Gated beauty

To me there is nothing prettier than a gate in a garden. They adorn beauty. They protect us. They surround our property. We place them around our gardens. We feel safe behind them. They are old and rusted. They are shiny and pristine. They are wooden and painted. They are resin and plastic. They withstand the elements of nature and time. They are falling apart. They are our garden gates and they are beautiful.




The following images are garden gates I have found along my everyday travels. My favorites are of the folk art variety, for example Hermilo Tovar's gate (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico) made completely out of mechanical parts like spark plugs and wrenches. It's hard to see unless you zoom in, but trust me I saw them, they are in there and they are wonderful.




"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody" ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow




"Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity"~ Kahlil Gibran




"Back on its golden hinges the gate of Memory swings,
And my heart goes into the garden, and walks with the olden things"~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox




"The vilest deeds like poison-weeds- Bloom well in prison-air: It is only what is good in Man - That wastes and withers there: Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate"  - And the Warden is Despair~Oscar Wilde




"If I have to be a prisoner, put me behind bars made of rust, bark and vine, and let me frolic in Mother Nature's bounty, For there I shall find my meals and my happiness"~ The International Flower Spy




"Soft pity enters an iron gate"~ William Shakespeare




"There's always the hyena of morality at the garden gate, and the real wolf at the end of the street" ~David Herbert Lawrence




"He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open"~ Rabindranath Tagore



ALL PHOTOS BY C. A. LANGRALL,
TAKEN IN VARIOUS GARDENS IN MARYLAND AND MEXICO.