It could be an old feed sack, hog scalder, cauldron or beam scale. Flowers can grow in nearly anything at Webb Dulin’s place. (Photo by Sean Clougherty)
Much of what Webb Dulin uses in landscaping his Dorchester County property has been around for years, even decades. But he takes pride in giving it a fresh look several times a year.
Using antique farm and household items, Dulin turns old into new again. His long driveway provides ample opportunities to create spots for seasonal decor. At the entrance, a steel-wheeled wagon and old floor scale rest on a stone bed. They hold flowers in the spring and summer, pumpkins in the fall and the wagon transforms into Santa’s sleigh piled high with presents in the winter.
The presents are gone by morning on Dec. 26, but the reindeer hang around and ring in the New Year.
Halfway down the lane another wagon welcomes visitors with reminders of the area, whether crab pots or corn stalks. and decorations of the holiday du jour
In front of his house, a Farmall Cub tractor is the centerpiece of one flower bed which changes through the seasons, too.
“Each year I try to do something more and more,” he said. “Just a little bit at a time.”
In the spring, he completed a 50-foot-by-60-foot building next to the house to display much of what he’s collected over the years.
It includes a 10-foot porch that gives more space for Dulin’s old-is-new mashup.
Antique beam scales turned into elaborate hooks for hanging baskets.
A Southern State’s feed sack now holds flowers as it rests against a hand cart by the steps. Same for the pitcher pump wash stand, hog scalder and cauldron hanging from a tripod all things his his family once used to butcher pigs. Each now houses colorful plant life.
“I didn’t want it thrown away so I wanted do something with them,” he said.
Inside the building, 16 Farmall and International tractors tightly fill the center, while everything else — from antique washing machines to family photos — rest or hang on the walls around them.
Some things came from the farms his family lived on, some things he bought at sales on Delmarva or in the Midwest.
There’s an egg incubator that still works, butcher block from his mother’s kitchen, the manual for the tomato harvester he bought as a teenager, his first job after school.
“Almost everything in this building has got history with me,” he said. “Some things,” he adds, pulling a hunk of iron off the wall and turning it over in his hands, “I don’t know what it is.”
Dulin credits his mother, Jean Webb Dulin, with his penchant for repurposing. He points to a pair of wooden cattle head locks she re-fashioned with mirrors years ago.
“My mother, she could decorate,” he said. “She could make anything out of just about anything, it seemed like.”
And while he spends hours on setting up the elaborate scenery, he doesn’t waste any time thinking about why.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I just enjoy doing it.”
