My Favorite, Wildly Chaotic Scenes From the Famous Barbie Garden

People who have been in the house too long, this is your sign to get out and explore your neighborhood.

This wild scene on Church Street in Mattapoisett is beloved by many; all of us anxiously awaiting for it to bloom around Memorial Day. The famed Barbie Garden is a long-standing tradition for Mattapoisett homeowners Teresa and Mark Dall.

It never blooms the same way twice, and that's what makes visiting it so exciting. We've been here before, in fact. In 2018 after some office water-cooler talk, we jumped in the car and showed our colleagues what we assumed everyone already knew about. How can you not know about this crazy, strange garden, right?

Like anything else that's been written about it before, this year's garden features a motley crew of blonde ambition, dinosaurs and shirtless dudes. And randomly, there's a small Edgar Allan Poe with a raven, Shakespeare, and a third guy who looks suspiciously like the laughing Leonardo DiCaprio in the "Django Unchained" meme. You know the one.

This year's garden seemed a bit smaller, but perhaps a few good toys were lost to the dozens of wind storms we had last year. Judging by everyone's hair, it was a really rough 2021.

But despite its size, there are a number of micro scenes playing out in the chaos that is the Barbie Garden and if you don't spend a good 15 minutes just admiring it, you may miss some of the best ones.

Here are some of my favorite moments from this year's garden. May Teresa Dall's imagination never shrink.