Well educated herself, she's probably surprised this, below, is her job now. The best job she'll ever have, homeschooling her sons.
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Her chair faces the front yard. My job is to take an adequate landscape and turn it into a multi-layered narrative more deeply entwined with stewardship than amusement. Though amusement will still play a role. A role we give to it, deeper/richer than assigned by society 'norms'.
What I will add to this landscape?
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Engagement. I want to deeply engage 'her', more than her sons. Everyday, wanting her to see something stunning, she glances, and thinks, 'wow'. With blooms, berries, fruits, burgeoning of spring, perceptions of senescence, humus of fall, colors, paths, focal points, textures, repetitions, historical ties, fragrance, birds, possums, coons, squirrels, deer, insects, sounds of wind through foliage, intricacies of good soil and its productions for our survival, outdoor classrooms serendipitously appearing, outdoor classrooms created as destinations, unstudied playgrounds imagined by her and the boys at a whim, playground areas created for myriad games, beautiful landscape areas demanding an impromptu picnic, landscaped area created for a harvest table & dining or studying classwork, a pizza oven, a Peter Pan Express created from the indoor kitchen to their outdoor kitchen downstairs (ropes/pulley/wire basket), a cluster of bushes with an interior secret place for the boys to have a hobbit hole, strands of Italian piazza lights in a couple of places, a place for her to read/absorb the philosophy/poetry/essays of Wendell Berry, when it snows I want her to feel like her indoor classroom is a magical snow globe, a garden of epiphanies, a garden of stewardship more than amusement, a garden that needs her boys, a garden that provides more stewardship to her than she does to it, and so very much more.
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Many of the plants will have a large river stone, about 3 pounds, at their base, with Latin and common names written in grease pencil. Instead of mulch the garden will have groundcovers, no nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium fertilizers will be used to poison the groundwater, amongst her dense shade a sunny enough spot must be found for a pear tree, new plantings will be added for the landscape to have something coming into bloom/color/berry every 2 weeks, a compost pile will be created, potager in pots on the deck where it is sunny and the boys learn agricultural yields are increased by the ornamental landscape surrounding it, and etc.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic shot at jobsite last week. Will draw their landscape this week.
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Help, what else does her garden need?
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction. Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC. 3 decades of service.
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NOTE to my gardening friends... look for changes to come.
Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.
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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.
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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.
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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix.
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What do YOU want?
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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.
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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.
Just so you know...
I welcome your input.
4 comments:
This garden project sounds enchanting. I hope you'll post updates as it moves along!
After they finished public elementary school, I homeschooled both of our children through middle and highschool. It was a learning experience for our entire family. I know how much this family appreciates your thoughtful planning in creating an extension of the classroom to the great outdoors.
That is one of the many rewards of homeschooling, the world becomes the classroom every single day.
xo
A bank of window like that need to show a beautiful garden.
Sounds wonderful. A tree with low branches for a climb now and then?
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