July 23, 2014

Museum Selection Shares The History of Garden Gnomes, plus Win a Hare Garden Ornament

July 23, 2014/ Claire Spence

Gnomes are one of the top ten answers that pop up when you ask the general public what a kitsch item is to them. Weirdly though I don't feature them on www.TheWorldofKitsch.com often. Why? I don't know, I just don't like them. I think they are tacky in a bad way.

I mean I have plastic lawn flamingoes, and they aren't exactly middle class norms, but I just don't like gnomes. The front garden needed a little spruce up and something new, so I've ordered an ornamental fox on Museum Selection, which I will blog about when he arrives.

Until then how would you like to win your own ornamental hare for your grassy patch? It's a little different from a guard dog.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks to Museum Selection for this gnome infographic.

May 09, 2013

Doctor Who Themed Garden featuring K9, Plant Daleks & a Weeping Angel

May 09, 2013/ Claire Spence

Prisoners from HMP Hewell are creating a garden entitled Serving Thyme in the Garden of Gallifrey, to celebrate Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show this weekend (9th – 12th May).
Complete with its very own ‘plant’ Daleks, the inmates’ garden is, literally, a Living Room and reflects a journey through thyme and space. Visitors enter the ‘room’ through the Tardis to be greeted by a world of transcendental wonders. This includes a spiralling purple time vortex created from coloured shale and four different types of thyme which draw you unwittingly into the path of the Doctor’s enemies.

Each regeneration of the trusted Time Lord from the past fifty years lurks in the garden alongside the Doctor’s faithful companion, K9, created from sedum plants. Just like the programme, nothing is quite what it seems - a living TV set grasps menacingly at visitors watched by a child sitting on a turf sofa.

The prisoners have been responsible for making and growing everything in the garden using a wide variety of ferns, succulents, herbs and colourful plants. Their children inspired the final design by creating pictures and ideas for their fathers including a living rug made from blue grass and French marigolds. A weeping angel is surrounded by swaying black grass and was cast from concrete by the inmates.

More info on visiting the garden here