Garden Design: How to Choose and Place Garden Art in Your Backyard

Garden Design: How to Choose and Place Garden Art in Your Backyard Your backyard should relax and refresh you, but it should also delight you! Choosing garden art that reflects your personality and makes you feel good is an important key to creating the ultimate backyard. Art can mean many things to many people but basically there are 3 types: 1. Formal Art Think larger stately pieces that you see in more traditional backyards, like a classic sculpture of a Greek goddess or a stone angel. Heavy iron garden ornaments like obelisks and sundials also work well with most backyard landscape designs. These pieces create an old-world feel and lend a sense of drama to the yard. Others might include columns, carved fountains, birdbaths, and classical architectural salvage. 2. Semi-formal This is the most popular type because it suits so many styles of backyards. It's more relaxed in theme, a little more nostalgic and decorative. For example, light hearted sculptures of animals or children in concrete, resin or bronze, contemporary metal sculptures of flowers and insects, stained glass stepping stones, artistic birdhouses, and hand painted garden pots, copper wind chimes. 3. Informal Art I call this art "your imagination gone wild". Everyday objects are placed in the garden to create art that is fun, whimsical, and even campy. I've seen all kinds of items used as garden d