How to Buy Lawn Ornaments

Tips on buying lawn ornaments

1. Know your tastes, and have a general idea of what you’d like to buy before going shopping. If you are an animal lover, you’ll want to consider bird, frog and duck lawn ornaments. If you have a home by the sea, nautical-related lawn ornaments will make sense on your lawn. There are a million choices out there, and shopping can be dizzying, so it’s best to have an ideal aesthetic in your head.
2. There are other items to consider in the world of lawn ornaments besides ornaments fashioned after animals. Know that you’ll have birdbaths, columns, fountains, pedestals, stepping stones, sundials and metal flowers to choose from as well!
3. Know which lawn ornament materials will work for you and your environment. Light plastic lawn ornaments will work well in arid, windless desert climates, as well as during the summer in most regions. Heavier ornaments made of metal will hold up well in stormier, windier climates, and can possibly stay out all year round.
4. Do keep in mind whether or not you’re going to keep your lawn ornaments out all year round, or only during warm seasons. You’ll have a better chance of preserving your ornaments if you take them in during the winter, especially if your ornaments are painted.
5. Do not go overboard with purchasing lawn ornaments. Unless you’re going for a kitschy look (think Pee-Wee Herman’s lawn in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”), you’ll want to limit yourself to a certain number of ornaments, depending on how much space you have to work with. You don’t want a messy, cluttered, overburdened lawn!
6. Place your lawn ornaments in spots where you know where there won’t be heavy foot traffic. You don’t want other people (or yourself, for that matter) tripping over your lawn ornaments and injuring themselves.

Caution

When removing lawn ornaments from your grass, be exceedingly careful. You don’t want to rip up a chunk of your lawn when taking an ornament in for a season!

Where to buy lawn ornaments

Order lawn ornaments from one of these reputable online retailers—

Smith & Hawken has long been a quality purveyor of products for outdoor living. View their garden ornament catalog, which offers sales of everything from hand-carved teak ducks to pineapple-shaped stepping-stones.

The garden and lawn ornament store Harper's provides online sales of seasonal, religious and holiday ornaments, plus pedestals, birdbaths and feeders, and even human figurines. Be sure to view their clearance items for penny-saving deals.

Enter Amazon.com and check out the Outdoor Living department within their Home & Garden section. You’ll find garden stakes, birdbaths, sundials, gazing balls and a wide variety of yard art, most of which is available to ship in one to two business days.