Time to Curate Your Garden Art

It is the middle of September, and the gardening season is winding down as we anticipate autumn’s arrival. Now is the time for pre-winter maintenance: cleaning garden tools, sharpening mower blades, preparing a compost bin for storing leaves until they turn into that black gold known as leaf mold, and deciding which container plants will be brought indoors for winter. Swings or metal benches can be repainted now, while outdoor temperatures are still pleasant.

It is also a good time to review your yard decorations. Indoors, it is easy to overlook items which we see every day. We no longer notice the scratch on the family room floor resulting from the dog’s zoomies or the sun-faded area on the family room rug. Outdoors, we may not notice rust on our iron urns or the chipped rim on the ceramic container. That pair of beautiful, tightly-clipped spiral conifers on either side of the front door may have repaid our inattention by becoming misshapen blobs. Early fall is a good time to take a fresh look and remove the decorations that are no longer in good condition or good taste. And tastes change. Several years ago, I painted bowling balls to look like ladybugs. I loved them – until one day, they just looked silly. They are hidden in the woods now, waiting for the tide of popularity and my attitude to change. If you once collected concrete frogs (I won’t judge) but they no longer bring you joy, it might be time to let them go. If you have blue-dyed mulch (okay, I AM judging you) and you don’t live in Boise, it may be time to reconsider and go with a color found in nature. Please stop dressing plastic geese in costumes reflecting the seasons. Have you ever met a Pilgrim Goose? Me neither.

While cast bronze sculptures and lead fountains will always be considered in good taste, the popularity of garden gnomes, gazing balls, and seasonal garden flags is slipping into oblivion. Pink plastic flamingoes are acceptable only when used short-term, as a joke. To avoid conflicts between neighbors, most Homeowners’ Associations now specify what type and where yard art can be displayed. I read a study recently that said wind chimes appear regularly on the “List of Things I Hate About My Neighbor.” I’m certain that the unpopular chimes are the cheap tinkle-tinkle variety and not the beautifully toned ones that make us think we are approaching an outdoor cathedral. Painted tires and concrete blocks, anything zombie related, flower-filled toilets and bathtubs, and the like have passed their period of appropriateness. I lost every one of my Hydrangea flowers to foraging deer this season, so I wonder about people who have plastic deer in their gardens. I would be happy for them to come take some of my herd home so that they can enjoy the real thing.

Coco Chanel is famous for her advice to dress for an evening out and then remove one accessory, such as a piece of jewelry or scarf or hair ornament. I encourage you to let your plants be the stars of your garden. Keep the garden art to a few items that make you happy, and maintain them in good condition. If you simply cannot part with the painted brick your child made at summer camp or the airplane whirligig made of Bud cans created by your grandfather, put them into storage. They may become valuable or popular one day. I’m holding onto my grosgrain ribbon belts, waiting for fickle fashion to find them trendy again.

Make Your Own Garden Ladybug

Here is my Christmas gift to you. Below you will find step-by-step instructions for upcycling bowling balls into cute garden ornaments.

If you haven’t bowled for years, but still have equipment buried in a closet somewhere, bring those relics out into the light of day.

Start with a pair of ordinary bowling balls.

Use an orbital palm sander over the entire surface of the bowling balls. (I’ll refer to them as BB from this point forward.) Paint will not adhere to a slick, shiny surface, so sand long enough to have a completely dull finish. Wash the sanding residue off, dry the balls completely, and apply a coat of primer. The primer makes the final paint adhere better and increases the longevity of the final product.

I used a couple of empty coffee cans to hold the sanded BBs off the soil surface, for ease of painting. Here they are, after receiving a coat of oil-based primer.

Paint the entire surface with a coat of bright red paint. Allow it to dry thoroughly and then apply a second coat. I found that it took two days for the red surface to be completely dry. The two finger holes will be for the bug’s antennae . Keep this in mind as you use painter’s tape to section off a center section. The space between the two tape strips will be painted black. The curve of the ball means that the stripe will be wider in the middle. See the photo below.

Painter’s tape defines the center stripe. The tape will wrinkle due to the BB curve. The wrinkles don’t matter, as long as the tape creates a defined line toward the middle, where the black paint goes.

Picture after the center stripe was added.

Allow the black paint to dry completely and then remove the tape. Next, use sections of fresh tape to create templates for adding wing spots. My tape width was narrow, so I needed to use two strips. I decided to use a combination of large spots and small spots. I used a half-dollar coin to outline my large circles, and a slightly smaller coin for the smaller circles. Use an Xacto knife to cut the center holes out before positioning them on the BBs. For attractive dots, use care to cut a clean edge. Ragged cuts result in jagged dots. You will need a template for every dot you plan to add to your BBs. Cut them all at one time. Position them on either side of the black stripe, matching the left side to the right side, just as real ladybugs have mirror image dots on their wings. I found that it was easiest to paint the large dots first, allow them to dry and then remove their template tape, adding the smaller dots as a separate step.

Adding the largest black spots. Use care to avoid paint bleed at the edges. You want crisp dots with well-defined edges. Once the large dots are dry, remove the tape and position the smaller dots between the large ones.

Remove the painter’s tape from around the wing spots. Optional: Add two coats of a clear spray-on lacquer to make the final appearance even shinier and to prevent fading in sunlight.
Use silicone caulking, waterproof tub-and-tile sealer, or outdoor adhesive to fill the thumb hole and finger holes. Before the filler dries, insert two springs for the antenna. My neighborhood Ace Hardware had a great assortment of springs. You can choose short or long. I selected longer ones that weren’t particularly strong, so that wind would make them bobble about. Superglue a couple of wood balls on the ends of the antenna. I painted my wood balls yellow, for contrast. I also painted the thumb-hole adhesive black, so it blends into the stripe and becomes invisible.

Final step is to give your ladybug some eyes. I used superglue and google eyes purchased from a craft supply store (Micheal’s). You can paint on eyelashes or eyebrows to add personality.

Tah-dah! A pair of completed BB ladybugs, ready to be placed in the garden.