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Why choose concrete lawn ornaments?
It may seem strange to use concrete as an ornamental material, but concrete is now being used for far more than simply laying paths or roads. It is a versatile material and relatively inexpensive, so it was no surprise when people started to look at alternative uses and particularly considered the garden as an area to utilize concrete. Concrete is made from cement, gravel, sand and water, is the most used manmade product on earth and is a $35 billion worldwide industry, employing 2 million people in the United States alone. You can trace its origins back to Babylonian times, but modern concrete, as we know it, has been in production since 1756 when a British engineer, John Smeaton, started using cement in the construction of concrete. Nowadays, a wide variety of recyclable materials are used in the production of concrete, so it is also environmentally friendly. Concrete has many properties that make it suitable for lawn ornaments; it has the ability to be molded to certain shapes; it has a high compressive strength, low elasticity and low-tensile strength. Concrete can also be painted, easily, so this gives it an added attraction when making concrete lawn ornaments.
Types of concrete lawn ornaments
The simplest and most widely seen garden concrete ornaments are the pillars, often a bird bath or a sundial. Bird baths made from concrete are stable, they will hold water, nuts, seeds and bread as they can be constructed as a shallow dish with a lip on which the birds perch. Sundials made from concrete can have the sundial mechanism fitted into the concrete at construction, or drilled into later, another good aspect of concrete you can drill it for fixings. Another popular use of concrete is to make stone garden benches, durable, solid and stable; you can see many concrete benches in the gardens of stately homes across Britain. Somewhat more whimsical uses of concrete developed in the 18th and 19th centuries with the advent of the garden statue, made of concrete. Popular themes for these statues were Greek influenced gods and goddesses; signs of the zodiac and various representations of wildlife. There are concrete deer lawn ornaments which reflected a tradition of hunting, but also harked back to mythology and paintings of paradise which always depicted deer and birds.
Looking after your concrete lawn ornaments
If you decide to add concrete garden ornaments to your lawn, paths or flowerbeds, you need to follow a few simple rules for taking care of the concrete. It can be painted, so if you choose the right paint then that can act as a protective covering. Part of the charm of concrete is how it looks as it weathers, so you do not want it to be kept too shiny and new. Using a concrete sealer will protect it against the rain, especially on the base, which often sits in water. If you can place your concrete lawn ornaments on a piece of wood, paving or deck block, that is good as it will keep them from getting soaked with mud. Choose and maintain your concrete garden ornaments carefully and they will last a lifetime.
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Author Bio Box: Patricia Wainwright
Get all the facts about landscape gardening and gardening articles at GreenThumbArticles.com!
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