Garden Art and Patron Saints

I've been thinking a little about garden art. What started me was finding this quilter who is also making tentative steps into garden art in her Californian garden - and there are a couple of nice pictures there of her garden.

I'm really not the sort to have heaps of concrete ornaments in my garden, although I do admit to sharing it with just a few concrete dragons and gargoyles. But I try and avoid the mass-produced if I can. I would love, for example, to have the money (and available potter/sculptor) to commission a small statue of St Phoecreas, the Patron Saint of Gardeners - not that I am into patron saints in other areas. I have a nice shady little grotto ready for him, under the cumquat tree with the aloe vera.

Strange that none of those who mass-produce garden ornaments have come up with one - a little monk in a big, shady hat, with a rake and other garden tools and a basket of seeds, with a bird on his shoulder?

Then I went off looking on the net. I have to admit THESE by Richard Bergquist caught my eye. Seems like it is not simple to just name one saint (or even spell him!). There is even a Patron Saint there for finding lost garden tools! And one just for the vegetable garden.

But I digress.

I also wouldn't mind having the odd quirky, original piece discreetly hidden here and there, for people to find. But it hasn't happened, yet. The same with my idea of having a rather crazy scarecrow in the Kitchen Garden. Not for ever, but just for a while as some transient art.

What I may end up with though, somewhere, is a small installation I saw in one garden I was looking at locally a few years ago. This was small, flat, round stones stacked in a pile from largest to smallest. Very beautiful. And there is that creek just down the road that is full of them, just waiting to be looked over for a selection to be made.

Maybe a little temple-like pile somewhere near the Wandering Jew, under the treeferns?