Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: Williamsburg, VA

A perfect distance from the house.  The Tea House.  

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's home in Williamsburg, VA.  She spent April/October here yearly.

The scale is exquisite.

Knowing a bit about the depth of her philanthropy the scale and sweetness of her home speak much of her character.
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Her gardens are intelligent, potent in simplicity, narrative, formality, rusticity, line, axis, Nature.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this month while I was lecturing in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.

Axis of Ugly: Views from this Gorgeous Interior

Interior attention to detail. 

Exterior attention to detail?
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A grill.  Swathed in vinyl, no less.  Perhaps to match the countertops?  No, to match the ovens.
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Axis of Ugly: Breakfast room window view.  Yard (yes, yard, obviously not garden) door view.  Window above the sink view.  And, probably dining room view, upstairs bedroom views.....
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Why is this acceptable?  Generally it's the person bankrolling the interior demanding the grill, hence, acceptable.  Until that person reads a post like this.  Go ahead, you know you want to show it to him.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Why so hard on this topic?  "Men come to build sooner than to garden finely as if gardening were the greater art." Pope, 17th century.  Beautiful pics of interiors that denigrate the landscape are harmful to my profession.  
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How to fix this?  Simplest? Hinged shutters, painted color of chair seats, above, in front of grill.  Fold & lean against wall when using grill.  
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Pic via Cote de Texas.
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Axis of Ugly.  Rather proud of that one !!  Would be a great lecture title for Puppet Barbuda.....

Listen to the Genius of the Place

Emergency phone call last month.  Client wavering on placement of stone steps & fire ring.

Many choices in Garden Design do not have a single answer.

This choice did.

Asymmetrical French architecture demanded the center of the new stone terrace & steps be on center with the gable peak/palladian window.
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Love it when we can pull a string & hammer the stake.  Done.
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Architecture & Garden are one.  Listen to the genius of the place.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pics taken 2 weeks ago on the job.  Top pic, general contractor & stone mason.  Both make everything I do better.
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Georgia red clay.  Freshly disturbed.  Love that smell.

Siting a Vintage Bell

They bought an old bell, below, and needed to know where to site it.

Have you considered where to put a bell historically?  Adore a new brain path.  Acreage, working acreage required signals.  Most important would be an emergency.  Secondarily, calling the hands to meals.  Here, above/below, the bell is close to the kitchen.

Soon the camellia hedge will obscure the cabin.  I do like the Double Axis pics, top/bottom.  Formal  & informal.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this month.  Same garden as several previous posts.

Design Interiors From Outside

Front porch, below.

 Lamp seen from the front porch, above, and from inside, below.

Further to the left of the lamp, below.

You do know this already?  Interiors must be gorgeous from every garden view.
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Your home is the focal point of the garden.
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Walking with new clients, around their garden, seeing an ugly interior view I will turn my head, look into their eyes and my right eyebrow goes up.  Enough said.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Same home as previous several posts.

What To Do With A Bad View

Of course the dining room, below, has an awkward view. 

Swag of curtain, below, in the downstairs window is the dining room.

Same swag of curtain, below, in the dining room.

Do you see the triple air-conditioners?  Do you see the industrial generator?  Do you see anything fussy to maintain?
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No.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Dining room opens into central hall of previous 3 posts.

A Central Hallway

 Over a century old, the home has a long & wide central hallway copying the dogtrots of old.  Back-in-the-day it was 'air-conditioning'.

Now, it's a place for extra chairs.  Easy to grab for gatherings in other parts of her home.

Cannot imagine the first matriarch of this acreage outside Athens, Ga.  Summertime with no cooling, cooking dinner, and breakfast, daily.  No cell phone, internet.  Only her man, children & workers for interaction.  Laundry, with clothesline, a great effort + time.  Harvesting the kitchen garden, canning.

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Epiphany.  No wonder rural Southerners were tightly bound to their church.

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Women taking the edge off.  Meet & greet comrades in life, unload frustrations, share joys.  Get the gossip, trade successes/failures on life topics.  Hopefully get a good sermon.  Enough to manage another week.

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All this from a dogtrot.    

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken last week at jobsite.  Same foyer as previous 2 posts.

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Women In History was an elective I took for my engineering degree.  It ignored physical discomfort & religion.    

A Foyer View

Doorways, rooms, and an upstairs landing, a myriad of garden views, flood natural lite into the foyer.

I must get each of those garden pictures, from the foyer, next time at this jobsite.
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Garden views from this foyer are enough for a garden design book.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken last week at jobsite.  Same home/garden as yesterday's post.

Bedroom View

Garden design begins inside your home on axis with main views, below.

I assume there is a better view on the opposite wall?  Otherwise, even if this is a B&B I would turn the bed.  It truly looks like advertising photography.
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Have been on the hunt for a diminutive round bedside table.  Must be 2 tier, lovely wood, vintage, French.  Those books, above, make me smile.  There is never a time a stack of books isn't by my bed.
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A girlfriend I never see enough has an incredible French style bed.  And home too.  When we do see each other it is me spending the nite with her and gossiping till sleep takes us.  Next time I'll get pics for you.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic My French Country Home.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
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Details about online design services.
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Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
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Details about lecture titles here.
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I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Create Enfilades

My childhood home was built around an open courtyard, many were during that decade on Galveston Bay.

