Posted by Maggie from Nicola's E ... Another beautiful scene and DIY fun story by Nicola who gardens in the London area and at her web site:
Private Life of a Garden

A couple of years ago shortly before a garden open day a large weigela died leaving a gaping hole in the border. It would not have been possible to get something to grow quickly enough and too expensive to go and buy a mature shrub, so we came up with this.

The terracotta plaque had been sitting around waiting for a home for quite some time. I had already decided that it looked like a memorial image, so, we built the mausoleum in one afternoon. We used a set of Ikea shelving and some old hardboard for the main body. A friend had the eaves of a derelict greenhouse and some roofing pantiles that made up the roof. We scrounged some heavy duty card tubing from the inside of a carpet roll for the side columns from a local carpet shop. The only thing I bought was some paint - and that was on the 'specials' shelf. So the whole thing cost £4.99 which is around $8.
We expected it to collapse within a couple of weeks but it is still standing!

Nicola Rubin
Conway Garden Design

I love the classical Greek lines of it Nicola. It’s a great play on the 17th century follies – in miniature. Just about the right size for my gnomes landscape ;-)

I dug up some historic ref on the subject to share.
“…. Landscape designers of the romantic period used temples to stimulate contemplative thought and create an atmosphere of fruitful melancholy ... many of their temples were used as mausoleums to confirm this serious purpose…”

I was thinking it would be nice to commemorate a departed pet’s resting place with just such a miniature temple-shrine folly. Or for ALL the many departed we seem to go through around here. Alex has been burying all her little ones in the fairy’s garden for years. I’d better not let her see your folly, she’d start ripping out a tree to make space for one. ;-)

That was such a great idea, Nicola! I would have been hitting every nursery around trying to find a big enough plant to stick in the hole. It would never have occured to me to build a "temple." To think it was built mostly of scraps, and yet turned out so fine. Good work!

And Maggie, thanx for the historical background. Very interesting.

That is nice Nicola....You certainly used your head and everything you could find to make such a nice looking temple like garden art.....I would have had to probably use a water proof clock or something, not as inventive as you of course..

I messed up the link to Nicola's site. Let me try again.
The Private Life of a Garden

I bet you sure could spare an extra clock for the garden David, from those dozens you keep around the house, right? See folks, we have a clock
connoisseur on board. I don't remember seeing a sundial in your garden - now that needs rememdy!

I have a sundial, but no sun, bit like a watch with no hands. Great display Nicola, amazing that the cardboard tube is still sound after two years of our weather.

I laughed when I read about Alex's pet cemetary, with over 200 birds, and in the past, hamsters, gerbils and mice our whole garden is one big burial site. Unfortunately most of the small ones now go the way of the dustbin, as it is almost impossible to bury them without digging more up, must be good for the soil though. When our first cat died many years ago we buried her in her favourite spot on the lawn, for years after the grass always grew faster and was greener where she lay. Many people plant a shrub or other favourite plant to mark the final resting place of a favourite family pet.

A home garden is such a wonderful place to remember longlostloved pets. Alex has planted only her tinys with the fairies - fish, gerbils and such, but our much-missed kitties hold higher places of honor and like yours, Terry grow wonderful memorial plants! The best azalea in our garden marks Basil's resting place, a rose is over Claudia and Tyler sleeps with magnolias. Its amazing how often we still speak of them and miss them so much.
Being more pragmatic than sentimental ... I read somewhere that Gertrude Jekyll planted her lily bulbs with rabbit! Maybe you should bury your littles in your compost pile ;-)

Find room for them if you can Maggie, not exactly garden art, but they do look good if you are a keen gardener.

What do you suppose I could plant with pig?.....A rainforest?

How about Hedera helix 'Pink and Curly' I grow this Ivy and it is pink (on the undersides of the leaves) and very curly.

Carolyn!!! I like that sense of humour....

My appologies Nicola, I just realised that I posted in your art section, forgot that we all had our own. Really must get my eyes tested, think my brain could do with an oil change too.

OK. Pink and curly is great Nicola! Would have been very appropriate. However, husband and cousin hauled large, heavy, dead pig way up the hill to the far corner of the property for burial.

Birthday presents can be a headache for the person who has to buy them. But for the other half of a mad keen gardener there is always something that is needed. One year I came up with a design idea for some metal panels which my indulgent husband had made for me. (I have to say stuff like that or he might stop buying me things!)
Here is the largest one of three

He looks a little like John our gardener - see The Answer Lies in the Soil on my website - but the similarity ends there as poor John never gets the opportunity to laze in the sun.
I do not have photos of the other two; they depict the gardeners tools which have been left propped together and the smallest that looks like an unfurling fern.

You designed it and he made it!! With a garden like yours Nicola, I should have known it was made by an artist and her hubby artisan! Oh, and by John! Do you also paint, sculpt,,, what else? The panel is soooo wonderful. Please do tell us about the materials. Is it welded metal?

Very nice, Nicola. Didn't you design the stained glass window in the pergola as well?

