Monday, April 30, 2012

Secretary & A Game Table

She didn't know I would shoot inside.  You're seeing real world no styling. 
 Near her secretary, above, is
a game table.  2 walls of windows for the game table.  What's not to like?
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Well, my camera.  The orchid on the game table is gorgeous & my camera picked it up like a boring dust ball. 
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These windows overlook my realm: Garden, pool, Woodland House.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at a jobsite. 

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Vanishing Threshold: Windows Into Doors

Soon, this pair of windows in the breakfast room, below, will be doorways


leading to a new room overlooking the pool & Woodland House.


The hutch, above, will stay.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at a jobsite.  Will show how its impacting the living room next.
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Again, Tara'izing a garden has turned windows into doors and home/garden into Vanishing Threshold.  She & I always knew we were heading inside for the garden.  Her husband?  He had been merely concerned about the new stone step to the porch.  Now he knows why we merely smiled at his questions.  As the wicked sea monster  in The Little Mermaid said, "Poor unfortunate soul."

Friday, April 27, 2012

How To Site A Pot on Plinth

Pot on plinth, below, placed EXACTLY correct.  Viewed from the backyard, below.

 Viewed from the front yard, below.
 Look closely, below, at the pot's base.  Drip irrigation.
 Quite a sophisticated color palette, below,
pops of blue are magic & subtle.  Can't be seen at a distance.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at a jobsite yesterday.  Her garden was merely a Tidy Landscape when she hired me.  We're turning it into a Beautiful Garden. 
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Steve Eaton of Blossom Boxes does her pots, 770-337-8840, sceaton3@yahoo.com.  Yes, I posted this urn earlier but had not taken the Double Axis pics. 
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Did you notice the urn NEEDED a plinth?

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Grandchildren Cause Gardens

Roof line of the new (unfinished) Woodland House, below, is copied from their home.  Pool, built by a basketball star decades ago, is sited wacky.  It was built for the house next door (don't ask).  And the pool is HUGE.  How to site the Woodland House giving narrative with the pool & their home? 
We did but that isn't today's topic.

 Something expensive happened during construction, above.  Alas, it happens a lot.
 She decided to add to the project.  A new deck is going in, above, and some of those windows are becoming French doors.
The new deck will tie into the existing deck, above, and wrap around. Soon the breakfast room & living room will flow to the deck....& pool.
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She's wanted to do this for decades.  Oh no, said her husband.
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He's toast.  There are now tiny grandchildren.  They love being with their grandma.
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Grandpa, repeat, is soooooooo toast.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken 3 weeks ago at the jobsite.  Going this morning.  We'll discuss the new deck & its railings to the pool.  Love this woman, we'll talk//work, laugh, hug.  Grandpa?  He gets my best Cheshire cat smiles.
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3 decades of Landscape Design & I KNOW what happens when women get their grandchildren. 

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Double Axis: House of Turquoise

Sandra Espinet, designed a perfect Double Axis.  From inside the living room, below, looking out to the pavilion.

 From the garden, below, looking into the pavilion.
 In the pavilion, below,
looking into the living room.
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Sandra owns the interior & exterior.  A rare interior decorator knowing her work ends at the property line not the walls of the house.
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Double Axis is an easy concept.  Quit reading this and figure yours out !
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Garden & Be Well,               XO Tara
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Penelope Bianchi is the rarest.  Interior Decorator doing Vanishing Threshold, Double Axis & la-ti-da multiple axis to a single focal point & etc....
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When you realize these concepts are easy, historically correct, necessary to happiness/joy/grace, & affordable you will stop thinking in terms of what Garden Centers & Testosterone-On-Wheels-Mow-Blow-Go want to SELL you.  Foundation plantings & lawn & seasonal annuals?  OMG, worse than boring.  Stupid, environmentally harmful, terrible for property value, & worst of all devastating to your inner muse.  No, don't ask me what I really think, because I can go there too.  And there waits the fabulous Puppet Barbuda.
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Pics via House of Turquoise with more about Sandra Espinet, here.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Designing With The Poverty Cycle

