Memorial Plaques
Perhaps you have a loved one who has passed away and want to erect a lasting memorial to him or her, a very personal way of doing so is to place something in your garden with an appropriate plaque.
A beautiful cast stone garden bench with thoughtful words engraved on it, including a cold cast bronze plaque engraved with words of your choosing, would be a very beautiful and thoughtful reminder of the person you once loved, and in fact likely still do. All you need is something about two feet wide engraved with words expressing your feelings. Finish that off with a cast bronze plaque, personalized with names and dates, and you will have a lasting memorial in your garden that you can visit daily.
Such benches and seats come in a wide variety of designs with a number of quotations engraved on them. Examples include:
"The romance of a thousand lifetimes begins with a single kiss" and:
"Gone yet not forgotten, although we are apart, your spirit lives within me, forever in my heart"
When you lose a loved one you feel that you can never live without them, yet life goes on although they should never be forgotten. By placing one of these cast stone memorials in your garden you will make sure that they will never be forgotten, and whenever you feel down or if you are troubled and need some peace and quiet, you can sit there and remember. Some people feel that their loved ones have never left them, and this is a good way to keep in touch with their memory.
Memorial plaques can also help you to remember your friends who have passed away, who to some are loved just as much as family members are to others. Perhaps you have a section of garden laid out as a memorial area, as some people do. A beautiful stone bench engraved with the words:
"If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to Heaven and bring you home again"
would be very appropriate for such an area, or even to add that little extra something to an elegant garden in which perhaps your loved one used to spend a lot of time.
Cast stone benches such as these are available online in a number of sizes, generally around 29 inches long and up to 15 inches high. The sentiments come with the benches, but you can often have them fitted with a plaque on which you may have their name and dates or even a few words of your own engraved on up to five lines.
Pet Memorials
In Europe it is common for people to remember their pets with memorials in their garden, or even in local cemeteries. Some people love their pets as much as their best friends or even some relatives, and they often place a remembrance plaque in their garden as a token of the friendship they enjoyed with their dog or their cat. There is no reason why you should not if you have recently lost a much-loved pet.
Pet memorials can come in the form of a cat or dog angel, honoring your four-legged friend. Such memorials can be stuck into the ground, and have room for you to have their name and their dates engraved. You can state what you want engraved when you place your order. This seems a great way to remember a pet you spent many happy hours with, and you may even have your car or dog buried in your garden: this would a very nice way to mark their grave.
If your feel that a stone dog or cat in the form of angel is not to your liking, then a simple natural river stone could also be used for your pet. You can have the stone engraved with the name of the animal, and a paw print can also be added if you want.
This type of garden memorial is becoming more popular with people that want a lasting memorial to family members, relatives or friends for their own gardens. They are unobtrusive, and look good in any style of garden, and enable you to sit in your garden and reflect on the times you used to have together.