Very impressive, Nicola, and still got stripes on the lawn I see.

Yes I did design the glass in the arbour, and the arbour itself. The whole thing was sort of stolen from Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a Scottish architect/designer who lived in the early 1900s. He was brilliant, I just love his work.
Terry, I can report that I mowed the lawn yesterday and the strips are still there!

Those fritillaria panels are fabulous Nicola. I must look into more of CRM works. A wonderful cross of Frank L Wright and Lalique? Your rendition makes me think he may have been into a geometric industrial meets nature sort of thing. I too am so drawn to Arts and Crafts era designs.

I let my guinea pigs loose on the grass, Nicola, but they just haven't mastered the stripe thing, they just will not chew in straight lines.

Terry you just have to fit rollers to their back legs and promote one to drill sargeant!

You sillies ! ...
Does your lawn mower have rollers on the back Nicola, or does John roll it separate from mowing? Rollers and mowers with rollers are very unused/unknown over here.

I thought about attaching one to a pole and using it as a fairly quiet strimmer, Nicola, or even a few along the length for hedge trimmers. Us being silly, Maggie, naw must be someone else you're thinking of.
BTW the latest pregnant one does not need a roller attachment, she is a roller.
\image{Preggy pig01.jpg}
Not sure if you could class her as art, but couldn't resist posting.

What happened there?????
Trying again....

The mower has a roller on the back. It is a Hayter Harrier. I have had the machine for almost 20 years and it has only had to have one new motor in all that time. I mow the lawn as John has a limp and the stripes go a little wonky if he does it! Honest it's true, I'm not being silly, I'm never silly am I Terry?

Nicola, did you intend for that to be as funny as it struck me??? I nearly snorted my coffee out my nose!

And me my tea!
I've decided that Nicola goes thru life as a magnet to funny without trying!

And I really relate to your roly poly piggie on a stick too Terry, because I'm always tempted to do same with my fluffy Nigel for a canine dustmop.

BTW Amer gardeners, 'strimmers' is Brit for what we know as 'weed eaters'

Carolyn/Maggie/David/other locals...I would love to find someone to do our welding for us! Or teach me how! I've had several things in mind for years but no one to "aid" me with my plans.

Maggie, why don't you experiment with the stripe thing? Use two different organic fertilizers and see if you get striping results. Or spray seaweek in strips and see if it comes out. Might be interesting and I'm sure your lawn-man would be thrilled with the suggestion.

Here I go hitting the post button right as I see a misspelling! ugh, I hate that!

Seaweek iz kinda funney tho.

I know the feeling, Gail, off it goes and no way can you get it back.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who cannot type. Well, actually I can't spell but I use my rubbish typing skills to cover that up. I know the image of John mowing the lawn is funny but it is true, he does have a bad limp and the strips DO go wonky if he mows. Sorry about the coffee up your nose Carolyn, and tea up your nose Maggie. I suppose I must attract weird and wonderful situations and people....I'm on this forum aren't I?

:-0 What a great touche.
natch!

Gail did you notice your displaced d&k are same fingers - opposite side of the deyboark. Perhaps you have picdek up a piece of my deyboark kislexia.

Lucky for me *I* can 'do something about it' before my really dk'ed ones go out - but its a big hassle to take um off and redo um. I just figure, as long we can make out what's its on about, it'll work. And then there's Terry who lures me into really bad word plays that must look like I haven't a clue or a spell check.

Don't use me as your excuse for illitr ilitr illiterce not being able to spell.

I'll ule any excuse I can come uq with and your work plat/puns are the first I thought of. and then you who get my e's know capital letters and punctuation don't count between friends anyway ;-)

I can generally ascertain what word someone "intended" to type. But, when Maggie starts abbreviating, I feel like a WWII codebreaker!

Nicola, I just pulled up your Answer Lies in the Soil again. Query: how deep do you dig out the beds? It looks like about a foot. Then, do you fill the bed with completely new material, or do you mix the compost with the existing soil? How far above the surrounding soil do you raise the bed for planting?

Does this mean you actually have more than 2-3" of soil under your turf - not rocks, Caro !? If so, I'm so excited for you!

We have to take out at least a spades depth of clay and dump it. It is not possible to break up the lower layer and incorporate grit as the clay is too solid so we just fill in with compost and start planting.

At last here is a picture of Eric my gnome, he lives in a bed of Hemerocallis on the terrace by the pond. His brother Philip lives further down the garden in a wooden barrel. As you can see I don’t really go in for the standard style garden ornament.

Living out in the country, I don't intentionally put things with faces in the flowers. My heart gets jump-started often enough when critters jump out of the plants and run past me. And then there are the turtles. You may not realize this, but if you see just a turtle's head stretched out, without seeing the shell...it looks JUST LIKE A SNAKE!!!

I don't seev that little guy sitting by the pond with a fishing rod, I think I saw his older brother in Ghostbusters.

That is one bad looking DUDE!! Looks like he needs to be in with the Devils back bone plants or guarding the compost pile.....

