The old-time garden ornament known as a "gazing globe" was once a familiar fixture in Victorian-American gardens. It is supposed that each mirrored globe could reflect a view of the entire garden at once, thus the name.
But by the 1950s, the shiny aura of these globes was tarnished by association with lawn jockeys, pink flamingos, plastic deer and other outdoor doo-dahs of questionable taste.A gazing-globe resurgence happened in recent years as they appeared in glossy architectural and gardening magazines. Coincidentally, the use of decorative indoor orbs, shiny or not, has also zoomed in popularity.
The garden globes' once-kitschy reputation evolved into one of special elegance when gardening authors, such as Maggie Oster of Louisville, Ky., tucked a globe or two among their own perennial borders so the shiny surfaces could glitter among greenery at ground-level. Other garden designers still prefer to display the globes atop hollow bird-bath stands, as they used to be.
A major producer is the Marietta Silver Globe Manufacturing Co., where the glass ornaments have been hand-blown since the 1930s.
Manager Linda Flannery said by phone that the Marietta glass-blowers make mirrored globes of silver, blue, green, gold, purple and, once a year, red. "Those are more than twice as expensive because of the pigment," she said. This company does not produce the newer swirled-ridge style of globes. She cautions globe-fanciers that moisture mars and eventually destroys the mirror quality. "If displayed on the ground, the neck of the ornament should be sealed somehow."
Wholesale prices are less than $20 for the Marietta globes, depending on size and color, but retail prices vary a lot, up to $80 for a ridged imported type.
- Joyce Rosencrans