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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Pink Flamingo Lawn Ornaments

I had the opportunity to visit Narragansett, Rhode Island a few weeks ago. It is a lovely seaside town and each home looks peaceful and well manicured. Driving around the neighborhood, I saw many beautiful shrubs in bloom like Hydrangea, Crape Myrtle and Rose of Sharon. When all of a sudden, my 4 year old son calls out "Look, a Flamingo!" I stopped the car immediately, knowing full well that Flamingos were not indigenous to the Northeast. So imagine my surprise when I saw roughly 20 pink Flamingos on the front lawn of house across the street. 

Have a look:


As you can see, these Flamingos are not real. To me, when I think about pink Flamingos as lawn ornaments, it screams tackiness. But to be honest, there was something intriguingly appealing about these. Maybe it was the sheer number of birds, their haphazard placement across the lawn or the fact that each was standing in a different pose. Maybe the owner loves Flamingos. Maybe these birds were placed on the lawn as a prank by a friend (or foe?). Maybe they were left over decoration for a party.  Whatever the reason, they certainly caught my attention and the attention of the children in my car. I had to drive past this house 6 times before they allowed me to drive way!

What do you think? Tacky? Cute? Let me know!

4 comments:

  1. Great post. Wow ... the sight of all those pink flamingos is really something! It sort of works on some strange level ... maybe this is the only time pink flamingoes look great on a lawn - in a flock!

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  2. It might have been a "Flamingo Attack"....years ago here in New Jersey it was a big gag to get "Flamingoed". You would go in the middle of the night & put up a bunch of Flamingoes on someones lawn. Like for someone's birthday, etc. Then you are suppose to do it to someone else. It was pretty funny though it didn't last long.

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  3. Jester - that is too funny! I wonder if that was indeed what happened here.

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  4. I am on the line when it comes to plastic pink flamingoes. On the one hand, kitschy stuff has such an element of fun to it. But it can be so easy to cross the line to tacky. So I think I will someday have a pink flamingo in my garden, but its display has to cross the line into mystery, surprise, or fun -- be it due to location or decoration or placement with plants or art. Hmmmm... I'll have to think about it.

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