Tuesday, February 2, 2010

So, should probably

explain the masthead picture. :) Not something you see in your everyday garden...unless you work for a CSI team or something :)

Every year I like to create something creepy that is not part of the yard display ... one of my larks I like to call Frog Queen follies.

I have two raised vegetable beds in my garden and last year I got so distracted with Halloween that I did not make time to plant any vegetables. (I really missed the fresh tomatoes) Anyway, while I am looking out my upstairs window at the garden below I get this idea to put a skeleton in one of the beds and pose it like it is pushing its way out of the ground, and think I should plant some vines that look like they are trying to pull him back down. Better yet, pumpkin vines!

I purchase two small pumpkin plants and start another 6 plants in my garden window.

Then I head out to the shop and grab a spare Bart and do some hardware removal and do my best to hide the remaining hardware with Fix-it to get him ready for the yard. I use a small piece of rebar to hold his head up and prop him in the bed.

I sprinkled two large bags of organic mulch over the skeleton to give him that half buried look. I knew going into this project that I was doing all this work for the sole purpose of taking pictures, I started too late in the summer for the vines to actually produce pumpkins by October. So, to get the dense foliage I wanted I had to over plant.

I started with two 4 week old Jack O' Lantern pumpkins planted in the bed around him. Over the next few weeks I continue to plant the pumpkin seeds I started in the house, so the vines are in various stages of growth. As the vines continue to grow I head out in the yard and train them through the mouth of the skeleton and through and around the ribcage and legs.

I purchased a few small Sugar Pumpkins to put in the bed to add to the look, I tried to lay the stems under existing vines to make it look like they had grown on the vines. I placed a fake crow on his rib cage and headed for the camera!

I took some decent pictures, but then my friend Marci Brandt (the person who photographs the Davis Graveyard - who also takes great garden photos) came over and took these amazing photos.

Yeah, when I see her stuff I wonder why I even bother :)

The plan is to permanently pose this skeleton in that vegetable bed and grow pumpkins or other vines around him each year - definitely a garden folly. He currently has a new friend....the scarecrow, but that is a story for another day.

6 comments:

  1. Absolutely brilliant! When I read your blog, I feel like I've found "my people." Yahoo! I am a cemetery freak as a ghost hunter and I have collected creepy old statues and made a little dark corner of my garden a graveyard year-round as a nod to my love of cemeteries. I hope to add a concrete bench some time and some creepy rusted fencing. I had my roof redone recently and went out to find several workers looking down into my graveyard. One crossed himself. It was pretty funny. I could only pick up some of the Spanish, but I heard someone bet it was my dogs' graves. I love to keep them wondering!

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  2. Very cool!
    I MUST do one for my garden! :0)

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  3. I love this and it's sure to spook the kids!
    jack be little and baby boo's were the only pumpkins I got to grow last year. I hope for better luck this year!

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  4. I totally dig this! I think the photos are gorgeous and hauntingly beautiful! Keep up the good work. Love the blog! :o)

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  5. This is great - gets me thinking about my own gardens and their lack of suitable props. Not sure I could get away with a full skele - but a little skull or femur couldn't hurt - cackle!

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