A cartoon about attracting birds to gardens, bird box design, wildlife merchandising.
Birds as garden pests taking seedlings.
The cartoon also about the subject of being taken advantage of – the gardener has thoughtfully and kindly provided the bird with a nesting box, but the bird has then proceeded to take the gardener’s plants. Of course in real life the bird wouldn’t realise what it was doing, but this is a cartoon, and in cartoons animals are often as conscious of their actions as humans are – in fact they are humans in animal form.
As well as the direction of the prevailing wind the gardener needs to take into account other aspects of the orientation of the garden, such as the direction in which it is facing in relation to the sun.
The gardener is making a bonfire out of the autumn leaves that have fallen onto his garden during fall.
The burning leaves are making a lot of smoke, which is drifting across into a neighbour’s garden where it is making the clothes that are drying on the washing line dirty. The neighbour is putting the fire out by pouring water onto it. (Pouring water onto the fire may actually be making the leaves damp and thus more smokey, which in turn creates a possible further point to the cartoon, even though it’s an inadvertent one).
The gardener in his garden shed thinking “It’s the autumn equinox – time to plant bulbs ready for the spring equinox!”
A cartoon about the gardener’s year, the fall equinox, the vernal equinox, seasons in the garden, when to plant bulbs.
The man is thinking “I slave away all summer getting the garden just right to relax in – then suddenly autumn arrives!”
A cautionary cartoon about the dangers of working too hard towards a goal without taking the time to appreciate things around you while you’re doing it. In other words – don’t focus on your work to the exclusion of everything else – take time to smell the roses.
A cartoon about the passing of time, life-work balance, fall gardening, summer gardening, relaxing in the garden.
A cartoon about insect pests in gardens, ants attracted to sweet food in a garden.
The joke in this cartoon centres on the fact that the man who is laying out the garden has no aesthetic appreciation of design or colour in the garden, and is basing his design on categorisation of the plants by name. This is his idea of creating order and control in the garden, and this is what he is happy with.
An important aspect of this cartoon is that the man is arranging his plants in alphabetical order – not in order based on species (which may be a method of planting that places order over aesthetics, but at least such a planting scheme has a rationality to it, whereas planting in alphabetical order is to some extent random and thus is an illusory form of rationale).
A cartoon about planting schemes, garden layout, garden design.
A cartoon about the definition of weeds, wild flowers in gardens, natural gardening, wild flower gardening, encouraging wildlife and nature in the garden.
Part of the humour in the cartoon is that the man who is contemplating designing or planning a new garden is a stereotypical old age pensioner – a type of person who probably wouldn’t be interested in creating an aspirational garden design such as a designer garden. He’d normally prefer a traditional vegetable garden or allotment garden in which he could potter round rather than a high status garden that would (hopefully) impress his friends.
The cartoon is meant to imply that an ostentatious high status garden design is more vulgar than an ‘honest’ vegetable plot.
This is a cartoon about cultural types, social class, cultural stereotypes.
By having to pay in order to reach the front door the turnstile stops cold calling door-to-door salesmen, junk mail deliverers, leaflet deliverers, Jehovah’s witnesses and other unwelcome visitors. Only people who really want to visit the house will pay to enter the garden (and possibly get a refund when the front door is answered.
I think I may install one of these devises myself now that I think about it.
The gardener is saying “Its height is very impressive – but it stops us appreciating the amazing delicacy of its flowers”
The flowers are ones that you really need to be able to get close to.
A joke about invasive species of trees, seed propagation, evolved seed dispersal strategies.
She’s asking optimistically whether there’s room for another plant in the densely planted garden.
The joke is in the fact that there’s a robin building a nest in the packaging or packing box that held the nesting box kit rather than in the nesting box itself.
Robins are well known for building their nests in unusual places, such as in discarded kettles, tin cans etc.
A comic illustration about extending your garden into next door’s garden by secretly planting bushes and trees.
A humorous illustration about gardening competitions, flower shows, plant breeding, daffodils, children in gardens and prize winning blooms.
Windfalls are normally associated with apples and apple trees, however I’ve used pears in my cartoon because they are a more interesting and recognisable shape.
The electric cable of the mower is shorter than the length of the lawn, so the end of the lawn remains unmown
A humorous illustration about tidy gardens, untidy gardens, the end of the garden, grass cutting, power mowers, hover mowers.