garden: All You Do Is Bench, Bench, Bench!

The look of Fall in Central Texas has definitely begun to descend on The Grackle. The crispy brown leaves of pecans, cottonwoods and elms cover everything. Pecans (pecans!) crunch under foot and smack against the roof of the house. In the midst of this feeling of nostalgia for summer, we recently stumbled upon two new benches for the garden.

These are mid-century modern benches rescued from Phoenix, and they have beautiful iron bases.

We placed one of them, the 6-footer, by the water heater screen and desert willow. The slatted form of the bench turns out to play really well with the slatted screen, and they are almost exactly the same width.


Previously, we had a bench here that John recycled out of wood left over by the P.O.s. We love that bench, and it's becoming especially interesting as it ages and grows its own shelf fungi. Until we get a full set of front patio furniture, John's bench is holding up butts out front. It looks rather nice there, actually.

The second mod bench is a little over 8 feet long, so we put that one on the back patio, where we used to have a yellow, shabby-chic, Austin-style, two seat glider. Well, we love the glider, and it certainly imparted a different look and feel to the patio, but this new bench is much larger (= more butts) and more stable.

It looks really nice out there next to the old gray Adirondack chair rescued from the garbage. And the extra foot or so on either end of the bench is going to be perfect for little planters (or to set down a cocktail!).