The Gardener’s Rake

I often use a mailbox in my larger gardens. It makes a cute garden art piece and serves a function too.

I pick up my used mailboxes at auctions, garage sales, or even along surbsides.

The older boxes  add to the artistic look I want in the garden areas.

I make sure the mailbox works and opens and closes properly. It’s a great place to store

• a small notebook for planting tips and planting dates
• small hammer
• small stakes
• string
• seeds that I will plant later that day or the following day
• garden markers
• garden spade
• ruler

or any any other useful item that I know I will needing in a day or so.

By having a usable mailbox stoage area this keeps me from running back and forth for one  item time after time and I have a place to store items out of the rain and away from my dog who loves to pick up any item I lay down and run around the yard taunting me.

I have also had the bad habit of laying down an item and not being able to find it unil the lawn mower does. This has solved that problem.

To make the mail boxes look different each year I have moved them to a different garden. I have placed an artifical bird on them or a cute signs. Sometimes they get a vine placed near the bottom that will wind its way up the mailbox during the summer. One year I had a double decker mailbox. The bottom one to use as storage and the top one was open and mainly there for look, but I did have birds use it as a perch.