Garden ornament
A Garden ornament is an item used for garden, landscape, and park enhancement and decoration.
The category can include:
- bird baths,
- bird feeders,
- nest box-bird houses
- columns - cast stone
- fountains,
- rocks and boulders with basins
- reflecting pools - small/portable types
- waterfalls - small prefabricated type
- garden furniture - motif types
- gazing spheres
- holiday-seasonal ornaments and decorations
- landscape lighting - decorative fixtures
- outdoor sculpture
- found art such as recycled bowling balls, toilet planters, farm equipment antiques...
- kinetic sculpture
- masks,
- obelisks
- renewable energy sculpture
- moon bridge - small ornament versions
- pagoda - small versions
- pedestals - e.g. terra cotta, cast stone
- pots,
- statuary
- sundials,
- topiary specimens,
- wind chimes, wind harps
- weathervanes,
- and other aesthetic additions.
History
The first known use of garden ornaments became common in the western cultures are in Ancient Roman gardens. A great many examples have been excavated from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The Italian Renaissance garden and Garden à la française were the peak styles of using created forms in the garden and landscape, with high art and kitsch interpretations ever since. The English Landscape Garden expanded the scale of some garden ornaments to temple follies
The Asian tradition of making garden ornaments, often functioning in association with Feng Shui principles, has a nearly timeless history.
The Chinese gardens, with Chinese scholar's rocks, Korean stone art, and Japanese gardens with Suiseki, and the Zen rock gardens have and symbolic meaning and natural ornamental qualities.
See also