At a cottage with zero interior/exterior budget, Poverty Cycle, I'm doing platter
 shelves, above/below, in the dining room.  Now, it's deep red paint over poorly hung wallpaper & no direct natural light.  Dare I mention a stippled ceiling? 
 The salon, and it's a tiny cottage, will be arranged
just so, above.  Walls have already been painted BM Historic Color Philadelphia Cream.
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Found a mahogany drop-leaf gateleg table almost Shaker in style, old-$60-thrift store.  Ikea is soon.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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Cottage garden will be boxwoods edged in rescued stone, gravel & Tara Turf.  Project is SLOW but satisfying.  Crazy delight to interior/exterior decorate with total Poverty Cycle.  Lamps, thriftstore with shades from Homegoods, are awaiting tables.  G*d does have a sense of humor.  I'm really good at Poverty Cycle interior/exterior designs.  A thriving business plan?
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2 clients, in past 3 decades, I designed their landscapes in million+ homes.  Divorce.  We had a blast doing their new home/garden in total Poverty Cycle. 
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Cannot find photo credits.  Boxwoods were rescued from a job, stones rescued from a friend's acreage.      
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Ironically the Poverty Cycle is a needed element in every Landscape Design.  Gardens of Charleston, SC prove this.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Piedmont Pool & Palms

She asked for palms & cones in the Piedmont. 

Interiors are evocatively French.  Windmill palms & Italian cypress do great in metro Atlanta's zone 8.
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Between crest of hill & house, above, a new swimming pool.  Circled by Piedmont canopy & understory trees.
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Connecting palms & cones to the Piedmont are Azalea 'George Tabor'.
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Plantings sighted for views from pool, upper/lower terraces, bedrooms. 
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Notice what happens when beauty is designed?  Beauty works in both directions. 
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Did you know to Landscape Design for double axis?
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at a jobsite.  Metro Atlanta includes the tail end of the Coastal Plain/beginning of the Piedmont. 
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Biggest challenge was making sure the new landscape didn't look like it landed from Mars.  Their backyard is thoroughly Piedmont.  As a wise woman said, "Grow damn you, grow."  A bit of passalong advice to the azaleas.  Azaleas are keeping the Landscape Design from looking 'odd'.
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Love, love, love being challenged with this Landscape Design. 
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Miss Nancy Watkins do you recognize your quote?  Typically I utter it privately !

Friday, April 20, 2012

A Garden View: Economic

5 weeks without rain, happy to be working in mud, below, after Wednesday's showers. 
 Could not get pine straw wholesale yesterday.  No laborers to bale, they're picking onions.  The pinestraw available is filthy, and expensive.  Known for a year we've lost a segment of our population.  Do you know what it means, filthy/expensive pinestraw?  The native labor force is incompetent. 
 Blue stone is half the price of gray crab orchard stone.  Asphalt driveways are more expensive than concrete driveways.   Our materials costs are what we installed entire jobs for, less than a year ago.  Lewis Carroll facts.  All reality today.
Sourcing plants is changing my Landscape Designs.  Many common plants are unavailable.   Canopy hardwood trees across metro Atlanta are dying.  Densely shaded neighborhoods I've designed in for decades have expanses larger than several football fields of open blue sky.  Gone with their shade is pollinator habitat & watershed management. 
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Business is thriving.
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Due entirely to the human spirit.
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Clients the past 3-4 years have been engaged, seeking joy, beauty, and I think, grace.  Investing money intuitively knowing their home/garden renovation is a safe/enriching place for it, and more importantly their time. 
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Carl Jung said, "Our lives are about getting our outside to match our inside."
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken Wednesday at a jobsite.  Steep mud, 1 of the guys had to help me from slipping, falling, sinking.  I did all 3.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Using Subtlety

