If you ever get to visit Bristol during the pre-Independence Day season you’ll notice that Bristolians take this holiday very seriously. On my walks around town lately I’ve been absolutely amazed all over again at how many houses and gardens are dressed in flags and stars and lights and red, white and blue everything. I can actually count on one hand and some toes the number of houses NOT dressed for the party (mine, alas, is one — we’re considering shopping the bunting blowout sales and draping our house in time for Bastille Day).

The writers over at Gardening Gone Wild host a monthly Garden Design Workshop and this month’s theme, proposed by Nan Ondra, is perfectly timely for us in Bristol – it’s all about garden whimsy. Many of the gardens I walk by in town have regimental impatiens marching among the foundation sentries but some Bristol gardeners are exhibiting their quirky personalities and their senses of humor along with their patriotism – they’re showing all kinds of “flair”.

Even though I think it’s possible to go overboard in the flair and whimsy department (a little goes a long way) I really enjoy seeing something unexpected and even giggle inducing in the garden. I know a gardener who has a demonic looking blue plastic bear/dog poking out of his delphinium and another with a bronze cast of her own hand emerging from a pond – sometimes the hand grasps a bottle of beer; other times a trowel. And I like to think that the mail carrier gets a kick out of Floyd, the plastic flamingo who guards our mail box. Here at Blithewold we keep the whimsy understated and even our Independence Day rah!-rah! is on the quiet side (Thanks to Sue McC. there is always a flag flying over the front door).

Do you enjoy glimpses of personality and humor in other people’s gardens? At Gardening Gone Wild they’ve asked: Do you have anything whimsical or personal in yours? A pair of wooden geese, perhaps? A train set? A statue of St. Francis? And I also wonder, do you decorate for the holidays?

*title phrase borrowed from the cult classic film Office Space by Mike Judge.

The guys wasted no time finding a replacement fountain vase among old Christmas decorations in the barn. Although it’s a perfect fit and we’re all impressed with their quick thinking and ingenuity, it’s not perfect and we’re still madly hoping to get Blithewold’s beautiful original back. It’s sad to think that even if the urn is recovered we might have to keep it under lock and key and find a permanent ersatz solution for our visitors to enjoy outdoors. In my bleaker moments I can imagine a time when all of our valuable objects are hidden away for “safe keeping” and facsimiles are put in their place. Will our experience be diminished or will the fakes become as precious to us as the originals?

(At least the living collections in the gardens will always be the real deal. The moment our tree peonies are replaced with silk stand-ins is the very moment I’ll turn in my hori-hori for a new career in accounting.)

Gail and I will waste no time this week looking for temporary solutions in the Display Garden. The newest of the beds is a veritable blank slate and we intend to spend the season getting to know it. It will eventually be a mixed garden, full of our favorite shrubs, perennials, tender perennials, annuals and what ever else strikes our fancy from year to year – will we ever become bored with ornamental vegetables? This year though we will fill it full of temporary solutions gleaned from our container bed, our stock of tender perennials, annuals and yes, Lilah, ornamental veggies! Stay tuned for how Gail and I futz with placement in a tabula rasa garden. (At this stage in our process Gail is writing lists and I am daydreaming in technicolor…)

We noticed yesterday that one of our favorite fountain features was stolen and we are all sick about it. The copper Art Nouveau urn with a lotus motif was purchased for the original North Garden in 1908.

We are offering a $500 reward for information leading to its return so please keep your eyes peeled! – Click on the images for a larger view, etch its shape into your memory and help us scan for it in antiques shops, rummage sales, your neighbor’s garden, scrap yards, Ebay… so that it might come back to where it once belonged.

Fairies need decent affordable housing too! Yesterday a group of dedicated and skilled laborers built a new fairy community on a Blithewold subdivision. The houses were constructed of green material and fit beautifully into the landscape – this was a very environmentally conscious endeavor! I took a walk down this morning to see how the fairies were settling in but oaf that I am, I must have frightened them because the place was fairyly deserted. I didn’t think they’d mind though if I took a little look around…

Looks like I disturbed breakfast… Sorry!

Clap your hands if you believe! (and don’t you all just want to go right out and build a new house for your resident fairy?!)

To see more pictures of Fairy Magic in the Garden and the building crew at the constuction site click here!  (photos of the kids with their houses by Gail Read)

Some of them are obvious – the plein air painters are given away by their clever folding easel contraptions, fistfulls of brushes and color smeared canvases. But there are other Artists lurking and working in the garden and you’d never know it … These secret Artists also might not be inclined to call their particular creative creations “Art” (with a capital A) but guess what?! They are!! (Says me!)

One secret Artist-at-work is Dianne Whitehead. Dianne volunteers in the Rose Garden (a Florabunda, doncha know) and has also been one of the crew creating floral arrangements for the house. This week she went all-out for a friend’s daughter’s wedding and there are flowers everywhere! No one can tell me that this stunning arrangement that she made for the front hall isn’t Art!

And then there are the guys. Fred and Dan spend a chunk of every week on ride’em mowers back and forth across acres of lawn and they evidently use that time wisely in creative rumination. Fred has sculpted a new Idea Bed arbor/ornament each year for the last 4, using bamboo, plus. Last year’s ornament, a “tree” in the middle of the garden caught the most comments so far. Visitors asked “What is that?”, “What’s it for?”, “What’s it do?” Some people thought it was an osprey nest; some thought it was weird and some, like me, thought it was a gorgeous piece of Art. (Since when does Art have to be functional? — That’s Craft’s job.) Yesterday Fred and Dan chopped down the “tree” and yanked it out. Funny Fred said “No wonder the tree died – there aren’t any roots!” and as they were installing fresh bamboo corner posts, Boss-Lady Julie asked “Is that for my hammock?” Turns out she wasn’t far off! Here’s a teaser of the new arbor/ornament roofed with – have you ever seen a net made out of bamboo??? Seeing is believing! (but not for napping.)

And the bloom pic of the day: the Artist is nature playing the Catalpa tree. Sing it!