Showing posts with label Curb Appeal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Curb Appeal. Show all posts

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Ridiculous Fun vs. Doing-the-Right-Thing

Tell me again why Americans are so wedded to green meatball foundation plantings.
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Proof, below, you can still have those green meatballs at the foundation.


Today's assignment: In your mind, take away your foundation plantings, replace with furnishings-gravel-urns-plinths, from above, in any permutation that is ridiculous fun & fabulous.  Really, do this, complete the assignment.  You have the rest of the day.
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.
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Pic via Pinterest.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Want Elegance? Espalier

No room for 'lawn'?  Little space to landscape?

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Go vertical.
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Woody shrubs with medium or slow growth are best.  No wires or trellis needed.
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Merely espalier.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Please add ESPALIER to your quiver of garden tools.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.
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pic via Tumblr

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Where to Site a Garden Focal Point

In the garden, your house is the main focal point.
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For centuries, this, below, has worked.

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If something has worked for centuries, there is a reason.
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And, it will work for you.
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Urn on plinth.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Never had a college instructor or seminar speaker say, In the garden your home is the focal point.
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Why?
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What did those 'experts' miss?  Paint colors on the home, lighting, hardware, views into windows, style choices, where to correctly site exterior focal points.  For starters.
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Most common question I receive, Where should I put this plant?
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If only that were the question.
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Garden design is about where to put a plant?
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Hardly.
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Friday, November 29, 2013

Pot + Plinth: Making the New Timeless

From the 1st appointment earlier this year I KNEW a focal point should be on axis with the front door.


Earlier this week, above/below.


A few minutes old, above, this urn looks as if she's been reigning at least a century.
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She's designed empty, with a floral designer brought in for catered events.  Remember, a pot must be so fabulous it can stay empty.
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Found the pot/plinth resourcing materials at the Americas Mart with client.  A great 1/2 day.  Would have taken a decade, at least, to hunt/gather what we found !
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this week at jobsite.  Shovels, 5 men, a level, were involved getting this beauty 'right' !

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Port Cachere: Before + After

I was hired to 'refresh' the landscape.
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Leaving the port cachere as-is was not an option.  This is their main family door.  
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We went shopping at the Americas Mart in downtown Atlanta last month sourcing merchandise.  Not everything had arrived by this week but enough to get started, below.


This table is temporary, above-below, a very nice temporary.  Soon, once a vintage large French buffet is sourced I'll get you more pics.


I made do with the few pots/flowers she had last Monday, above/below.


Small moments of beauty, above.
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As she gets into her car to leave, and then returns, her port cachere is embracing arms for going into the world & returning from the world.  A matriarch in every layer of her life, she has a lot going on and appreciates all Providence provides.  It's in the small moment thanks are deeply felt.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pics taken at jobsite last Monday.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Doorstep Gardening


A bit of vine & gravel to the house.


Repeated across continents for centuries.
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Affordable to install, inexpensive to maintain.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via A Bloomsbury Life.  After years of lust for gravel & vine I did it for myself.  Still curious why I waited so long.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Garden Design Begins Inside Your Home

No matter where I sit or walk-by and see into my garden, there is a beautiful view.
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Anything less is not worth my intellect.  
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Nor my joy.


Bay window view, above, is a huge satisfaction.  Several homes & the main street flagrantly try to appear & fail.



  Adore the fragrance of Nature, above.




I need many places inside my house, & garden, for the impromptu lunch, or reading a book.


Designing your garden from inside your home insures your life a moat of grace & beauty in defense of every thing life concocts.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics in my house.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Front Door: Create an Entry


Ceilings are not high, below.  A transom was over the door.  I removed it and added a taller door & sidelights.  Creating more height,
I chose 2 panels + the upward curve.  Love the doorknocker Miss Florida found.  We did a lot of back/forth online with knockers & paint color & hardware.   


Urns fabulous enough to be empty were designed & plinths  for height adjustment.  Ironically, Miss Florida, who always says, I don't know anything, has consistently put in seasonal arrangements from prunings in her garden.


I also took away the foundation plantings, aka green meatballs, and used espaliered fruit trees + groundcovers.
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The white is too white on the house.  Alas, it had just been painted before I was hired.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  We are doing a new layer!  The drive, front woodland & upper arrival drive.  Cannot wait for the groundcovers to fill in, brown dead mulch, anywhere, has touched my last nerve.
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Monday, October 28, 2013

Front Porch: Take that Rail Off

"Take the rail off", I said.  Friend, not client, we knew the obstacle, husband.  Years passed. Now, below.    Understand intuitively who took the rail off & built the new step?




Ahead of the curve, they sold their lakeside mcmansion, and moved here, her childhood 2B/1 bath cottage.  When it's full of their 5 children, 15 grandchildren, & friends (lucky me) the house does not feel small, only unlimited horizons of love & joy.
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"Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now?"  William Stafford.  Gifting this lovely quote to my dear friend who lives in the cottage, above.  

