Garden Seating – Where It All Happens

Southerners naturally gravitate outdoors as often as possible, easily finding sociable gathering places – front yard or back – where we can temporarily escape the dinner dishes and TV. Where we laugh about everyone who isn’t here, and during conversational lulls someone inevitably mentions cicadas or four o’clocks. And of course it usually includes cooking, with languorous fans keeping ‘skeeters at bay.

But without a place to sit, where you GONNA? Nobody does it for long without a comfy place to set our tired bones.

Outdoor seating goes way beyond merely enticing us outside in the first place, where senses can kick in, where we notice stuff, from hearing birds and evening frogs, take in heady scents from flowers and fresh-mowed lawns, savor the occasional faint breeze, and enjoy a cool beverage while watching the inexplicable stormless flicker of “heat” lightning.

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We’ve sat on everything, from carved logs to contemporary materials and otherworldly designs. We’ve tried out antique teak Lutyens benches, intricate wrought iron combos, colorful 1940s clamshell-shaped pressed metal chairs (and gliders, of course), uncomfortable Adirondack chairs, inexpensive nylon mesh that leaves back-of-thigh marks, and all sorts of other material ranging from inexpensive plastic and durable composites to car tires, bamboo, wicker, and all kinds of wood. With or without weatherproof cushions.

Anyway, garden seating is too often added as a mere accessory, even going beyond comfort. As a friend once wrote, “Times change, people change, but, like the porch swing, there are some things that just need to be brought forward into the present. Both to recreate the peace they brought us in our younger days, and to share this peaceful pastime with those who never experienced it so they can grow some memories too.”

For me, it ain’t a garden without a reasonably pleasant place for ruminating and reminiscing, hopefully, as country crooner John Anderson sang, “feeling love down to our toes, just a swangin’…”

Speaking of which, my own garden swing is hugely enhanced by having a long chain coupled with a pair of “swing springs” which reallly put the bounce in things… for more on this, click here.

Here are a few examples of garden seats I have seen around the country and beyond, all which have one thing in common: Outdoor relaxation. Enjoy!

Sorry about the poor quality of this photo, taken from an old print photo made before digital cameras, but here are my long-gone front deck chairs I got in Mexico, made from bicycle and motorcycle tires…