Sierra Foothill Garden

I’m a fan of this chair!

Take a couple old pieces of junk and transform them into into a tiny little garden scene using just a little imagination.  It’s sometimes difficult to find outdoor decoration that will fit into a ranchy/foresty type garden but this wicker chair is a classic.  Here’s how I planted my garden chair.

On a visit to my old goat shed, I saw a couple pieces of decrepit junk I could use to create a little garden scene in my rain garden. One was an old stand-up fan and the other was an old wicker chair with the seat broken out. Knowing the chair needed a ‘container’ to plant in and seeing the ‘basket’ part of the fan cover gave me the idea of using them together. Kewl beans! I asked Tractor Man to remove the front basket part and the fan itself from the fan and we tossed the rest back into the shed.

Preparing the chair

As I looked at the chair, I realized no one could ever sit in it again,…the seat was all broken down. What color should I paint it? After asking our group, a million colors were suggested,…do you remember? Even the idea of leaving the original chippy condition was suggested! After a bit of consideration, and knowing it should be a light color to show up in a mostly shady area, I decided on a creamy white. Then let it chip away!

Don’t you love spray paint? The chair is now being held together with two coats of it.

Wrap and plant!

The only other material I used was a roll of burlap found in the hardware store. I cut a rectangle piece, 36″ wide by 72″ approximately. I doubled that and set the basket part of the fan on top, wrapping the burlap around. I’m sure this will need to be done each season, so I figured the soil and plants would be enough to hold the burlap to the fan.

It’s all good

I had fun planting flowers in my new junk ‘container!’ Golden fleece, or Dahlberg daisies around the edge of the last of the pansies fill out the basket. I placed the chair next to my rododendron that lives happily in my part shade garden under the oaks. It’s in site of our sitting area there and I’ll enjoy seeing it when I relax there during the summer.

It’s so enjoyable working out new and different ways to create something out of nothing and then share how it’s created. Hopefully someone will take this original idea and tweak it into yet another original. Fun! ~~ Sue

Note: What is a rain garden? It’s a garden placed at the end of a drainage line or roof drain pipe that gets a bit more water than the rest of your garden. Plants that need this extra water can be planted there and you use the extra water instead of having it simply run off.