great place to add some bigger ones. 
• I should look into more "vertical" garden art - like bloom stalks, or other things to add some height, especially when the yuccas/hesperaloes aren't blooming.  
• I'm very tempted to find a place on a wall to hang a cacti theater like Jenny's - maybe that can be the thing to fill up the wall by the AC and make that part of the garden nicer?
• Speaking of that part of the garden (that would be the south side) - I wonder if i could add cacti to the fence like at Zilker... it would be fitting! I probably can't get an exact color match though, so I'll have to see if it still works against the blue gate.