Tacky is in the eye of the beholder

August 20, 2017

I don't recall how we landed on the topic of garden accents. Cindy excludes pink flamingos and most other garden accents from her garden. To her, garden accents look tacky, but she concedes it might be because she is not a gardener and doesn't know how to place them in the landscape. In contrast, I tuck accents throughout my garden.

I pulled up a memory of some neighbors at Lake Hamilton. One had all manner of plastic ornaments, whirlygigs, and Little Bo Peeps bending over in the front yard! Their neighbor displayed perfectly manicured shrubs and lawn, with one exception. On close inspection, hidden in the bushes, discretely placed pig statues faced the neighbors front yard. Point taken.

Then, I confessed to Cindy I have an accent in my garden that might make her head spin. Something fell off a shelf and cracked the sink in my powder room. The urge to "reduce, reuse, and recycle" kicked in. We dragged the sink into the side, not the front, garden and filled it with colorful glass baubles.

I suggested to Cindy that what non-gardeners might call tacky, a gardener probably calls whimsical. Yes, ma'am, whimsy is welcome in my garden.

~ LowTide explorer, Carolyn Fjeran