Dowagiac harvests bumper crop of Cinda’s ‘Garden Gals’

Published 12:58 pm Friday, August 22, 2003

By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Cinda Slaughter has a green thumb when it comes to making friends of the Garden Gal variety.
If the city's supply of plastic bags should ever be exhausted, Slaughter and her growing gal gang will be the culprits.
Not only do her Garden Gals seem to be hanging out on every block in Dowagiac this summer, they are also turning up in places from Merrillville, Ind., to Wisconsin, with two in Pennsylvania and one in Alabama.
Dressing them makes it fun for her, sort of like an excuse to play with really big dolls.
Like geese, you can dress them for the holidays. Slaughter's Christmas Garden Gal wore a long red dress with a white shawl over her shoulders and a fur cape, fur hat and white muffler to complete the ensemble.
A friend in Cassopolis wanted one, so Slaughter gave it her one as a gift. People who noticed it in the friend's greenhouse began asking around. Slaughter was soon invited to bring some to the farm market.
With her son, Jacob, 14, helping her cut PVC pipe, she assembles the figures with wire and "tons" of plastic bags.
They are deceivingly lifelike at a glance to drivers motoring down a road. Breezes rustle the skirts on these elegantly-outfitted scarecrows. Their bendable poses suggest movement and bob almost imperceptibly on their PVC spines, though enough to elicit doubletakes from drivers.
In the city where flowers surround houses in narrow beds, at dusk the figures look like burglars about to hoist themselves through windows.
Slaughter sent $5 for plans on the Internet, but they were constructed from wood and "they were nothing like what I do."
She produces custom pieces on request.
She made a fireman for Terry Dodd on Clyborn. "(Auto racing's) Dale Jarrett's over on Third Avenue. I find it strange. Most women like them and you can tell they're really looking at them while their husbands..," she imitates a deep sigh and impatient huffing.
Slaughter has a varied background. She worked for Magistrate Matt Amersdorfer, at the radio station, sold newspaper advertising and used her degree as a legal assistant to work for several lawyers.
She also worked for Visiting Nurses.
She also makes small flower arrangements in gardening gloves and "flowers" from plates and saucers.