I've always been skeptical about garden ornaments. Maybe I've seen too many florescent whirlies, plywood cut-outs showing gardening grannies' underwear and {gasp}, the garden g-nome! Then there's the "no sucess like excess" approach of a neighbor - at last count there were 47 "decorations" in one small garden.
It's a slippery slope - too many doo-dads, or tacky doo-dads and POOF- you're in line with the crazy cat-ladies, and your once -lovely garden looks like sale-day at Big Lots. But I went on a pocket garden tour recently and was struck by how the creative use of interesting ornaments really punched up the garden's impact. I loved the use of "found" stuff - parts of old machinery, little piles of glass or pottery, beautiful ceramics (although even tasteful little statues of bunnies seem perilously close to going over the edge- just my opinion)!
I looked around my gardens and decided to embrace the decoration:
Terra cotta AND numbers - what's not to love?
My tea-cup garden. I saw something similar in a garden last year and made my version using old stair spindles and thrift-store cups.
These are all pieces from a broken cast-iron chiminea.
Terrarium, minus the glass sides
A final word about the gnome . When your two-year old granddaughter gives you a little-bitty gnome, you put in where you can see it every day and everytime you see it you smile!