Pigs are not everywhere in the yard of Diana and Fritz Runyon in Highland Park. They’re just here and there.
Concrete and terra-cotta pigs peek out from beneath the shrubbery. A pig weather vane stands atop a pole in the back yard. The door knocker is a pig. Indoors: more pigs.
“We don’t really know why we collect pigs,” says Diana Runyon, who estimates the total litter at 300. “But we love them. Pigs are such intelligent animals.” On top of that, with their comfortably rounded bodies and beatific smiles, the pigs bring an air of whimsy to the Runyons’ yard.
In a quiet suburban neighborhood, the pigs can’t fail to provoke a chuckle from passersby. And the remarkable thing about these swine is that they manage to stay on the good side of the line between whimsy and tackiness. Unlike some other garden accessories–think of that almost ubiquitous plywood cutout of a fat lady bent over pulling weeds–the pigs make people smile, not wince.
It’s a difficult balancing act these pigs manage, staying cute and clever without seeming “saccharine sweet,” as Phil Eichler dubs their tacky counterparts. As the owner of The Urban Gardener, a Lincoln Park garden-accessories boutique, Eichler has ample experience delineating the tacky from the tastefully whimsical, but he says it’s never easy. “It’s really a matter of taste, and taste is a matter of current trends,” he says. “Taste is arbitrary and changes from moment to moment. Something can be tacky today and not tomorrow.”
Although the line between tacky and whimsical is a moving target, it’s one that has intrigued Tovah Martin for several years. Martin, a Connecticut garden writer, tries to help nail it down with “Garden Whimsy” (Houghton Mifflin Co., $30).
Whimsy in the garden, she says, helps to lighten the all-work-and-no-play attitude that afflicts too many gardeners. But it requires a deft touch not everyone comes by naturally.
Martin proposes a few checkpoints for those who want to instill a sense of playfulness in their gardens:
– “When your yard starts looking like a miniature golf course, that’s never a good thing,” she says. “Just one one-of-a-kind thing can really go far.” The cover of her book is graced with a fine illustration of that point: A classical Venus de Milo-style armless statue stands in a New Hampshire vegetable garden wearing a tangerine-colored prom dress. It’s clever, unique, and strangely beautiful.
– Context is key. “It’s very fun to counterpoint your surroundings with something that brings people up short and makes them smile,” Martin says. She still chuckles about the loony gorilla-scarecrow she once saw sitting in an otherwise pristine formal garden. “People are so dead serious about gardens,” she says, “that anything you can do to tickle their funny bone when they’re going around checking your garden with white gloves for weeds is good.”
– Be confident. “Like pronouncing Latin botanical names, if you do it with assertion, you’ll get away with it,” Martin says. “If you decide you’re in love with garden gnomes that year, then do it with assertion and people will think you know what you’re doing.” And besides, if it’s your yard, nobody has to get the joke but you and your family. “If you like looking at it, it’s not tacky,” Eichler says.
– Nevertheless, be a good neighbor. When she moved to her present home two years ago, Martin found an old enameled sink that she stuck in the front yard and jokingly dubbed it her “water feature.” “But I promised the neighbors I wouldn’t add any other plumbing fixtures, any sinks or toilets, to it,” she says. “A good rule to follow with this kind of thing is
`Do unto your neighbors as you would want your neighbors to do unto you.’ “
So how do the Runyons’ neighbors feel about their swine-filled yard? Diana Runyon reports there’s never been a single complaint. One neighbor in particular is sure to hold his tongue. That’s Lynn Duenow, who lives a few doors up the street.
In his yard stands a cow 4 feet tall.
