A carved wooden sculpture was mysteriously placed next to our Louisville mailbox last week. The figure looked like a hybrid between Tecumseh and Jingles. Tecumseh, the legendary Shawnee warrior, orator, and go-between for inter-tribal unity, had an early premonition that white settlers would never stop westward expansion until all indigenous people were dispossessed. Jingles was the television cowboy sidekick of Wild Bill Hickock, played by Andy Devine in the 1950s.  A plastic, apricot-colored, cemetery mum bouquet  came with the sculpture. Beauty and purpose?  The benefactor has not been flushed out. 

Rose and I liked the odd surprise. Gardens are full of surprises—good and bad.  

There was a predecessor to “Tecumseh-Jingles” forty-seven years ago that ignited a kerfuffle about whether beauty, or bad taste, is in the eye of the beholder.

The little Tecumseh/ Jingles/plastic floral bouquet installation may be more  than just “pretty faux natural greenery.” Placement, adjacent to two spreading, native shrubs—a sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus ‘Michael Lindsey’) and Alabama bridal wreath (Neuvisia alabamensis)—was neither sublime nor genius, but it was coincidental. Surprise! Both species are compelling native shrubs. Tecumseh may have encountered the deciduous shrubs while visiting tribes in Tennessee and Alabama in the early 19th Century.

Calycanthus floridus ‘Michael Lindsey’

“Tecumseh-Jingles” does not compare to Martha Schwartz’s 1979 “ Bagel Garden.” Susan Rademacher, former Managing Editor of Landscape Architecture Magazine, and close colleague of Editor Grady Clay, told me, “The Bagel Garden was an early lesson in courage, thanks to Grady. I’d been with the magazine for a few years when Martha approached us about publishing her story. We were excited by the wit and banality of her design and thought it a perfect way to shake up the professional dialogue and open the door wider to artful experimentation.” 

Bagel Garden— Martha Schwartz Partners photo

Schwartz’s French-renaissance design featured bagels lined up on a lavender-colored gravel walkway. The story stirred passionate debate about what a beautifully designed landscape should or shouldn’t be.

The controversy did not dull Martha Schwartz’s career.

“By the way,” Susan Rademacher added, “I think your carving is a fun surprise, though the mums are not!”