Impatiens on high

Impatiens tree

At first glance, the 8-foot-tall "tree" in Lorraine and Glenn Fredriks's front yard in Ripon, California, looks like an ancient azalea putting on a summertime bloom show. But closer inspection reveals that the tree is a steel frame that holds 23 pots of blooming impatiens.

A product of Glenn's imagination and welding torch, it has a trunk fashioned from a 2-inch by 8-foot-long steel pipe and branches (as well as bracing beneath them) of 1-inch-square steel tubing. Rings that hold the pots are made of 1/8-inch-thick flat steel bar welded to the branch tips. The trunk is anchored in concrete.