Chicken décor rules the garden roost – by Diane Morey Sitton

It’s spring, and chicken décor has come home to roost!

Look around. Ceramic hen-shaped pots sit on patio tables, concrete hens and baby chicks flock together in flower beds, and metal chickens whirl on spinners with each passing breeze. But that’s not all. Images of chickens decorate garden flags and banners, chicken-shaped birdhouses dangle from shepherd’s rods, and –most ironic of all – hens made from chicken wire that has been scrunched and shaped into their image decorate gardens large and small.

It’s hard to say why folks feather their garden nests with likenesses of chickens, a roundish, somewhat graceless bird known for its clucking and quirky behavior. Chances are it has little to do with chickens’ ability to see ultraviolet light, their talent for sleeping with one eye open or their habit of bathing by covering themselves in dust.

More likely, folks decorate their gardens with chicken art to add a lighthearted vibe (what could be more amusing than a pink polka dotted hen wearing a straw hat?) or to create a barnyard theme where the perceived bawk-bawking of hens replaces the sounds of city life. It’s even possible that some folks add chicken art to their gardens to reconnect with a childhood memory of helping grandpa gather eggs from his chicken coop.

But whether it’s nostalgia, playfulness, or a longing for country life that compels gardeners to display wooden chicken cutouts on patio walls or to exhibit four-foot-tall metal hens in their yards, chicken art as garden décor is relatively new in the birds’ long and storied past.

Chickens have been domesticated for more than 7,400 years. Roman priests predicted battle outcomes by observing their mannerisms and analyzing their cackling. In some cultures, people thought chickens had magical powers and that they brought good fortune. In African folklore, a clever chicken outwits a fox.

In modern society, despite being thought of as silly creatures who can’t come out of the rain—or maybe because of it– chickens have gained celebrity status… of sorts. They’ve scratched their way into children’s books. They’ve starred in cartoons. And, as if that wasn’t enough, they’ve strutted their feathered stuff on the big screen in Disney films.

With a history like that, it makes you wonder what took chicken décor so long to come pecking and clucking into our gardens. But aren’t you glad it did!