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| Berkeley the snail is a souvenir of a visit to London decades ago |
Berkeley
the snail went away for the winter this morning. So did the Turtle with the Broken Nose, the
World’s Ugliest Frog, and more than a dozen other old friends. They’ll rest until next April in the safe
confines of our basement. Before
consigning them to their fate, though, everyone was first cleaned with a bleach
solution and then placed carefully inside a pot or some other protective
container.
Berkeley
and his brethren are garden ornaments, and each one has a story to tell. Berkeley, for example, joined our garden
menagerie as a result of a trip to London almost 20 years ago. I was there as part of a financial road show in
deepest, darkest February. Because of its
grueling, two-week duration, Betty was invited to join me for its final,
transatlantic stop. The underwriters were
responsible for all lodging and they chose for us rather a nice room at The
Berkeley, a luxurious Knightsbridge hotel a stone’s throw from Hyde Park.
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| From spring to fall, Fish swims in a dry stream bed in our front garden |
Going
to gardens in February was a non-starter so, while I was in meetings, Betty
went shopping and to museums. Just down
the street from our hotel was a shop that dealt exclusively in garden ornaments
(they have such stores in England). In
its window was a large, metal snail. She
purchased it, promptly named it after our lodgings - pronounced, by the way,
“BARK-lee” - and we placed it in the overhead bin on the flight home. (In that pre-9/11 world, no one in airport
security took notice of our carrying onboard a 20-pound cast-iron object.) Every year since, Berkeley has been
positioned in a different perennial bed, waiting to be admired anew by us or a
visitor.
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| The World's Ugliest Frog is destined to remain in Medfield |
The
World’s Ugliest Frog was a parting gift from a friend moving away. The frog had graced, if that word can be used
for such a thing, her garden for at least as many years as we had lived in town. Its muted, polychrome décor had been the butt
of numerous jokes on my part. On the day
that the packers came, our friend brought over the ornament, explained she
had been given it when a dear friend moved away. She was leaving Medfield, but felt the World’s
Ugliest Frog must not only remain, but should come live with us. It has inhabited a rotating list of garden
sites for at least 15 years.
I
will not bore you with the individual stories for each of our other garden
ornaments. I will tell you only that
they all have back stories and that all those stories link us to times, places
or people fondly remembered.
Oh,
all right, one more. An outrageously
overpriced concrete turtle at the Winterthur Shop was knocked down to a much
more realistic five dollars after we pointed out a chip on its nose. For 25 gardening seasons now, the turtle’s
chipped nose has poked out of the water of a bird bath. The Turtle with the Broken Nose suffers its
imperfection with as much dignity as it can muster. The butterflies and dragonflies that land on
its snout don’t seem to mind in the least.
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| This frog spends its summer relaxing amid tiarellas and leucothoe |
Each
April, we take out these items much as we take out Christmas tree ornaments in
December. We discover them anew and,
with great deliberation, place them around the property, taking into account
changes in the landscape. Our move to
our ‘dream retirement home’ four years ago forced a complete rethinking of
ornaments: for the first two years, and the new garden got started, ‘hiding
places’ were few and far between.
These
garden ornaments are links to travels.
They are reminders of old friends.
They are also practical objects that draw the eye to certain plants or
that break up expanses of mulch. Some
are put in plain sight while others are deliberately hidden, awaiting someone
to part the foliage and find a surprise.
With the 2019 garden season officially over, their careful cleaning and
storage are an annual ritual as distinct and ingrained as picking apples or
harvesting the butternut squash.
