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| Colby Woodland |
On our days out I constantly find inspiration for our garden. I love natural wood sculptures, such as the daffodils at Bute Park, Cardiff and the acorns at the Welsh Wildlife Centre, Pembrokeshire.
Having a small garden (when compared to these great attractions and green space anyway!) I like objects that are both ornamental and useful, such as the leaf benches or the ride-on elephants that can be found at Manor Park. The elephants bring colour to the garden and are fun toys for young children too. The leaf benches and acorn were made by the talented Dave from Animality.
I would love to be talented enough to make my own wood sculptures as Charlie does at his roundhouse. Wooden toadstools give a magical whimsical look to a garden.
One day I plan to grow an ornamental willow that would double as a den and garden shelter. We had them at school when I taught and the kids loved spending time in them and also caring for this living sculpture.
Every year we add to the decorations in our garden as part of our craft- we make shell gardens, fairy gardens and decorate our pots. We also love to reuse and upcycle- I have lots of tyres waiting to be spray painted to make a colourful planter display, I try to reuse chipped teapots, cups and saucers and worn or odd wellies as plant pots.
At the moment we have a wooden bench and picnic table, which I paint bright colours each Summer, but I would like an ornate metal bench such as the one at Manor Park too.
Most of these are fairly large decorations and therefore less likely to be stolen- when we first moved into our house we had quite a few small plant pots and ornaments such as flower fairies stolen. This made me really sad but according to the Co-operative insurance over a fifth of homeowners have reported their garden ornaments stolen!
As a result the Co-op have taken a look at some of the most remarkable garden ornaments across the world– most of which are unlikely to be stolen I think! Have a look, have you seen anything like them before? My kids saw a similar spiderweb a Bristol Zoo and yup, they loved it! I’m not convinced though- what garden ornaments do you like in your garden?
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