Hands up who would like a gazing ball plonked artistically on their manicured lawn. Anyone?

As if the humble gnome wasn’t already an indictment on our gardens and landscaped lawns, it seems that we can actually plummet to greater depths of design stupidity. Just by placing a ball in our garden.

But not just any old ball. It must be a gazing ball. And what, pray-tell, does one do with gazing balls? Gaze at them, I guess. And what could be more wonderful than that? For, if we didn’t have a ball to gaze at we might need to grow some plants to decorate our humble abodes. Heaven forbid!

Instead of showing what’s blooming in the garden we could show pictures of how the light reflects off our new garden whimsy. Or, maybe share anecdotes of how we discovered new meaning and enlightenment from staring at a round object that looks more at home…well…more at home anywhere but in a garden!

And as if that wasn’t enough, you can also buy solar gazing balls for when you want to light up your garden at night. Not only can you gaze at your gazing balls during the day, you can even spend some quality twilight time gazing at it as well.

I must confess, as if you hadn’t already noticed, that these are not going to be a feature in my garden. My humble apologies to those who raced out and bought one already or are waiting on their Demtel delivery, but honestly? Are these not the ugliest thing one could put in their garden?