Renovating a Landscape: Before - After

A jobsite desk this week, below.

New homeowners bought the 30+ year old home/garden last year.

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Gut renovation.

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Sadly, previous owner let the landscape degrade into majority invasives.

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Had to use the Caterpillar to remove them.  Dumpster in the driveway hauled them off.

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After clearing, below, silt fencing added, topsoil was brought in & contoured, irrigation ditches dug.

Fescue sod, below, chosen to match the historical theme of the home's renovation.

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Beyond the new #89 gravel path, below, is a stream.  A destination.

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Where margins meet, drama reigns.  Here it's formality of lawn, rustication of path, and finally, wild wood.

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Kitchen view, below,  Foundation for the Summer House was built into the modest swale.  Neighbor's rainwater had flooded the back yard for decades.  15 minutes work with man/Caterpillar, water flows in desirable watershed management to the stream.

 There is an order to installing landscapes.  Here: clearing, contouring, placing paths/edging/gravel, laying sod, next, plantings.
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Another view from the kitchen, below.

 Homeowner chose white for the home.  Cannot wait for that phase to be completed.  My Landscape Design included French doors from the terrace level, into the garden, plywood, bottom right, Of course a few windows and bricks had to be knocked out.  Ironically, husbands think a Landscape Designer will waste their money on 'flowers'.  The force-of-Tara is quickly realized when they see I've knocked holes into their home.  Big holes.  Flowers, indeed.  One must see flowers easily, and get to them freely.

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Cobblestone edging is used nearer the home, rustic rubbles further away in the Wild Wood.

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Crazed week with this project.  Client panicked during the process.

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Once the invasives were gone she wanted groundcovers to be planted first.  No.  Will trample them to oblivion with equipment/materials if that is done first.  "Oh."

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Truly panicked.  It's ok.  The process is older than Christ's birth, no voodoo.  A scientific template.  Trying to direct men/equipment/materials, client created great angst for herself, and my team.

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Every delay created, men/equipment standing idle, cash register bells rang, good weather fading.  Hence our angst.

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Finally, when the bones of the garden, above, went in, her panic eased.  She could 'see'.  Their was a method to all the men, machine, materials, dirt.

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Cannot wait for her next changes to the landscape installation.  They will arise from context, not panic.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

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Pics taken this week.

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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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.