She is the Queen of Subtlety, but not.  Wish you could see the hints of her wall color, below, in her jewelry, clothes, lipstick. 
 I arrived in time, with the garden, to site the outdoor shower, below.
A private spot near the pool & just off their work-out room.  It merely had windows until I arrived, just in time, to make sure they were French doors.
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For obvious reasons I thought she would like pinkish flowers.
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NOT
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She likes white flowers.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Outdoor shower isn't complete, ceiling & floor still to do.  Talk-talk-talk with clients about their life/garden, listen, learn the lifestyle flow, joys/sorrows, traveling, hobbies, and there is always a sideways remark informing my Muse, "Ah, there's the direction, that's what we'll do."
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More interiors later, she's still moving in.  It was a major reno.  Met her co-interior decorator last week, want to introduce her to you properly soon.  They work as a team.
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Those French doors at the outdoor shower?  My guys laugh at me for doing this All-The-Time.  The poor husband's of the wives hiring me.  They think their biggest worry hiring a Landscape Designer is the expense in their garden !!  Quickly, they realize I mean business.  And I improve their property value and lifestyle. 

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A Garden View From Her Kitchen

Inimitably her own style, in all she does.  A bit of her kitchen, below.


Before she bought her, ca. 1940, home it had a garden, obviously lovely at one point, but tired.  She hired me to tweak it several years ago.  Axis & entries were boldened, paths redefined, focal points placed, hedges tightened & etc.
She, & her Man, have had time to do their own tweaking.  Adding layers to their garden, listening to their muse within.
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This is their garden.  All theirs.
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We talked of this magic, the garden transitioning from my input and the previous owners.  Their tweaking.  Yet, somehow, it's the garden doing the magic.
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Lunch was served outside overlooking the garden.  Salmon salad over mixed greens, wine.  We would talk, but mostly were silent.  Looking at the garden.  Then ridiculously, like teenagers, laugh in joy. 
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara 
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Told her I was stopping by the thrift store on the way home.  Ha, she came with me and we went to the antique mall too.  Love a good Saturday !!  Her garden is on tour in May.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A New Carriage House

Her color theme was chosen long ago.

 Finally, her carriage house is being built. 
 Her dream is a garden seen throughout the years in magazines.
 Love that, easy for me to copy, below.
First day of digging they found a spring.  The elevation changed a bit.  Had to come back and tweak a short & low stone wall. 
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Using evergreens, tea olive & wax leaf ligustrum, to block the neighbor's house, 2nd pic. 
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Sent her an email every 6-8 months asking, "Started your carriage house yet?"  Honestly, you should have seen the Sanford & Son shed she was living with.  Past its prime, rotting, stuffed & with stuff sitting all around it. 
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Their home is historic & it was important to site the new carriage house 'as if' it had always been there.  I lined it exactly parallel with the house.  As they did centuries ago.  And, not too far or too close to her home.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics take earlier this month.  Her other color is black. 

Monday, April 16, 2012

Chair & Pool Color


I came to the project with the backyard.  House, gutted, had already begun its major renovation.
She wanted the new pool to be strong Caribbean blue.  We had several meetings about the coping,  pebbble tec & etc. 
New furnishings began arriving last week, top pic.
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Confirmation I got the pool right. 
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Fountain in the beach is perfect, not too loud.  Pool is saltwater.  Pool decking goes in this week, diving board too.  She was a gymnast in high school/college.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

How To Create 'Ancient' From New

The Ancient Orchard is new, its bricks are over a century old.

