Friday, April 1, 2011

How To Choose Flooring

Landscape Design is a series of layers. After creating your ceilings & walls (previous 2 posts), create your Flooring. Shade, grass won't grow? Choose checkerboard, below, with shade loving groundcover.Forget STUPID lawn. Choose Tara Turf, below. A mix of what the wind blows in, the birds drop, clover, dwarf bulbs, herbs, spreading groundcovers & etc. Tara Turf is meadow made formal with mowing heights.
Want million dollar flooring for $20/ton? Choose gravel, below. Zero mowing, lovely crunch.


Choose flooring, below, to emphasize formal, informal. If this were a woodland design the flagstone would be removed & woodchips used. (1 of 3 gates, below, at the front of my garden.)
Mother Nature, below, laughed at my efforts, sprinkling a flagstone path with her petals.
River stones, glacial stones, laid in patterns for paths &
terraces. Rough laid stones, above, contrasting nicely with smooth stone folly & pair of obelisks.
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Wood floor inside with antique oriental rug? Same concept in the landscape, above:
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stone path=wood floor
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plants=antique oriental rug. (Adore using my engineering degree in this manner! You do realize you are entirely within my landscape design equation at the moment?)
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Design outside is the same as design inside.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic I took in Susanne Hudson's garden, 2nd pic I took at Sissinghurst, 3rd pic I took in the Cotswolds, 4-5 pics in my sweet garden, 6th pic I took in Sir Hardy Amies garden not far from the 3rd pic. This is hilarious, I don't remember anything. These pics? Remember taking each of them.

7 comments:

Richard said...

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Bruce Barone said...

My challenge, outside, in my vegetable and flower garden, is wanting to keep a bird feeder in it and finding the right "flooring" to put beneath it. I am thinking of using Zinnias as the "flooring." They fill in rather nicely and they attract finches.

Desert Dweller said...

Great points. In the land of gravel, I only wish my clients would share our appreciation of it as a floor and that crunch sound. I use plant massing to define edges; they just have to place flagstone pieces within it, or edge it with steel / larger rock, to define where to walk. Must be some other way!

Terry said...

My "Terry Turf" is coming on in now. The wild strawberry is starting to the eat the house though.

Divine Theatre said...

Some girls love diamonds, some love pearls. Me? Give me pea gravel every time!
Thank you, again, Tara!

Things That Inspire said...

I love thinking about the floor of the outside. Our current house looks out over 17 acres (only a tiny, tiny part of that is mine!), as there is a creek back there, and there is a lovely meadow that is as natural as can be - clovers, violets, whatever has happened to seed there. My neighborhood dues pay for the mowing of it, thank goodness,but it is so nice not to have to worry about keeping it perfect.

Divine Theatre said...

Hello beautiful soul! Missing you!
I was disappointed to find that none of the local quarrys have white pea gravel. My garden was designed around it!
I decided to use a checkerboard paver path between the informal perennial beds and in doing my research I came across your blog! It was meant to be! It would make a cleaner segue into the formal areas anyhow (I think).
Hoping you are well.

xoxo
Andie