A Garden Of Whimsy And Wonder

By Nancy K. Crevier

“A Glimpse Of The Garden” is a miniseries focusing on the heart of a gardener’s work — a special spot, an extraordinary plant, a place of respite, or a place that evokes a heartfelt memory. What is down the garden path of your friends and neighbors? What is down your garden path?

For Rita Frost, being surrounded by beauty is important. And she sees beauty in everything. Her gardens are thick with roses, daisies, iris, phlox, and blue hydrangea bending the branches low. Beds of hosta and elephant ears with giant leaves spread out across the garden beds, with bursts of color from begonias. Knifophia wave long stems of yellow and coral flowers in a breeze.

What catches the eye in Ms Frost’s gardens, though, as much as the display of shrubbery and flowers is the array of sculpture that she has collected and incorporated into her landscaping. “You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have beauty,” stressed Ms Frost. A substantial number of the sculpture pieces in her gardens have come from estate and tag sales, she said.

As an artist and photographer, as was her late husband, Frank Caro, Ms Frost finds that she often sees the potential in an inexpensive pedestal or statue. “Sometimes I repaint them or gild them, or just top them with pretty flowers and they look lovely,” she said. Ms Frost sees the treasure within little sculptures, or slightly damaged sculptures of stone, metal, and wood that others pass by, and surrounded by blossoms, they peek out from pathways and perch upon stonewalls.

“I know from being an artist that with artwork, including sculpture,” said Ms Frost, “that if you love it, you should get it. If it speaks to you and warms your heart, you will use it somewhere.”

What others might see as an everyday object becomes a work of art in Ms Frost’s garden. A line of red teapots marches down one stone path — “I tend to burn my teapots often,” confessed Ms Frost, “and I hate to toss them out.” An old wooden rocker sprouts from a bed of daisies; a worn wrought iron garden seat placed atop a metal stand becomes a throne, dappled in sunlight. Looking just as pretty as any gazing balls, colorful rubber balls sit upon columns. “They are very practical,” explained Ms Frost. “They can’t break when the wind blows them over, like the glass gazing globes.” Even a commode becomes a thing of beauty when surrounded by greenery.

Larger sculptures create visual interest, anywhere the eye may go. The silhouette of a sultry woman, draped in beads, keeps one eye on the far end of the pool. A wooden Statue of Liberty lifts her flame high above a carpet of silver and green lamiastrum ground cover. Near the pool, stones strung along a thick wire arch gracefully, a work of Ethan Curry of Sticks and Stones Farm in Newtown, given to Ms Frost by friends, in memory of her husband.

Figures of stone, also creations of Mr Curry’s, and rocks balanced artfully on a recycled pedestal combine art with nature and can be found marking the path through Ms Frost’s topiary garden, a form of living sculpture.

“The idea for a topiary garden came from a trip to Levens Hall and Topiary Garden in the Lake District of England, the last trip Frank and I took together, before he died four years ago,” said Ms Frost. “I had a vision for it, and installed it after Frank died. I laid out the path first with landscaping material. The hard part was getting the path to meander so that the eye wanders down it, whether looking at it from the kitchen or living room window. And getting the stone down the hill and putting it in was a challenge,” she said. She welcomed the work, though, finding peace as she designed it.

The plantings were selected and placed for their visual effect, based on texture and the “whimsical design,” Ms Frost said. “Putting it all together was like a puzzle,” she added, but she is pleased with the result.

Ms Frost most gets a kick out of the lifelike bear sculptures attached to two large trees. The mother bear scrambles up one tree, while nearby, her cub hurries to the high branches of another. “Frank and I were exhibiting photographs next to the artist, at a show in Massachusetts, about six years ago, and loved the bears. So we traded some photographs for the bears. Our lawn guy came to mow shortly after we had nailed them to the trees, and ran off, thinking we had real bears in the trees,” laughed Ms Frost. He was not the last to be fooled by the bears, either, she said. “You really have to look twice.”

From the tiniest metal grasshopper painted bright purple to the laughing face that peers up from a pot, to the oriental sculptures that add elegant and grace, Ms Frost loves each and every one of the works that personalize her space. “I wouldn’t be happy,” she declared, “if I wasn’t surrounded by whimsical things that delight my senses.”

 That is what is down the garden path at Rita Frost’s.