h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... but I'll give it a go anyway.
First start with plants. Be unique and try some unusual types, like the carnivorous ones that will eat your neighbor's dog when he comes over to use your propery as his latrine.
Decorate your patio in an interesting manner. I took an art class where we made plaster casts of our faces and used them to make clay masks. We all had to make one for the teacher, who fired them, took them home and arrayed them about her front porch and garden. She said the hundreds of eerily lifelike stone faces were an excellent deterrent to door-to-door solicitors and jehova's witnesses.

I think garden design (which I know sweet F.A. about) should concentrate not on the plants but on the objects in the garden, such as gnomes, greek-styled statues, rocks and preposterous fountains!

And you know I'm right

AAAAAAAAARGH

that's not a garden - it's a monument to tatt

When I go round the local garden centres I wonder how they can stock all the statues and so on that they do. Most gardens are too small to have much in the way of statuary in them tho a small creature in a shrubbery adds something. A bigger statue needs space around it as a letter needs "white space" around the text to make it easier to read.

I'm all for adding a small water feature tho with allowance for safety if kids are present and the knowlege that elderly chaps may feel prostate problems if too much tinkling sounds

Do remember to leave space on the lawn/patio for the to land or folk to sit on a chair on the odd sunny day or stand and appreciate it.

tom

How about one of those old stalinist statues from the USSR and her satellite states in Eastern Europe. You could trail ivy up it and birds could nest in the head or flat cap at the top of the statue.