Courtesy photo/M. Karin Matray

Friends of Red Bluff Garden Club member M. Karin Matray brought her this decorative bottle wall for her garden.

Courtesy photo/M. Karin Matray

Friends of Red Bluff Garden Club member M. Karin Matray brought her this decorative bottle wall for her garden.

The other day while driving together, my grandson told me a story about a garden gnome. He said he read about a person who took a garden gnome from a neighbor’s yard and traveled the country with it. During the travels, this prankster took pictures of the gnome and sent them to the owner, like postcards sent home from a vacation. My grandson’s story made me smile and carried my thoughts to garden ornaments.

We gardeners are suckers for garden decorations. Like crows, we are attracted to shiny, colorful objects and we like to sprinkle our yards and formal gardens with embellishments that provide whimsy and function. We add bird feeders, birdhouses, and bird baths. We hang wind chimes and mount decorative stakes and wind catchers. It makes our eyes and our hearts happy.

Years ago, a second-grade teacher told me how her grandsons truly believed her fairy-decorated garden housed tiny, imaginative creatures. This story inspired me to add fairy stakes and fairy houses to my turtle garden. To this day, my grandchildren enter my little garden on the lookout for both my turtles and my fairies. I love to watch their excitement.

The month before the 2020 COVID lockdown, some dear, dear friends from Bakersfield visited us for a long weekend. They brought two gifts – a Palo Verde sapling to replace front yard landscaping lost in the Camp Fire and a decorative bottle wall for my garden. The bottle wall was my birthday gift. We spent the weekend mounting the bottle wall to a section of wrought iron fencing that borders our back patio. Our husbands did their husbandly duty to securely mount the wall to protect against wind and possible warping of the wood frame. The result is beyond beautiful.

And it is such a simple project. It is constructed of colorful vases and bottles randomly arranged on metal poles that are inserted into a reinforced wood frame. The glassware needs to have holes carefully cut into the bases, so some specialized equipment is necessary. Collecting the vases and bottles requires visiting yard sales, resale shops and our own cupboards and garages with a keen eye for size, color, and shape – such a fun activity.

I share this project now because we are well into the long hot summer when our gardens suffer. This year our yards are especially impacted by the lack of water due to this seemingly never-ending drought. Our gardens don’t look very pretty but our decorative features can. And they can provide sustenance and comfort to backyard critters, our children and ourselves. What simple joy…happy garden decorating!

The Red Bluff Garden Club is a member of Cascade District, California Garden Clubs, Inc., Pacific Region Garden Clubs, Inc., and National Garden Clubs, Inc. We meet at 1 p.m. on the last Tuesday of the month, in the Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, 525 David Ave., Red Bluff. Our next meeting will be on August 30. Join us!

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