Photo by Sydney Cromwell
Pat and Phil Cartrette with their scarecrow, Godzilla, which presides over their home garden on Park Avenue.
Phil and Pat Cartrette’s garden is well-defended against birds and other pests. Batman stood watch over their vegetables last year, and this summer Godzilla stalks the rows of tomatoes and okra.
The Cartrettes are known around Bluff Park for their creative scarecrows and other yard decorations at their Park Avenue home. In addition to Godzilla, they also have the “Bluff Park Giraffe,” made out of a painted post and some old bottles, and Rooty the Alligator, a reptile-shaped tree root that has been given a pair of red eyes.
“It’s just fun to do it and to make him [Godzilla] out of mostly scrap,” Pat Cartrette said. “It’s part of having the garden.”
The Cartrettes have kept gardens for decades, but Phil Cartrette has increased his planting since the couple retired in 2012 and moved to Bluff Park from Mississippi. This year’s garden includes tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, okra, onions, cucumber, eggplant and herbs, as well as a grapevine, some peach trees, a blueberry bush and a young apple tree that has not yet produced fruit.
“Once we retired, you’ve got to find something to do with all of that time,” Phil Cartrette said. “So we expanded a little bit.”
They’re one among many gardening families, Pat Cartrette said. With the help of local shops Sweetspire Gardens and Bluff Park Hardware, Phil Cartrette usually begins preparing the soil in January to plant around Easter weekend.
“It’s a lot of tilling and pulling the rows up,” he said.
While Phil Cartrette prepares their backyard, his wife designs each year’s garden protector. After all, “you’re supposed to have a scarecrow,” she said.
Their first scarecrow was pretty normal, Pat Cartrette said, wearing a shirt, tie and backwards hat. He was followed by the “Spicy Tomato,” who had a gourd face, Spanish moss hair and a leopard print dress. Pat Cartrette said that year’s scarecrow was slightly scary.
“She was ugly,” Phil Cartrette agreed.
The next year, their grandson Wesley inspired the more neighborhood-friendly Minion scarecrow, made from a painted boogie board to recreate the yellow movie characters. The boogie board served double duty as it became Batman in 2017.
“That was Wesley again. He loves Batman. All the little neighbors do, too,” Pat Cartrette said.
Batman still occupies the backyard, in “retirement.”
“We were worried about Batman that he wouldn’t like somebody else coming in,” Phil Cartrette said. “But he loves his retirement.”
Godzilla, the newest addition, was cut out of plywood and decorated with painted plastic ferns, pieces of aluminum pie tins and red sequins around the mouth. Pat Cartrette said she was worried it might be too scary, but a friend’s 3-year-old son loved it, giving Godzilla the seal of approval to be placed in their yard.
Photo by Sydney Cromwell
Godzilla, the newest addition, was cut out of plywood and decorated with painted plastic ferns, pieces of aluminum pie tins and red sequins around the mouth.
“Godzilla was a little harder,” she said. “His mouth wasn’t fierce enough and I glued all those little sequins on his mouth.”
Pat Cartrette said their scarecrow collection stands out in the neighborhood, drawing the attention of runners, drivers and kids to enjoy this year’s garden resident and wonder about what’s next. In fact, it was a passing neighbor who gave Batman his unofficial nickname: The ScareBat.
“The neighbors are all very supportive. They love it,” Phil Cartrette said.