A modern scarecrow in the garden - a stylish element of landscape design with the function of a crop guard (22 photos)

Content

1 How to make an ordinary stuffed animal with your own hands?
- 1.1 Scarecrow assembly steps
2 How to make a custom stuffed animal
- 2.1 Workflow Order

A scarecrow (scarecrow) is exhibited in gardens / orchards and is intended to scare away feathered, pecking crops. Most often, the product visually resembles a person and is constructed from old clothes stuffed with hay or grass. Sometimes, to enhance the deterrent effect, turntables or some noisy devices are fixed on a scarecrow for the garden.

In English, the word “scarecrow” sounds like “scarecrow”, which literally means “scare the raven”. In the Middle Ages in Britain, boys played the role of scarecrows - they walked through the fields and dragged bags filled with stones. Seeing flocks of birds, the children waved and threw stones at the raven. After the plague epidemic at the beginning of the XIV century, the population of Great Britain decreased significantly and there were few children. To protect the crop, the landowners had to make stuffed animals: bags were packed with straw and heads made of pumpkin or turnip were attached to them. These structures were tied to sticks, mounted in the fields and scared away flocks of birds.

Today, a scarecrow for the garden can be created from any improvised materials - unnecessary kitchen utensils, old clothes, plastic bags, stumps and branches.

It is believed that birds are afraid of certain items / things:

noisy and sharp sounds, which means danger to birds. This factor may be important for country birds, as city dwellers, as a rule, are already accustomed to loud noises;
glittering objects that scare birds with bright glare and do not understand what to expect from the object, so old computer disks are quite suitable for decorating scarecrows;
strips of polyethylene or magnetic tapes mounted directly on a tree. A similar method can be effective, since with a strong wind the ribbons are unusually rustling, and they are located in close proximity to the branches of trees;
it was believed that things of blue color also scare away birds. This is due to the fact that blue hues are rarely found in nature, and birds shy away from the locations of objects with a similar color.

To enhance the deterrent effect, it is advisable to make a scarecrow on the garden, turning from gusts of wind. Or periodically it should be rearranged over the area of the garden. You can still periodically change the scarecrow's wardrobe (clothes, remove / attach shiny CDs, empty cans).

How to make an ordinary stuffed animal with your own hands?

When creating a traditional stuffed animal in the form of a man, you can use all the methods and objects that frighten birds. First you need to decide on things that are unnecessary on the farm.

Useful materials: old blouses / shirts, trousers / pants (preferably blue), hat or cap, mittens, canvas or cloth bag to simulate the head. For the construction of a scarecrow, you will also need: a two-meter pole and a meter crossbeam, straw / dry grass for stuffing the body and head, pins and threads with a needle, twine, marker. It will be great if there are unnecessary CDs, cans, tape.

Scarecrow assembly steps

A skeleton of a future stuffed animal is formed: a transverse crossbar, acting as a shoulder / arm, is nailed to a long pole at a height of about 160-170 cm.
We build the head: straw / grass is stuffed into the fabric bag, and the ball is formed by pulling together special stitches.
The head is mounted on the top of the pole and is firmly fixed - attached to a stick. A face is drawn on the bag using markers. It is undesirable to use felt-tip pens, as the lines quickly burn out in the sun or “flow” in the rain.
A kind of hair is created from straw and secured to the bag with pins.
A blouse / shirt is worn on the structure and stuffed with straw / grass. Not only the scarecrow's body is packed tightly, but also the sleeves. The edges of the garment are sewn or pinned so that the filler remains in the garment.
Mittens / gloves are also stuffed with grass and sewn to the sleeves or put on the ends of the transverse bar.
Disks and cans are tied to mittens / gloves. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that objects can freely rotate and touch each other (to create glare and noise effect).
Pants are worn on a pole and sewn to the shirt near the belt. Then the pants are also filled with grass or straw, and it is necessary to stuff mainly the upper part of the trousers. The filler is slightly fixed in the upper part of the clothes, and the bottom of the pants should freely develop from gusts of wind - this will create the illusion of a stuffed animal.
A hat is attached to the head. In an extreme case, you can just snap an inflated balloon that will swing from the wind.

A scarecrow is set among fruit trees. Six digs into the ground to a depth sufficient to prevent the structure from falling, and at the same time it can be clearly seen in the garden.

How to make a custom stuffed animal

It is not necessary that the scarecrow be decorated in a traditional humanoid form. You can make notes of creativity and collect a scarecrow, for example, in the form of a bird. At the same time, the properties that repel birds will be preserved, and the product will acquire a non-standard and interesting appearance.

Necessary materials: dark fabric (black polyester is better), children's shorts of black or dark color, striped knee-high socks and stocking of black color, polystyrene foam, black tow and nitron. You will also need: glue, threads, a needle, twine and pins, a marker, rods and a pole with a crossbeam (respectively 1.5 m and 0.5 m long).

Workflow Order

A square flap with a side of 50-55 cm is cut from polyester. A hole for a stick is cut in the center of the piece of fabric, and the edges of the material are cut into ribbons of about 5 cm long.
The crossbar is nailed to the pole at a height of about 135-140 cm. The fabric is folded diagonally and put on the pole so that the long side of the triangles lies on the crossbar.
The edges of the fabric above the ribbons are stitched, and the triangular bag is stuffed with nitron. Bunches of flax (tow) are sewn to the fabric near the bar to simulate bird wings. Moreover, the longer the skein, the easier it will develop in the wind.
The black stocking is stuffed with nitron. This semblance of a head is put on a stick and firmly attached. Circles in the form of eyes are cut out of the foam and stick to the head. In the center of the eye circles, black dotted pupils are drawn with a marker.
In the same way, a foam-like beak is cut out and glued to the head. A bundle of tow in the form of a forelock is also fixed on the crown of the head.
Shorts are sewn to the body bag and stuffed with nitron. Striped golfs are also stuffed with nitron and sewn to the edges of the shorts. Styrofoam paws are cut and sewn to the socks of golf.
At the bottom of the body bag, a bundle of rods is attached to the pole - a bird will visually “sit” on it.
Tin cans are tied to twigs. The construction is dug into the ground near the garden or in the garden.

In the creation of effigies there are no standards that must be followed. Today, such designs perform not only the function of scaring away birds. A scarecrow may well be a decorative element of landscape design.Moreover, the kind of scarecrow can be given some kind of family notes or embodied in an effigy the image of the beloved cartoon character. The whole family can take part in creating a do-it-yourself scarecrow for the garden.