Once I bring a trashy treasure home, I’m compelled to study it from all angles, to ponder its purpose and potential. It might be a day or a week or a month before the design concept hits – which frequently happens in the middle of the night or when I’m driving down the freeway. 

      One morning I came across this white, somewhat mangled, steel tubular headboard, lying in the tangled roadside weeds.  Such garden possibilities! This time, I was inspired immediately!  Home it came, secreted under an old quilt in the back of the car. After sanding off the rust and spraying on several coats of exterior gloss white paint, I installed it (inserting the ends over pounded-in rebar) among a grouping of plants known to be leaners and floppers:  Penstemon, Echinacea, and Verbena bonariensis. 

       Voila`!  My garden gained a unique, attractive

(and free) plant support, as well as a bit of,

well . . .character. Three or four rusty iron wine

barrel hoops, nested into each other, fanned out

into an orb, and screwed or welded together at

top and bottom, make great plant supports for

Agastache, Salvia, and Centaurea as well.

       Many decades ago I attempted to take sixth grade shop class.  No way, they said, shop was for boys only. Though my father was not a Mr. Fix-it type and never taught me to do anything mechanical, I was aching to use power tools, build birdhouses and tree houses, toy boxes, and go-carts.                                

       My family hasn’t acknowledged this, but they are my enablers. The gifts they give me for Christmas and birthdays feed my habit:  a 100 year old cistern found behind a building in San Francisco; flatbed garden cart for hauling stuff around; a Dremel, a glue gun, and a set of pliers and wire cutters; a broken-down garden bench, and a compound miter saw. (I’ve already given myself a conduit bender, scrolling saw, and cordless drill and driver. Lately, I’ve been thinking seriously about a router.)

So now, I build and create to my heart’s content, most often using junk I find or friends give me.  Once friends know you’re looking for stuff, they are more than happy to deliver it to you.  I’m not a practitioner of dumpster diving, but I do go to the dump. At our county landfill there’s an area called “Recycling and Reuse” where builders, landscapers, and regular people deposit their leftover but usable building materials, tools, pots, books, tile, wrought iron, wine barrels, old doors and windows, and anything else they don’t want or need.  It’s heaven to a junk-junkie like me and at the same time offers a challenge for friendly bargaining. (Do you like my grandma’s bed morphed into a garden bench?)

Friends admire my garden, spiced up as it is with my hammered, screwed, or welded-together treasures planted out among the flowers. Oh, I could never do that, they say.  Well, of course you can, just try it, I retort. Start small with a handsaw and hammer; build a birdhouse or mini plant stand with some old lumber (not realizing then how quickly they’ll move on to power tools!). So what if the corners don’t quite match or the thing isn’t entirely plumb on the first try?           

       Next thing you know they’ve constructed a little

garden bench or a functional cold frame or potting

table, or hung up a couple authentic wood shutters

to create a garden room. They’ve painted and

planted an old wooden ladder out in the garden, cast

a concrete birdbath or tufa plant trough, or

created a bottle tree or vaguely identifiable rusty

tractor parts bird feeder. I laugh. They email me,

Let’s go junking on Friday. I’m there!

© Sandy Baker 2010