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Garden Decorating 2018

by Donna Balzer | Jul 11, 2018 | Garden Decoration | 0 comments

Garden Decor 2018: Living Easels and More

What do living easels and painted rocks have in common? When I visited Cranbrook to speak in July 2018 it reminded me that my garden is boring. While everyone else is taking time to decorate their gardens with living easels and painted rocks, I am still trying to make it through spring weeding. And it is already July!

This blog post is a great big shout out to all the gardeners who are caught up with their weeding and are going beyond maintenance and into building beautiful gardens. Years ago, when I filmed Bugs & Blooms on HGTV I remember visiting a garden in Victoria where Valerie used old bowling balls to decorate her yard. Well that was a while ago. Today’s gardeners are going one step further.

Nancy and Darren have built picturesque flower frames and they call them Living Easels. Combining a found wooden frame plus rustic evergreen saplings for the easel poles, they made some beautiful garden decor. Then they placed and planted a pot behind the frame to add colour and interest. This photo was taken in early July but even so you can see how beautiful they are already.

Darren explains in a video on my facebook page how they made these frames for their garden. It is such a beautiful addition to their lovely yard they built more than one! Darren is a Golf Pro and Nancy is a nurse. They work together in their yard to create a special space on a corner lot where everyone can share the beauty.

A closer view of the Living Easel at Darren and Nancy’s house.

Meanwhile Tammy got tired of her Strawberry pot because it always dried out and then the plants died. So together with her husband, Tammy collected flat rocks. Then she spent an evening painting rocks to look like leaves and strawberries. It was so creative and it made me smile. In other words, it was a lovely addition to their Cranbrook, B.C. garden!