Adding Southern Charm to Your Home and Garden
You’ve heard the redneck jokes; you might be a redneck ifâÂ?¦but what do you really know about us? First of all, a true redneck doesn’t care about what others think. We have deep-rooted traditions going back hundreds of years, and we are proud of our redneck lifestyles. Our lives are simple; we make the most out of what we have. We just don’t feel the need to live a certain way in order to please others; those snobby individuals with their ‘holier than thou’ attitudes are just people with opinions, and you know what they say about opinions. There are many interpretations of what a redneck is, too many in fact, but what exactly is a redneck gardener?
If you edge your flower beds with bottles, if you place an old bathtub or toilet in the yard and fill them with flowers, if you use junked tires or other objects deemed ‘inappropriate’ for decorating purposes, you are considered a redneck gardener. And while these shining examples might seem a bit out of the norm to some people, others (like me) view this kind of thing as creativity. It’s an interesting way to add southern charm to your home and garden, a way of preserving our heritage. I prefer to think of it as art. What better way can you think of to use (or reuse) items that would otherwise be thrown away, left to sit around collecting dust or cluttering up the environment. Take, for instance, the junked-out, rusty car that’s been sitting in the yard for years waiting to be fixed, though this will never truly happen. Don’t despair, Ladies (or Gents). Just design your garden around the vehicle instead. It makes a great conversation piece, and since the car obviously isn’t going anywhere, its history will remain intact while your landscape maintains a tidier appearance, featuring a unique focal point. Everyone wins.
I have showcased an old lawn mower, a bathtub, and even hollowed-out stumps from fallen trees. I once transformed a few cinderblocks and an old window into a cold frame to start and store plants. I didn’t stop here. I eventually ran out of room in my cold frame so I took a long look around my home for inspiration, and out of nowhere, it came to me. I had found my solution-the camper top from our pick-up truck. It was just sitting there serving no purpose at all. With windows that could be wound open or shut, I could easily adjust the inside temperature to fit the needs of my plants. Amazingly, that year I had the most beautiful flowers ever. All my friends and neighbors commented on them and asked where I had gotten them from. I simply smiled and told them it was a ‘redneck secret’ but I grew the flowers myself from seed.
Time and time again I have preached about using various items for decorating purposes, whether it’s for the garden or even inside the home. I’ll pretty much use anything I find, somehow. I’ve used outgrown boots for flower containers and broken mailboxes as shelter for birds in the garden. I absolutely love yard sales, thrift shops, and salvage stores. There is so much hidden potential in the most unlikely of objects. I once found an old container that farmers used long ago for spreading fertilizer on their crops. It became an interesting focal point in one of my flower beds. I dug up a broken metal rake without a handle. Got it cleaned up and used it to hang things from, makes a great coat rack.
I seem to have a natural desire to dress up both the outside and inside of my home with artifacts of some kind. I love anything old and the history which accompanies something. Most people overlook the fact that objects have a story to tell. Instead, it’s considered to many to be tacky, and it seems that anything tacky is considered redneck. Unfortunately, my boyfriend has been guilty of this type of ridicule. He didn’t approve of my one-of-a-kind quilt rack. “It’s tacky,” he said. To him it was just an old ladder; to me it was so much more. I saw the ladder in my landlord’s barn one day. He was going to throw it away. Seeing the potential in this object, I asked if I could have it and he said “Sure.” I took the ladder, cleaned it up (careful to preserved its aged appearance), and set it up in my house. I draped a couple quilts on the rungs and adorned some old photographs on them as well. The ladder has become an interesting topic of discussion from those who actually take the time to both admire and appreciate the story behind it.
One of the quilts was hand-made by my grandmother when my daughter was born; the other one I made myself when I was pregnant with my son. Each quilt was made with love, and each represents new life. The photos include that of my parents as children and young adults, a family tree of sorts or maybe a family ladder. The ladder itself symbolizes how something from the past can be given a new beginning. After my divorce, I rented a place of my own. It was a new beginning for my kids and me. This is where I got the ladder. Redneck decorating, maybe, but tacky it is not.
Years ago, when my brother moved, he asked me to help spruce up the appearance of his landscape. In the process of clearing the backyard of piled-up trash, I found a cast-iron skillet. The skillet was trashed and filled with flaky rust. Anyone else would have tossed it, again. Not me. I took it home, cleaned it up, and painted a rooster on the outside of it. Then I hung it up on the kitchen wall where it’s right at home with my rooster collection. Besides being another welcoming addition to my ‘recycled’ goodies, the skillet is a reminder of my first landscaping project, outside of my own home. You see, there is always a story associated to the items I choose.
This year I might consider sticking the old stop sign out in the garden. It was a special trinket given to me by my mom-that’s another story. I’m thinking it will give others an excuse to ‘stop’ by, maybe even smell the roses. Perhaps I’ll design my own rendition of the perfect ‘roadside’ garden filled with old discarded road signs. What a wonderful way to lure others into the garden. I could tuck a throughway traffic sign into the plants along a pathway. Better still, I could place a ‘rest area’ next to a bench. The possibilities are endless. Redneck, you think? Probably so, but you have to admit, it sure is different.