Reminds me of the Gremlins (movie reference). But hey, everyone sees through different eyes and if you love him Nicola, that's all that matters.

I agree Gail, I mean look at mine, but I love em ;-)

Eric might look like a dude with attitude but he is a sweetie really. I suppose he might scare the rats that occasionally try to nest down at the compost bins but he might upset the worms so maybe it’s not such a good idea. Rosie has taken to sleeping on top of the bins so the rats have not been much in evidence lately, thank goodness.

I think your Eric is the sweetest gnome EVER! Some would describe his as a gargoyle. Now this opens up a rant of mine... See, I grew up knowing gargoyles in a different light than the images conjured in today’s culture here. Apparently, the black goth society considers them symbolic of evil because of their gruesome expressions. Present company excepted, Eric! So now when folks see my gargoyles around the garden, they think I must be into some really strange stuff, not knowing or caring that the gutter-guards origins lay in protecting GOOD from evil and not the other way around. Which is why they were used to decorate ancient gutter spouts of huge buildings - most cathedrals are held together with um! The term 'gargoyle' is so old, they aren't certain of its origins, but think it may be from the word 'gargle', as in the noise that rainwater makes as it spews out of the spout – gutter – gargle - guardian - gargoyle.

I've always wondered about that. thanx for clearing that up.

The one sitting on chain base in my oak bed is a reproduction of one on Notre Dame and a smaller version of him guards the gazebo. Others around here are likewise copies of classics and some are modern.
I may be way wrong on this Nicola, but I am thinking that your Eric was actually designed by a contemporary nun, quite recently. Do you have any details?

I don’t know who designed him. I got him from a company called Lost Worlds who are/were? based in Brighton. They have stalls in craft markets around the country and have regular stalls at Covent Garden and Greenwich. They make lots of wacky stuff including gargoyles. I have a little nude man climbing the wall at the front of the house, so far he has been without a name but I suppose I could call him dangly Dan. What do you think?

I think we should get a good shot of him! Post pix please.

Oh Yeah!... just so we can be sure that you've named him right, you understand.

Don't understand, how can you tell if Dan is the correct name from a picture? J

I'm jumping off the bus on that one Terry!
But I will keep an eye out for that ref to Eric's origins Nicola... racking my poor ol brain here... Smithsonian, Smith & Hawkins, Gardeners Supply, maybe Toscany Imports?.... better slow down,, might hurt myself.

Honestly, you girls, you’re insatiable – whatever that means!
I forgot to mention why Dan is climbing the wall, his goal is the hanging basket bracket that is in the shape of a nude lady. Sadly he has never made it (or her) oops…can I say that?
No Terry and David, I do not have a photo of her, and yes she was modelled on 7 of 9.

Nicola! you could say that she is modelled on 7 of 9, you could say that you don't have a photo, but you are not allowed to say both....it's just not fair.

confused! modelled on 7 of 9????? what the heck? Am I too innocent to understand or too rotten to get it?

Hey, Gail......No comment.......

Sorry Gail, can't describe....not without access to a cold shower.

I thought you might like to see this photo of our cats. They are bored beyond belief and keep giving me desperate looks for me to do something about the weather.

It is pouring again today and I just looked out of my office window and saw a vintage Rolls Royce go by all decked out in wedding ribbons, that poor bride is going to get soaked, ahhh.

A pic full of a thousand words!!! so wonderful! Our would be on the outside with their tongues hanging out, trying to get into an airconditioned house! Well, normally they would, but lo and behold, my patio is wet today - just like yours!!! so are the plant leaves. The Gods have made peace with Texas today.

What a stinker it was today Nicola, and why do the cats blame us for it. Do yours try different doors to see if one provides better weather than the other?

Will you look at how green everything is in Nicola's picture! I haven't seen that much green since the first of June. Your kitties do look a bit miffed, Nicola. Have you seen that T-shirt that says: Things to do today: let the cat in; let the cat out; let the cat in.....

Maggie has admonished me for ‘lurking’ and not posting anything so I am making up for it with this.

How many of you have bought a plant just because of its name? Here is a picture of Iris ‘Dutch Chocolate’ which I could not resist. Can’t think why :-)



I am going to be away for a couple of weeks so it is up to the rest of you to keep this thread going.

So you just thought you would pop in and gloat about your holiday did you? Go on then for such a nice piccie you can. Have a good time Nicola, and I like mint rock.

See what happens when they lurk without posting, and then complain there's nothing going on!!! Haha
Love the chocie iris!!! yum! I bought a rose this year, sight-unseen just because of its name - Sweetpea. Haven't regretted it at all. Was the perfect size and color for a bare spot in the violet bed and smells lovely.

I'm sure Nicola wishes she was going somewhere she could pick up some mint rock Terry. Sorry to say she's off to the hospital instead of hols. Everyone send her our strongest energies and positive forces for a speedy recovery. We shall miss you Nicola and I know that thoughts of returning to your garden will help bring you through safe and sound.