Oh my, the connection is intense. Gardens transcend time, size, style, budget, governments.
Warning: Kerry Mendez is explosive. She's on fire for gardening. When lecturing she emits a direct electrical current to your mind/heart. (Which, unfortunately, travels to your checkbook!) 
The 8th Annual Great Gardens & Landscaping Symposium, April 1-2, 2011, at The Equinox, Manchester, VT, is not to be missed. (Another talent of Kerry's, she created & produces the symposium. Great speakers, sponsors, location, food.) 
Kerry's book, above, is for gardeners in ANY zone/continent with myriad real-world-practical-helpful garden tips.
But first, below, an oval of turf. What's left, red clay, will become meadow (clover, fescue, bulbs, English daisy, ageratum, rudbeckia fulgida x fulgida, what the wind blows in & etc.)
Broad dry stone steps, below, taming the slope. Meadow, mown at 3 heights 
will carpet these steps.
At the same NYC hotel, below, Puppet Barbuda loves the plantings,
container, and edge-of-chaos landscape style. Poppets, did you notice the chartreuse foliage matches the chartreuse stripe in the rug? Not an accident. These people get it!
Plant foxglove, above, they ALWAYS make you look like you know how to garden !
My front door, above, is Chinoiserie too. The painted pattern copied from artwork in a calendar I had moons ago.
His garden, below, The Laskett.
Now you know how Laskett, my cat, got his name.
Puppet Barbuda cannot abide round tables for terrace/patio/deck.
Love the (FANTASY) world I've created within a cluster home subdivision. Living in the world but not of the world. (Note: western sun baked this area & winter's wind slammed into it. Not anymore. Tea olives/cleyeras stop the cold winds & crape myrtles shade me, dropping foliage for winter's sun to warm me & host song birds all year to sing & entertain me. Yes, Poppets, the workings of the universe/nature were created solely for my amusement. Lawn, above, belongs to my neighbor.) 
Near Virginia Highland, above. Trees, wall, car have been exactly like this since I moved to Atlanta in 1982. Ooooooh, the mystery of that garden.
Cinder blocks with 2" x 6" boards were typical. Pure, undiluted salvage also. Too stark? Stain your bleachers a faded green ,or some such color, from Benjamin Moore or Farrow & Ball.
too horizontal. Accentuating the many horizontal lines of her home. Contrast was needed. (Of course it didn't hurt that I've studied in Scotland, seeing master templates for dry stone work.)
became famous for its gardens thanks to Christopher Lloyd, below right. He lived his entire life here. 
Fergus Garrett, above, continues, as planned, Great Dixter's garden, now open to the public.
When I saw this garden room, above, at Great Dixter I knew it was the most important garden room I'd ever visited. Almost 2 decades later, it still is.
Succession plantings are the style at Great Dixter. Something new always coming into bloom. Mulch is not needed the plantings are so layered & thick.
Each of Great Dixer's garden rooms is pure opera. But that's too easy. The opera changes daily. Hourly.
You'll be surprised how much FREE stuff you'll get.
Above & below, same line, 2 views, Double Axis.
Creating Double Axis, AND, the still life, below. David expands the world in each detail. 
We know it's beyond simple. It's MAGIC.
From his laptop, above, another axis & more than magic. Grace.
A bedroom view, treated as a painting on the wall.
David, I really do laugh out loud, & learn, seeing your landscapes & gardens. You are ANAL about Vanishing Threshold, Axis, Double Axis. Providence smiles in simplicity & grace within your work. Thank you for sharing your talents. 
Indian artifacts & antiques predating the Civil War, many inherited, fill the entire home.
Every bit of this room, below, new construction.
Only a few feet beyond the window views, above, is a neighbor's home.
Sconces, below, were rescued from an old home. New ones were made to order.
A portion of the home was removed and placed freestanding, below, as a dependency.
are the neighbors, below. 
From a front room view, below, see the brick chimney? It's where this antebellum home was 1st located. As family fortune increased they built a new antebellum home on the same site, moving this home to its current location. 
With a smile & sparkle she proclaimed her home the "first mobile home in Athens, GA."
Feet remain stationary, below,
& shooting a pic in the opposite direction.
Majority rustic antiques with hints of antique crystal & silver, yes, I knew I had to see the rest of this house & garden. More importantly, to know the person behind the magic.
I adored her, & we hadn't met yet.
Intuitively knowing she did the decorating for interior/exterior.
By the time a woman uses Kimberly Queen ferns, she KNOWS what she's about.
Vanishing Theshold, combining home/garden were a given, before I went into her home. I KNEW it.
Sherman, blessedly, didn't burn this antebellum home. Poppets, as Anne Shirley said in Anne of Green Gables, 'There is so much scope for the imagination..."
