Vintage Gardening

Recently, while helping my uncle, the antique auctioneer, prepare for his upcoming auction I let him negotiate a price for me on a fabulous assortment of Canadian antique tins. If you ever get to the pretty historic village of Cloverdale (in the centre of Surrey, BC) you must visit Jack’s Place – his web site doesn’t begin to show the  Wrange of treasures his store contains. (http://www.jacksantiques.com)

My friend Patricia’s beautiful porch chair planter

Antique chair, vintage bundt pan and oodles of spring flowers

For this vignette I was looking for something delicate. I lined the trivet with cheap screening and filled it with dirt.

I picked delicate plants, like these bright leggy geraniums and young ivy. To add to the softness I was trying to create, I covered the roots and dirt with moss.

 

old faithful banana hanger with an antique silver plated condiment trivet planted with leggy pansies and a young ivy.

These tins belong to my uncle. He’s taught me so much about antiques and collectibles, and now I get to teach him about vintage gardening.

The gleam in my uncle’s eye is copper, Growing up our home had antique copper cookware hanging from a custom-made rack above a 12 square foot, 6 inch deep cutting board. Copper boilers sat in front of our fire place, filled with kindling and paper or gleamed from the shelves around our waist-high fireplace.
I showed him that it can also add welcoming warmth to the garden entrance on a cloudy summer day.

Antique bronze cricketer

There is something very appealing about the contrast between the hard dark bronze figurine and the fluffy light flowers of alyssum and petunias

Benjamin the Cat is neither tin nor a container of any thing but tuna fish. But he loves to supervise all of my goings on.

 

The little Red Seal Peanut Butter tin isn’t Canadian, of course. It’s an American tourist, but I loved that it has its original lid.

Pretty as a Pig Tin. I love pigs: have since I was a child. So this lard tin from Guelph, Ontario almost leapt off the shelf and into my arms.

Rogers Golden Syrup from Vancouver, BC and Red Rose Lard from Brantford, Ontario

We are a tea drinking coffee grinder loving family. And I love the look of the combination of rich green succulents, frail ivy against the rich wood and ironwork