When the courtyard is designed to be part of the interior an Enfilade, a view into a view, is created.
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Enfilades are the most common photograph of gardens to be chosen for hardcover books & magazines.
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A fact I noticed decades ago, and began then, creating as many enfilades as possible.
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Why should YOU create enfilades?  Copy what the best garden designers & photographers do.  Enfilades are historic for a reason.  Great impact with little input.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pics  of Pablo Paniagua's work.

Checkerboard Square with Circle

Untrained, unschooled & perfect.

Viewed from deck & house the existing lower garden, above, leads to their wild wood.
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They hired me to design their landscape.  Of course I left this alone!  Tweaks could be made but out goes THEIR charm.
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And, they built this DIY !
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Alexander Pope......Men come to build sooner than to garden finely as if gardening were the greater art.  ca. 17th century
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pic via client's Facebook page

High, and Large, Foyer Window

A good solution for the multi-story foyer with tall window over the front door.

A ridiculous space, it still needs attention.  Doing nothing looks undone.  Doing something looks forced, and dusty.
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From the garden most views into these windows look 'vacant'.
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Yes, this urn is 'just right'.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Belgian Pearls

Historic Yet Modern

Close to being a 'foundation planting'.  But not in the least.

Seems simple.  It is not.  Historic with modern edge.  Holbrook & Associates  created this garden for the Princess Margaret Show House .
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Of course the house is fabulous too.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via House & Home

A Bedroom View

From the chair, left, a view across the new deck into their Wild Wood.

This room, above, is an almost complete addition to their master bedroom.

A portion of the new deck, above, with a door from the master bedroom.
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She hired me for this view.  Should an arbor with swing be placed?  No.  It would stop the view from the bedroom.  Instead, a low round table with 4 adirondack chairs stained the color of her kitchen cabinets.  Views into the Wild Wood are the focal point on axis.
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Of course we've redone the entire garden.  Simply.
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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Pics taken last week.  Deck will be stained.  She was kind letting me take pics her house is a tornado of renovation.

What Is A Status Symbol?

Can you spot the status symbol?

In the land of freeways, subdivisions, strip malls, too many people?

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A meadow is status symbol.  A gravel/dirt drive with wildflowers & trees is status symbol.

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This is a CHOICE, above.  It is Landscape Design.  

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It's not a 'less than' drive because they couldn't afford to pave.  It's the intellect of knowing what's important in life.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pic via Habitually Chic. 

Front Porch

A disintegrating brick, too small, front stoop when I arrived.

Covered, lighting, doors, stone terrace, new paint colors, columns, iron rail, ceiling fans, furniture.

   The view, below, has been there, ignored, for over 3 decades.

Now it's honored, and lived in.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken this week at a past client.  Her house & garden the most perfect HORRENDOUS before.  Of course she's going to be a before/after story.  Best part is how it's changed their lives.  Literally.  House is amongst many in a subdivision near town, yet it lives like Piedmont forest. 

Speaking With Boxwoods & Paths

Pair of boxwood, below, say, "Come this way."

 There is more to the garden & a path continues the conversation begun by the boxwoods.

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Bluestone stepping stones with rough hewn edges, 18" square.  Placed on diamond, copying wood detailing in the kitchen.  Zoysia lawn, pine mulch soon to be unseen as the Southern indica azaleas fill in.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Perhaps one of the nerdiest things I like to do, 'speak' via paths & pairs of evergreens.  Pics taken this month in a client garden.

Interior Decorate From Garden Views Too

Views into your home

 from the

 garden

must be considered.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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Same garden as previous post.  Back of picture frames, tv, couch?  Hmm, not in my realm of Landscape Design.

How To Increase The Drama

Subtle drama, ego in check.  Pair of stone columns, iron gate, half-round stone steps & on axis a Japanese maple.  Not a gaudy statue or etc.

 Do you see the opportunity to increase the subtle drama, below?

Remove the pinestraw bed & let the turf flow to the stone wall.
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Small tweek HUGE impact.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic taken last weekend at my lecture venue.

How To Create Exterior Simplicity

The hedge is brilliant.  Vine on the risers is more brilliant.

Topiaried green meatballs are fun.  Terra cotta on the table?  Perfection.
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Notice the lack of pattern on the textiles?  Be careful with exterior textile pattern.  Very careful.
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Many interior rooms look onto this view.  Without going inside I know it's an obvious Vanishing Threshold.  Without going inside I know the owners.
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How little can the landscape have and hold together?  Whoever 'tossed' out this much simplicity is good.  Very good.
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Low maintenance, weekly blow & trimming 2x/year. 
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Choose a color theme.  It should flow from the interiors. 
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic via Cote de Texas.  When I worked at a nursery one assistant manager was incredibly talented at displays.  BUT, we would always beg him to stop.  He would create the above, BUT keep going.  On his off day we would cleanse the abundance.