7 Unique Garden Art Easel Ideas

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Garden art easels provide a creative way to display plants, garden decorations, and garden art in your outdoor space. This gallery shares outdoor easel ideas from home gardens.

If you are ready to get crafty, this shows my recommended garden art supplies for making just about anything.

Creative Garden Art Easels

It’s funny to watch how garden art ideas (or creative ideas of any kind, really) spread. Prior to the internet, it was a slower process, via word of mouth, garden tours, books, and magazines. Today, you can see the same ideas popping up all over the globe within days or weeks of one another.

I started noticing garden art easels about fifteen years ago. I love seeing how each gardener puts their own spin on the idea.

You can make your own from lumber or old fence rails, or start with an artist’s easel and add paint, flower boxes, and garden art to make it stand out.

Related: Gallery of Tool Art Animals

1Rustic Gem

This first one is a favorite with Empress of Dirt readers. I photographed it on a garden tour many years ago.

Made from old snake fence rails, this is rustic elegance at its finest. The red geraniums are the perfect touch.

Rustic garden art easel with red geraniums.

This next image shows how Empress of Dirt friend Jane Brown created her own version:

Rustic garden easel with red geraniums. — Garden Easel | Jane Brown

Beautifully done!

If you have an old picture frame, here’s another way to do it:

Notice how the faux planter box is behind the easel and the birdhouse is out front given the whole thing extra dimension.

Closeup of outdoor easel with picture frame and birdhouse.

2Nursery School Art Easel

I got this chalkboard art easel free at the side of the road. I knew I had no place for it in the house so instead recruited it as a plant stand and place to list menus when we have family over for meals on the patio.

For more ideas also see Creative Uses for Chalkboard Paint in the Garden.

3Picture Frame Easel

A really simple way to make a garden art easel is to take an existing art easel and add a picture frame to it. I think this is my favorite effect—where the garden is the art and the easel just frames it.

Simple outdoor easel in garden with blue gazing ball.

4Flower Box Easel

Here’s another one from a garden tour. The easel is made from what looks like slender cedar branches. The picture frame is assembled from raw lumber with mitered corners and a rustic planter box completes it. This is a sweet way to add a burst of blooms to any part of the garden that needs a little pizzazz.

5Simple Garden Art Easel

This photo is from years ago, confirming my hunch that these easels have been around for years.

Plain garden art easel with pink flowers.

6DIY Garden Art Easel

If you want to make your own easel and have few tools and little woodworking experience, this next one is just made from 2×4 lumber.

It’s really just the front piece with a support leg at the back.

Bright green garden easel with pink flowers.

Here’s a close up of the frame. I designed it so that it easily holds flower pots plus you can display pictures, mirrors, or whatever floats your wheelbarrow.

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~Melissa the Empress of Dirt ♛