A warm greeting to all my Kindred Spirits!!

I am Sally Reuter and own Country Heritage Primitives 1860 in Pierceton, Indiana.

www.picturetrail.com/countryheritage

I have been very busy this spring and my garden is coming a long nicely.  If you read my article last month you know that I have been designing a new primitive garden.  I am nearing completion of the first stage.  I decided to do this in two stages for a couple of reasons.  The first one is financial.  You can spend several hundreds of dollars on a new garden and I would tend to do that but finances are tight so this will alleviate the burden.  The other reason is, it will give my customers or visitors something to look forward to later. I will mention the second stage towards the end of this article.

 I have to say, I am pretty pleased by the way it has come out.  It has drawn a lot of attention in our quaint town of Pierceton. Everyone that I have talked to thinks it is an added pleasure for our town!  Whew!!  That is good news!! 

My last article was talking about digging in the dirt, designing and adding the mulch.  This article I will be talking about the fun things!!  (The points of interests as I like to call them.) 

 The mulch is all done, the star is done and I have four empty corners!!

  Corner number one: 

 I have placed an old farmhouse sink in the ground; this will become a fountain when finished.  I love this old sink.  I have had this for over a year behind the shop and no one has stolen it yet!!  However, it is so heavy; I don’t think they could if they tried!!  Behind this old sink was an empty space so I found an old barn door with the top window missing.  I attached this behind the sink with wire to the door.  Sometimes you will need to be very creative in how to attach pieces together. This is only temporary as I am sure the wire will rust.  I will be thinking on a permanent basis later!!  The emptiness of the missing window bothered me so I went scavenging through all of my treasures and came up with a large tobacco stick star.  I then found old garden tools that were either broken or didn’t have a handle.  I then attached these to the star.  I found a sign that says “Keeper of the Garden” and placed that on the star too.  When I was finished, I screwed the star to the door in the middle of the empty space in the door. This corner is my most favorite corner!!  Hands down!! 

 Corner number two:

 I placed an old bicycle that is rusty and blue in color and has a front wire basket and a saddle basket on the back.  I hammered wooden stakes in the ground on either side of this bike with notches cut in it for the wire to slip in The wire is attached to the bicycle and then to the stakes for stability.  It is now pretty sturdy and holding up well. 

 Corner number 3: 

 I placed an old blue chair in this corner.  When looking at this chair, I felt like it needed a friend so I went to my storage shed and retrieved a piece of white fence and attached that to the back of the chair.  The blue looks perfect with the blue bike in the other corner.  I then put a two story birdhouse on the seat. 

 Corner number four:

 I love old windows so I knew I had to put a window into this garden.  I found one of my 78 windows, you can see I love old windows,  and built a base for it and placed it in the last corner of the garden.  This window is white and it picks up the white in the corner with the sink and barn door.  In the center of the star which is in the middle of the garden, I put an architectural piece that has a hole drilled in the middle for a pole that I want to put in with a platform attached to it for a bee skep.  This piece is also blue to match the bike and the chair.  I really didn’t plan these to match so well but it was a happy accident!!

 The edges of the garden in some areas needed something too.  So I placed an old porch swing on some metal boxes and planted that with geraniums.  On another side, I place a small potting bench by the wall of my store.  I have strategically place old clay pots, galvanized buckets and a bee skep on the table.  This looks like someone was working out there and just left it.  Love this too!!

 My second stage that I mentioned early will take place next year and that includes putting a fence around the garden and a trellis.  This trellis will be at the entrance of the garden.  I will be making this out of two old white doors and an old ladder across the top.  I can’t wait for this to take place!!

 Next time, I will talk about flowers and placement to enhance your corner point of interests!! 

 In the meantime, keep those hands dirty!!