Screening Out the Yuck Side: More Garden Art From the Artistically Inept

Be who you are and

say what you feel

because those who matter 

don't mind

and those who mind

 don't matter
- Dr Seuss

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my Yuck side, the unfabulous side of my house with all my utilities as well as a giant bleeding heart that goes dormant every summer, leaving me with a huge gaping hole in the garden bed. Once summer hits, this area is an eyesore but buried utility lines make landscaping difficult. The tall obedient plants I added last fall to make this area less ugly were trampled into oblivion by a zealous, or maybe just angry, utility worker when we changed our internet service, making the area even uglier than usual.

Decorative knobs used on the screen

Mid-summer

Spring

I asked how I should fix the problem and as I hoped, was given a solution. Several of you suggested I make a screen or some kind of structure to hid the hideousness since I don't want to move the bleeding heart. Kris from Melissa Majora gave me the fabulous idea of using wooden shutters but I couldn't find any. When she mentioned decorating the screen, my brain started popping. Encouragement to a creative mind is like fertilizer to a petunia. An idea sprouted and down the rabbit hole I fell....

Tammy's Super Skills

Making a mess

Hitting things with a hammer

Using a screwdriver and an old, cheap drill

With only these skills at my disposal, I decided to create a plywood screen with one of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes and then decorate it with cool knobs. Weird? Possibly. But I went for it anyway. 

I bought a big square piece of plywood that measured 4 ft x 4 ft. The guys at Lowe's cut into five sections each measuring 36" x 12". I sanded down the scratchy bits and primed it with an exterior primer.

I drew out my design, measured off the stripes, and wrote myself notes on the board so I'd paint everything correctly. Each board is a mirror image of the board next to it. The first stripe is 3", the second is 5" and the third is 4", which when combined with the next stripe of the same color, creates a stripe pattern of 3", 5" and 7". This keeps the stripes even in a rather odd way. :o)

 I painted the outside stripes first using all exterior paints.

Ugh! This is why I don't paint things for a living. I had a lot of touch up painting to do!

Once the painting was done, I laid out the words to the quote and then wrote them on the boards using a black Sharpie marker.

After inserting all the knobs, I covered them with plastic wrap and sprayed the board with a clear aerosol sealant.

I made supports out of PVC pipe that I asked Lowe's to cut for me. I clamped the pipe to a thin piece of wood and bought heavy spikes to insert through the pipe and into the ground to hold the screen upright.

I nailed the supports to the board.

Figuring out how to hang plants from the back of the board was the most challenging part. I ended up using metal braces and screwed little plastic self watering pots into the back of the board.

Once the pots were screwed onto the board, I filled then with lemon thyme. If we get rain, the extra water can flow out of the bottom tray since there is a gap where I screwed the tray into the board.

Be who you are and say what you feel

because those who matter don't mind

and those who mind don't matter

Once the thyme settles into its pot, I'm hoping it won't look so scraggly. I wanted something free form to break up how linear the top of the boards are. Plus, thyme won't need to be watered constantly.

Decorative knobs used on the board

Summer garden