Most garden ornaments are the colour of the garden. Stone, terracotta, weathered grey, dull resin — they sit in a bed of green leaves and vanish into it, and by the time the flowers are over there is nothing to look at out there at all. This metal peacock is the opposite. The fan is cut from steel and hand-painted in blue, green, gold and purple, so there is one spot in your garden with real colour in it in August as well as in November, whether or not a single thing is in flower.

Why It Stands Out

• Colour that doesn't depend on flowering — the fan holds blue, teal, green, gold and purple all year, which is more than most beds manage for more than a few weeks.
• The fan is the whole piece — 42 cm across of open screen, with every feather cut separately and an eye marking painted into each one.
• Hand-painted, so no two are identical — the colour is laid on by hand over the metal rather than printed, and it shifts as you walk past it.
• Cut metal, not moulded resin — the feathers are individual pieces with real edges and gaps between them, which is why light passes through the fan instead of bouncing off a flat slab.
• It stands on its own feet — wire legs and splayed toes, no base plate, no plinth. Put it down and it's done.
• 32 cm tall — reads clearly from the back door, without taking over the bed it stands in.
• It gives well — garden gifts are hard, and most people already own candles. Nobody owns a peacock.

Where to Stand It

• In a garden bed among green foliage — the best spot by a distance, because the blue and gold have nothing to compete with and the fan reads instantly.
• On the lawn at the edge of a border, where the mower runs past and you see it from the house.
• Beside the front path or the letterbox, as the thing visitors notice on the way in.
• In a courtyard or on a paved terrace, where a flat surface shows the feet off and courtyard decor usually means another pot.
• Under a tree or beside a fern bed, in dappled light — the shade is where the colour does the most work.
• In a large pot or planter among trailing greenery, for a balcony with no bed to stand it in.
• Beside a pond or a water feature, where the colours pick up the reflected light.

How It Works

1. The fan is built from individual cut feathers — each one shaped and layered rather than stamped as one panel, which is what gives the screen its depth.
2. Paint is laid over metal — the blue-green-gold shift you see is pigment on steel, so it reads as iridescence as the light moves rather than sitting flat.
3. The body and neck carry the fan — the weight sits over the legs, and the splayed toes spread the load so it stands without a base.
4. Open gaps between the feathers let light through, which is why the fan looks different at midday than it does with the late sun behind it.

How to Place It

1. Find firm, level ground first. A paver, a compacted path edge, or soil you have pressed down. The feet are wire, and they want something solid under them.
2. Press the toes down into the surface so all of them are in contact and the bird sits square rather than leaning.
3. Turn the fan to face where people look from — the back door, the path, the seat. Seen edge-on it's a bird; seen face-on it's the whole display.
4. Give it a green background, not a pale fence. Colour needs something dark behind it to read against.
5. Clear low foliage from in front of the fan so the screen isn't half-hidden by whatever grows up through spring.
Tip: stand it where the late afternoon sun comes from behind or to the side, not head-on. Front-lit the colours flatten out; lit from behind, the light comes through the gaps between the feathers and the whole fan lifts. Walk out at five o'clock and move it twice before you settle on the spot.

NB: this stands on wire feet rather than a spike, so it wants firm ground, a paver or a pot — press the toes in and it holds its position all season. The piece is metal, hand-painted, and like any painted metal garden ornament the colour stays richest somewhere with dappled light rather than full western sun all through summer. On a coastal block, a spot out of the direct salt spray is worth choosing.

Care and Maintenance

• Hose the dust off the fan every few weeks. Pollen and dust settle in the gaps between the feathers and dull the colour faster than anything else.
• Dry it after rain if it's shaded — water sitting in the feather joints is where metal ornaments mark first.
• Lift it before you mulch or spray, rather than cleaning it afterwards.
• Bring it under cover in a hailstorm if it's out in the open, the same as you would any painted garden piece.

Specifications

What's Included

• 1 × Metal peacock sculpture