 4 sided, doors let you into each side.  Each door is custom, and
each door is different. 
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Doors decay, are damaged & replaced through the centuries.
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That is the narrative for this new Ancient Orchard.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Gates will be stained soon, this garden has a base trinity of colors.  Green, brown, white.  None in shades popular today. Each door a conversation of pics/ideas with owner, Magic Man, & me.  One of the walls has 2 gates, they will be iron.  And fabulous. 
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At this garden last week she told me a friend of hers was touching the wall, couldn't keep her hands off.  Of course my hands were on the wall while she told me.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Simplicity


Dare you?  This simple?
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Yes.
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Gravel to the walls, color theme, mix of stone-wood-iron, vine-on-house, evergreen cones in pots, round downspouts, beautiful views into the home, finials on the roof, custom shutters, 3-d lite over door.
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If you like it, break down the reasons.  Beauty in one spot can be translated into yours.
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House is the focal point.  House is the backdrop to the landscape.  Specifically, the front door.
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It's brutal to be this simple.  But POTENT.
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And low maintenance.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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pic via Things That Inspire .  Even a disastrous brick ranch ca. 1963 can be turned into a historic caretakers cottage.  This house , above, tells you how.  Have fun.  If you, indeed, live in the disaster.  Of course I can be this blunt.  Living in a brick 1986 box.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Copy. Price Is No Excuse.

Copy, it's one of the 1st & best rules of Landscape Design.
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It's not the price point, alone, creating this welcome.
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What can you copy?
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Lights on inside, door/walls with confidently chosen colors, urn on plinth so fabulous it can remain empty & a confidently chosen color, welcoming bench, fabulous light in maximum-3D over the door, metal boot scrape, wood mat, scoring of stone.
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Not having a welcoming entry because you don't have the money is not an excuse.
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Much to be rescued on garbage day, returned paint found cheaply at hardware store or really cheap at a thrift store, cheap pot with good shape smothered in ivy, faux paint scoring, and etc.
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Desire & intellect will provide your beautiful entry. 
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Don't have the courage to post drive-by-shootings of hi-end properties with ridiculous front door areas.
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You know, champagne budget , beer taste.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic via Belgian Pearls.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Color On Your Doors

Typical red brick has too much orange.  True red brick is fired longer & costs more.
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 I chose Benjamin Moore, HC-136, Waterbury Green for my trim.
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French doors are a gift to myself this year.  It was easy to choose the color. 
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A Front Door should not be the trim color.  Instead, I like to choose an accent color flowing from interior art, walls, or fabrics.  AND, it works with your exterior colors.
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If you aren't confident choosing a Front Door color, Maria Killem posted 10 fabulous choices from Home Hardware.  Choose one!  
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Can't wait to finish the little stone terrace at my new French doors.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Tools At Your Door

Keep a pair of Felco pruners at your front door & back door.  Leverage yourself in the garden.
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In addition I have baskets & hats.
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This is the Stetson my dad wore working in his garden.  Now, the Stetson I wear working in my garden.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara    

Monday, April 9, 2012

Somethings Gotta Give A Secret Garden Path

Can you see the flagstone path below?

 This type of path is also good at making small lawns appear larger
 This house is perfectly the movie house, Somethings Gotta Give, except, below.
Front entry step is too narrow & out of scale with the home.
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This is what I've been hired for.  Their house is perfection in all other details.
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Did you observe this house was a 1950's ranch?  IT WAS.  Architect blew it up & out.  Will ask permission to get interior pics next time I'm on site. 
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last month.  Will change a few of the foundation plantings.  They were installed to help sell the house.  Over planted and need constant pruning otherwise they will mature bigger than the house.  Not a novel issue.   

