Eyesores in the Garden




The pleasant view across my front yard lavender garden comes to an abrupt halt at an ugly utilitarian object --- a 300 gallon horizontal propane tank. The only comfort I can take is that, since I painted it brown, it is somewhat less ugly than its original puice, the reason we still refer to it as “the yellow submarine.”

This hideous blot on the otherwise pleasing view supplies us with gas to cook our food and keeps us snug and warm in the winter. It was originally placed to one side of the front yard because our north-facing driveway is treacherous in winter and difficult for the delivery truck to negotiate. It could not be moved back any further because of trees and a precipitous ledge behind it. The trees were taken down, but the ledge remains.

Its location right outside the window is a constant irritant and it continues to be the one functional object for which we have not found a landscaping solution. Last summer, we looked into leveling off the ground in order to move the tank farther back and found that it would be prohibitively expensive, so we’re still searching for another way.

We’ve discussed faux sheds, full sheds, screening fences, low rock walls, screening plants, vines, creating a faux animal shape (what North American animal is nine feet long but only three feet tall?), ruins, follies, artistic painting, etc. Few of these alternatives address the issue of the overview of this monstrosity from the window and most would call more attention to it. Some of them would look silly because of the scale and location in the yard.

We can neither move nor eliminate our eyesore, so the answer seems to be some type of screening that hasn’t yet occurred to us, or creating a distraction. Right now we are leaning toward putting a tall arbor behind it that would create a framed view of the lake across the way in winter and a vertical display of climbing roses or other vines when the trees are leafed out. For this strategy to work, Dan will have to extend the deer fence or the vines won’t survive. We would also need to address problems associated with building such a structure on the ledge. However, even this does not resolve the view from the window.

The tank will be scraped and repainted soon, but it will still be an eyesore. Any suggestions?

Popular posts from this blog

Detention Basins: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Image
In our area, stormwater sewers that serve housing developments and some businesses empty into the dreaded detention (or retention, or infiltration) basin, a visually hideous engineered method of holding large volumes of water until it can safely disperse to groundwater, natural streams, ponds, etc. (top photo). These are generally grass monocultures or rip rap which, if not properly maintained become weedy, overgrown maintenance nightmares. Suffice it to say that anyone who can get away with not maintaining one will continue to not maintain it. Frequently, the town ends up owning and maintaining such basins, meaning that all the taxpayers pay. When grass is used as the only groundcover and pesticides and fertilizers are applied, they can contaminate the runoff. Regular mowing of the basins is difficult because of the steep sides and wet floor. This maintenance adds contaminants to the watercourse, as well. Grass basins also attract undesirable wildlife, such as Canada Geese, which
Keep reading

Please Garden Responsibly. Because What You Spray in Your Garden Doesn’t Stay in Your Garden

Image
American Lady caterpillar on licorice plant. Photo: Courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden Scores of their silky tents covered the licorice plant in the container on my porch. Inside the tents, something was gobbling up the leaves faster than I could pick them off. The plant must have been infested when I bought it. As I reached for my organic insecticide, I thought, “Wait, you don’t know what kind of caterpillars these are!” I recalled an article on pest management by a friend who cautioned: “Sometimes, the best treatment is no treatment at all.” It took the better part of the afternoon for me to identify the miniature mowing machines. In the meantime, half of them had started dropping from their perches and wriggling off into the underbrush. I hoped I had made the right decision. The licorice plant was devastated. But then I noticed that the caterpillars had not eaten the leaves all the way down to the stem. Possibly, secondary buds could sprout and still provide a silvery
Keep reading

Musings on the Relativity of Time and The Arithmetic of Overpopulation

Image
I celebrated my birthday recently. Beyond a certain age, birthdays become a double-edged sword. You’re glad you made it to the next one, but realize that there are far fewer years ahead of you than behind you. The list of absent friends grows ever longer. Colleagues grow grey; everyone else looks like they just graduated from middle school. I used to console myself by calculating that I still had at least 2 5 more years to go, which made the end point seem very far off. But, now that would mean I’d live to an unrealistically old age, a concept supported by neither family history nor actuarial tables. I’m reminded of Einstein’s summary of his Theory of Relativity: "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour." I guess I’ve been having too much fun. But that can’t go on forever. My immortality would not be good for the planet. It’s not sustainable. At the same time that medical advances have
Keep reading