![International Truck with sunflowers is found art on a lawn in a front yard in Florida, US](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/International_Truck_with_sunflowers_is_found_art_on_a_lawn_in_a_front_yard_in_Florida%2C_US.jpg)
Lawn ornaments are decorative objects placed in the
grassy area of a property.
Common lawn ornaments
Animal forms: animal statues such as frogs, turtles, rabbits, deer, flamingoes and ducks are cast in plastic or cement.
Bathtub Madonna
A bathtub Madonna (also known as a lawn shrine, Mary on the half shell, bathtub Mary, bathtub Virgin, and bathtub shrine) is an artificial grotto typically framing a Roman Catholic religious figure.
Variations
These shrines most often house a s ...
: a statue of Mary the mother of Jesus is placed in a bathtub half buried under the ground. Statues of Mary are most often made of white concrete, but are sometimes painted with a blue garment.
Bird bath
A bird bath (or birdbath) is an artificial puddle or small shallow pond, created with a water-filled basin, in which birds may drink, bathe, and cool themselves. A bird bath can be a garden ornament, small reflecting pool, outdoor sculpture, a ...
: a structure designed to hold water for birds to bathe in or drink, generally supported upon a pedestal, is known as a bird bath.
Bird feeder
A birdfeeder, bird table, or tray feeder are devices placed outdoors to supply bird food to birds (bird feeding). The success of a bird feeder in attracting birds depends upon its placement and the kinds of foods offered, as different species h ...
: a container for foods such as bird seeds is often designed to look like a miniature house or barn, and may be mounted on a stake, post, or column.
Concrete Aboriginal
A Concrete Aboriginal, also known as a Neville, is a lawn ornament once common in Australia. The ornament is a concrete statue depicting an Aboriginal Australian, generally carrying a spear and often standing on one leg. The statues were once co ...
, a lawn ornament once common in Australia.
Concrete goose
The concrete goose, also known as a porch goose or lawn goose, is a popular lawn ornament in the United States. Concrete geese reached the peak of their popularity in the 1980s, but are still common in the Midwestern United States
The Midw ...
, a popular lawn ornament in the United States.
Found object art: items such as
bowling ball
A bowling ball is a hard spherical ball used to knock down bowling pins in the sport of bowling.
Balls used in ten-pin bowling and American nine-pin bowling traditionally have holes for two fingers and the thumb. Balls used in five-pin bowling, c ...
s,
toilet
A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popu ...
planters, and antique
farm equipment
Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the countless kinds of farm implements that the ...
may be repurposed as lawn ornaments.
Francis of Assisi
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianit ...
: a saint often associated with nature and animals may be cast in plaster or cement.
Garden gnome
Garden gnomes (german: links=no, Gartenzwerge, lit=garden dwarfs) are lawn ornament figurines of small humanoid creatures based on the mythological creature and diminutive spirit which occur in Renaissance magic and alchemy, known as gnomes. Th ...
: a small, generally colorful gnome statuette.
Human form: a depiction of a human being. Human form lawn ornaments can be two-dimensional, generally vertically supported by being thrust in the ground, or three-dimensional. Examples of human form lawn ornaments include the concrete Aboriginal, lawn jockey and groomsman. Examples of two-dimensional human form lawn ornaments include renditions of Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch people. A variation of the Pennsylvania Dutch human form is a depiction of an older female bending over as in gardening, thus revealing her undergarments.
Jigglers: plastic or metal flowers, birds and insects fitted on spring-loaded stakes so that they jiggle when the wind blows on them.
Lawn jockey
A lawn jockey is a statue depicting a man in jockey clothes, intended to be placed in front yards as hitching posts, similar to those of footmen bearing lanterns near entrances and gnomes in gardens. Because of the prevalence of black lawn jo ...
, or Jocko, or Groomsmen: an often diminutive statuette of a black horse attendant dressed in slave clothing, also called a Jocko. Groomsmen were often used as hitching posts. The origin of the groomsman is disputed, but it is accepted that they originated in the U.S. South. No longer as common since the civil rights movement. The "Cavalier" variation typically depicts a
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
figure. One legend has it that the first Groomsman was created at the commission of
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
.
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses mar ...
s: small-scale representations of local lighthouses are popular in coastal areas.
Nest box
A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materia ...
/bird house: a small house for a bird normally made of wood and on a stake.
Plastic flamingo
Pink plastic flamingos are a common lawn ornament in the United States made of plastic.
History Union Products
The American artist Don Featherstone designed the pink lawn flamingo in 1957, naming the first Diego. His lawn flamingo, mass-produc ...
: a generally lifesize replica of a pink
flamingo
Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of Wader, wading bird in the Family (biology), family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas ...
. According to some, the origin of the plastic flamingo was in 1946 with the company Union Products in its "Plastics for the Lawn" product line. Their collection included dog, ducks, frogs, and a flamingo.
Spinners: usually shaped like flowers with petals that spin in the wind. Variations include birds or insects with spinning wings.
Statuary
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
and outdoor sculpture
Topiary
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...
specimens
Whirligig
A whirligig is an object that spins or whirls, or has at least one part that spins or whirls. It can also be a pinwheel, spinning top, buzzer, comic weathervane, gee-haw, spinner, whirlygig, whirlijig, whirlyjig, whirlybird, or simply a whirly ...
: an often animalistic sculpture generally supported vertically by being pushed in the ground characterized by at least one rotating member often designed to appear as a bodypart of the sculpture.
Windmill
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called windmill sail, sails or blades, specifically to mill (grinding), mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and ...
: a disconnected but free-spinning miniature, typically in the American Aermotor style having about a dozen metal vanes, or the traditional Dutch style having four wood vanes.
Yard globe
A yard globe, also known as a garden globe, gazing ball, lawn ball, garden ball, gazing globe, mirror ball, chrome ball, or orb, is a mirrored sphere typically displayed atop a conical ceramic or wrought iron stand, and sometimes the grass, as a ...
: a light-reflective sphere, as large as 12" in diameter or more and generally displayed on top of a support structure. Also called gazing globes or gazing balls.
See also
*
Garden ornament
A garden ornament is an item used for garden, landscape, and park enhancement and decoration. Garden ornaments include:
* bench
*bird baths
* bird feeders
* birdhouses
*columns – cast stone
*fire basket
* flower box
** window box
*fountains ...
*
Garden design
Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. ...
*
Landscape design
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and garde ...
References
Further reading
* Goings, Kenneth W., Mammy and Uncle Mose: Black Collectibles and American Stereotyping (Indiana University Press) (1st printing, 1994).
* Varkonyi, Charlyne, A Bird in the hand: The Story of the Pink Flamingo, Sun-Sentinel (date unknown) (FL).
External links
A Guide to Freedom - Jockey statues marked Underground Railroad, Lexington Herald-Leader, Sunday, February 22, 1998.
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Garden ornaments
Gardening lists
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