Antiques for Your Garden

Urns, Statuary and Furniture Add Charm to Any Landscape

For leafy bowers or fields of flowers, antiques in your garden add interest and a comfy corner for quiet contemplation. From cherubs to chimney pots, fountains to finials, garden decor for any budget can include fine antiques, well made reproductions, and salvaged architectural elements. Here are a variety of decorative and useful antiques that will add flair and function to your landscape.

Gardens as Outdoor Rooms
Almost as long as there have been humans seeking shelter, there have been gardens. While he earliest were for sustenance, gardens became an extension of living spaces, especially during the heat of summer.

Spanish style wrought iron gates

Garden Gates & Entrance Ways
Like the front door of a house, a garden gate is the entry way to the world within and should give visitors a hint as to what they will find beyond it. Gates can be formal, like the ornate and imposing wrought iron Victorians from the late 19th century (which can cost anywhere from $3,000 -$12,000, depending on size, design and provenance), or more simple wooden gates usually from the early part of the 20th century. While reproductions of the elaborate wrought iron favored by the Victorians are pretty expensive, a good millwork shop can fabricate a new wooden gate from an old pattern for a more moderate sum. Old or new, ornate or simple, the style of the gate should match the style of the garden within.

Urns & Finials
Although similar in looks, urns and finials are different and originally served two distinctive purposes. Urns resemble giant loving cups are hollow and easily filled with plant material. Finials, originally used to top the gate posts of great houses, resemble urns, but have closed triangular or cone shaped tops. Both add interest to a garden niche and can be made of cast iron, stone, lead, composition stone, terracotta, or bronze. Urns have become popular garden ornaments, and well crafted reproductions are readily available.

Architectural Ornaments for the Garden
When old buildings are razed, architectural elements are salvaged by savvy dealers who resell the parts for use in homes and gardens. Useful and beautiful salvaged pieces include stone columns with or without plinths (bases) or capitols (tops), bits of frieze, gargoyles, troughs, and chimney pots. Chimney pots are plentiful and have a variety of uses. Usually made of terracotta, they can be filled with plant material, used as a base for a statue or urn, or massed to create a wall, border, or back drop. These pots originally sat atop a chimney, and some have decorative patterns, especially those from the Victorian era.

Child's wheelbarrow in original red paint, early 20th century

Old Garden Tools and Implements
Nothing says garden more than. . . . garden equipment! An old wheel or water barrow filled with flowers is an eye catching display, as is a garden roller artfully arranged against a backdrop of greenery. Vintage, well-used tools such as spades, scythes, edgers, hoes, rakes and even hand trowels often have interesting wooden handles as well as a pleasing patina. Imported European implements are pricier and harder to find, but their American counterparts are plentiful and inexpensive, with vintage wood handled trowels, for example bringing between $10- $20.

Reference: Garden Antiques How to Source & Identify by Rupert Der Werf & Jackie Rees Miller’s 2003

-Article by p4A contributing editor Susan Cramer