I LOVE this!

Looks like a spaceship that just landed! E.T. phone home...

Are you pulling our leg? I am all for whimsy in the garden, but.....

Last week I had an opportunity to tour Kykuit. Trust me, Nelson's art was definitely John Jr.'s junk.

So as much as anything the question is which are you?

You call call it the Qwest instead of the Taurus.

Just think, about 1/5 of the population probably does not know what that thing is.

Then there is another 1/5 in urban areas that think it is for a totally other function (plant only salt tolerant plants in the area).

I see clematis growing up each side to join in perfect unison at the top, inter-twining and cascading over the opposite sides. Perhaps a few potted plants inside... shade-loving, of course.

laag...ewww.

Also, 1/5 might think it's for Superman.

botann...I enjoy you referring to the source of this thing as a "friend", with quotation marks.

BTW, I vote no, a hundred times no, for putting in the garden. (That is if you are being serious.) Really, do you need to be taking a bottle of windex into the garden to clean that thing? And what will the wildlife in your garden do with it? It looks like a perfect place for a wasp's nest.

I agree with laag that 1/5 of people don't know what a phone booth is. I am the only person I know that doesn't own a cell phone and finding a pay phone these days is very difficult.

I changed my mind. I like it. Keep it there. I might need to use it.

Wasn't bright blue the accent color of the moment a few years back? All the garden magazines would feature a glazed blue pot, or a chair painted bright blue artictically placed amoung the grennery. Go for it. Great place to sit if you get caught in the rain.

THAT is bad***! I love it.

There was a palm grower in El Cajon, CA that I used to buy from. His farm was artfully strewn with what could be called "found objects" by some ("trash" by others): manhole covers for stepping stones, weird plumbing parts for planters... I describe the aesthetic as "post-apocalyptic meets Indiana Jones." When we can finally afford a getaway property up in the mountains, that's my vision.

So the phone booth? Keep it. Love it. And the windex comment? No way- it'll look awesome as Nature tries to reclaim the poly and metal.

And that's the point of this reminder of technologies past, isn't it? To watch as, slowly, in an almost neglected part of Botann's lush west coast garden, nature re-establishes itself over human intervention? I think the whole process could almost be called performance art - an anarchic statement about what humans have done to this world.

I love it. I see it smothered in an old rambling rose with clematis. Take it a bit further - put a mannequin inside covered with that topiary wiring stuff and cover it with ivy and/or moss. Place it in an otherwise neglected corner where a visitor would come upon it unexpectedly.

Bury it halfway, put a skull on top, cross two spears and lean then up against the side and call it "The Forbidden Zone."

I happen to know a lady in Mpls who has a classic, bright red phone booth in her garden. (She brought it as a souvenir from London.) It blends with the garden like it belonged there.
Now blue and modern, that's radical. You need a good story to justify its presence. Or.. a trip to London, with a BIG suitcase.

Add a few garden gnomes making a call and waiting in line, and you're all set!

Imagine the following:

You are walking down a garden path that disappears around a corner. Along either side of the path are planters or pots filled with succulents and small rock garden plants.
What strikes you as odd... is that each of the pots has a telephone around which the plants are growing. If you are a history buff, or a collector, you may want to have the phones arranged in chronological order according to manufacture date.
As you turn the corner, suddenly the path ends and there is a telephone booth, artfully covered in clematis and roses. If there are trees nearby, you could hang a mobile constructed of old cell phones.

Have a nice day.

Ann

I love it, but for some reason it reminds me of that scene at the end of "Planet of the Apes" (okay, yes, dating myself here) when he comes around the cliff on the beach and there's the crown of the statue of liberty sticking up out of the sand. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, they blew it up!", he screams (or something like that)!

Imagine someone finding that 100 years from now under a pile of overgrown clematis! LOL!

And I LOVE the idea of a line of garden gnomes...too funny.

Kitchenkelly, got any manequins in your morgue drawers you could donate?! HA!

I LOVE it! In fact, I've been saying I want a phone booth. We live at the bottom of a hill where there is no signal. To call out on a cell phone, we have to climb the hill about 300 feet to where we can see a tower to get reception. That's do-able, (and such good exercise), but I wish we had a nice phone booth to sit/stand in once we get there.

I see the big 'ol phone book; did yours come with the pay phone too? As much as I like them, I don't think I'd cover it with Clematis, but I would put it where it was hidden from view until you round the corner. Every good garden needs a surprise. Find a small folding chair to keep inside and make it the official garden "think box".

I can imagine how fun it would be to sit inside and watch a gentle spring rain...*sigh* I tell ya, I'm absolutely pea green with envy. (in a good way, of course)

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments. I am going to use it in the garden. I take gardening seriously, but I can't take it too serious, nor can I turn my garden in to a Phunny Pharm either.

When I went to England in 2000 I had my wife take a few pictures of me coming out of those red telephone booths almost everywhere we went. The pics are lost in a sea of unorganized floppies. In SoHo was the best. .......someday I WILL get organized!

Haha! Much too funny.

You could position it leaning at a jaunty angle a la the Cadillac Ranch.

Or put shelves in and use it as a cold frame.

Or take off the top, seal up the front, and make it a really tall pot for plants!

Here is a link that might be useful: Cadillac Ranch

Garden junk has a place in garden design whenever that design includes a dumpster.

In line at the transfer station one year a couple of us got behind a flatbed truck with the stacked remains of one of those red English telephone booths. One of the station attendants pounced on the lantern and took it for themselves.

Yes, it is amazing what people here throw away.

Fine, I better not get any crap when I show pics of my plastic pink flamingos in my garden.

kitchenkelly--

I LIKE pink flamingos.

botann...if anyone can pull it off, you can. One wonders, though...are you an incarnation of The Doctor? I won't tell! Where amongst all the awesome Japanese Maples will it live?

melanie

It's definetly a conversation piece, and maybe a money-maker!

When I see that telephone booth, I think of Salvador Dali's Rainy Taxi -- a hothouse environment, literally, with drip irrigation, plants and snails created inside a taxi, with mannequins. When I saw the piece (a recreation, I suppose), snails were crawling over the mannequins for that special surrealist cringe-worthy feeling.

Dali's Rainy Taxi

I had a couple of pink flamingos once, but they died of old age. I really miss 'Tongue' and 'Cheek'. The garden just isn't the same.

Well, I have seen very pretty garden sculpture well-integrated in the garden and that sure does the job. I think if you can live with sculpture in the home decor, so can you in the garden decor.