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Gardening For Children

I don't believe in Gardening For Children.  A fully formed adult, gardening from their heart will attract children.  Children of all ages, from 1-100 years old.
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What child doesn't want to peek thru this garden gate?
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Yesterday, a neighbor child, about 6 was in my garden, he didn't know I saw him.  He found my Secret Garden gate.  Promptly, he hit it with a stick several times and said, "Cool, a gate to nowhere."  Then he poked that stick at many plants, carefully, deeply perusing.
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Shazam, he ran back to his own garden.
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 This type of garden also affects grown women.  I've never had an open garden/tour without a woman, manipulating a private moment with me and she cries.  Hard.  Tears ending with our arms around each other. 
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I know where those tears come from.
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She's recognized I've let my 8 year old self out to play, with permission.  And she has buried hers.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic taken in a client garden last week.  Another gate made by Magic Man.  Yes, you do want to go thru.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Gravel Drive

 Oconee Pea gravel dumped, below, spread, above.  A tiny gravel from the Oconee River outside of Watkinsville, GA.  Amongst the pea is sand.  This gravel compacts, almost, in a day.  Cobblestone edging arrives next week.

Strings were initially laid, then cars & trucks driven, lines adjusted & flags placed. 
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My degree in horticulture prepared me for none of this type of Landscape Design.  Instead, I was trained to design landscapes in subdivisions where everything touched is commodified.  Lawns mowed, bushes power trimmed, mulch instead of groundcover, annuals replaced every 6 months, fertilizer applications, insecticides/fungicides. 
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What I call, Mow-Blow-Go-Testosterone-On-Wheels-Commodify-All-I-Touch.
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For 2 decades I was off to Europe studying Landscape Design.  For 3 decades I've had 4 mentors & several friendships with peers in the Landscape Design industry.
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Everything I know, have seen & done has been required of me to place this gravel drive. 
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Simple.  Tis a gift to be simple.
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Elegance is refusal....
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken this week at a jobsite.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Exterior Design & Scale

Pretty now the Chinese snowball is young.  It's bottom will be pruned away once the blooms finish.  This Chinese snowball is growing into a tree. 

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic taken in a client garden yesterday.  Always greedy to show off with decadent blossoms there are 2 more Chinese Snowball nearby.  They will be pruned too.  Viburnum macrocephalum, easy. 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Blossom Boxes By Steve Eaton

She needed something at her gravel parking court.  (Tara Dillard's, Queen's Pot, of course.  A pot so fabulous it can remain empty.  Do all of your pots pass this test?)
Mostly, she has Steve Eaton of Blossom Boxes plant her urns.


 She wanted a gate leading into her woodland, fabulous.  But it needed another Queen's Pot, this time on a taller plinth, above.  And, it's on double axis.  More another time, (miss priss) forgot to get the other axis pic.
 No sun reaches her front door, Blossom Boxes keeps her pots always lush & green. 
Another pot, in her backyard, above.  Blossom Boxes stayed true to his name: pansies, violas & dwarf snapdragons.
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Met Steve Eaton over 20 years ago.  Have seen him in gardens & flower shows ever since.  Had him in an episode on my TV show. 
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I thought you should know such a man, Steve Eaton of Blossom Boxes, exists.  That there is a world where men plant flowers & girls design gardens for their daily bread.  A world, they know, is their own Camelot.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics taken in a client garden last week.  Steve Eaton, Blossom Boxes,  770-337-8840, sceaton3@yahoo.com.  

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Gate Is Born


Her gate has to let a horse & carriage thru, we left a 12' opening.  Before choosing the new gate a new drive was in use and a new vista beheld.  Unexpectedly, this gate became, almost, a front entry view.  Deer are an issue plus I wanted a bit of mystery & enchantment.

Yesterday, above, her new gates. 
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I perused dozens of pictures, sent 3-4 to the owner, voila-poof, she chose my favorite gate, top pic.
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Of course it came with no dimensions/details.  Our carpenter, Magic Man, scaled it to the site.  He used the curve a fly-fishing rod makes to judge the correctness of his top curves.  He asked me a few questions about proportions. 
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You normally don't see unfinished pics here.  But the work, above, of Masonry Man & Magic Man is enough to speak for itself.
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More pics as this project continues.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Top pic found online, did not keep the origin.  Had no idea I would be showing off with it.  Love, love, love the pace of this project.  Love more the team I'm working with.