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Vanishing Threshold: Dining Room + Landscape

Where, below, do your eyes land?


Mine went straight to the urn outside and its placement dead-center on the French doors, vanishing threshold.
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No accident the photographer caught it.  Douglas Newby has quite a nice day job !  We know the truth about easy day jobs, they require work.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Douglas Newby.   Photographers & interior designers rarely pay attention to Vanishing Threshold.  I START every Landscape Design at the Vanishing Threshold.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Stephen Sills: On Acquiring Objects

"It's funny with objects.  If you're really passionate, and you really understand your sensibility, and you're patient, they will come to you..."


"That's what I love about the magic of objects.  You never really own anything in this world, but you can be lucky enough to possess something for a time, and enjoy it, and then it goes on to another person to enjoy.",


Stephen Sills in Town & Country, Oct. 2013.
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His simple gardens in the city are caressing arms.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics via Elle Decor.

Friday, October 11, 2013

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?


Remember Gertrude Jekyll's "....the first thing I consider, when planning a garden, is what to put on the house."
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For ease of maintenance I prefer espaliered woody shrubs.  No wires, no trellis.
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House & terrace, above, are vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Half Pudding Half Sauce.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Garden Design: Airstrip Neighborhood

The brilliant 'Urn Idea' atop their low columns was nixed immediately.

Instead, we'll hunt for these caps, above.
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Brain dropsy, I had forgotten airplane wings must easily navigate the driveway.
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Every home in their neighborhood has a hangar + plane.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Used portions of the gate, above, for another client.  Hers had to be chicken/rabbit proof at the bottom.  It's obvious I have the best job within the galaxy.
 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

How To Follow Through with a Theme

Fine tuning the smalls, below.


Dried flowers from the garden & Jacob sheep grazing outside.
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From property line to the center of your home the theme should be who-you-are.
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Do I know who you are from first approach at the property line?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last month at jobsite.  Sublime to see her reach this layer of interior design, the tiniest touches amplifying who she is.
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Hardest advice ever received?  "Be-who-you-are."

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

How to Choose & Site Pots in the Landscape

300 acres, 3 'mostly' matching pots totaling 3 centuries of age and no pots placed on the property, yet.  
(Does the pot, below, tell you, "Touch me."?  If it does it means you are an old soul & kindred spirit.)


Pots must be so wonderful they can remain empty, if desired.  Here, they needed to match the history of the home & be within a certain size range.


Perfect, above, they do not draw attention to themselves.  And still allow seating on the low stone-capped columns.


2 men/pot setting them in place.  My general contractor said, as the pot, above, went up, "...That's a ballsy spot."  As if he earned a response.


3 years getting to this layer, placing pots.  Best part?  Looks like they've always been there.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last month.  Found the pots, plus several more, at Scott Antique Market a couple of months ago.
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Did you pick up on the major component of getting the right pot in the right spot in your landscape?  Something few are good at, patience.
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Knowing to choose pots that can remain empty is such an important 'discovery'  I claim it as one of my inventions.  If you think through the carbon footprint of 'annuals & potting soil & fertilizer' for container plantings along with your time & money you'll understand beautiful empty pots.
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Of course planting sublime pots is a layer of fun in the right season of a busy life.

Friday, September 13, 2013

How to Tame Trouble

Met a new client last nite with a no-mans-land of trees/ivy/invasives/drainage ditch/weeds.  Its ownership 'looks' like it could be their property or their neighbors.
What to do is quite easy.


An entry & path will instantly take ownership and tame the trouble.
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Clearing invasives, controlling ivy/weeds, planting desirable understory trees & etc... will take a bit more time.  Happily, now there is a road map.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
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Exciting times, their brown brick home with brown shutters will soon be WHITE !
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Pic Litchfield Hills, lost provenance of photographer.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

So What is the Most Important Element of Architecture?

A small handful of homes during my decades of garden & home renovation have packed a surprise.


They appear 'normal' when I park at the first visit.  Knocking at the front door the surprise is apparent.


Saying to myself, "......this home is HUGE."
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The reasons must be many for the illusion.  Top of the list is, proportion.
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Ironic, architecture & life have so much in common.  Proportion.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken at job site, same home as previous post.  Perhaps this is the magic ingredient of architecture engaging Thomas Jefferson........1789 Mar. 24. (to Joseph Willard) "We have spent the prime of our lives in procuring [young men] the precious blessing of liberty. Let them spend theirs in shewing that it is the great parent of science and of virtue; and that a nation will be great in both always in proportion as it is free."

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

How to Get Guests to the Front Door Instead of the Back Door

Welcome to the front door.   Many park here, below, the family parking court, then walk to the back door.


Perhaps a pair of historic marble urns at the granite step?  An invitation of welcome to the front door.  Not in the original plan but something shouting possibility.


By car, above/below, a drop off at the brick path.  Another possibility shouting!








Front door, above.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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History & subtlety are major goals in this garden.  For decades I've known if mistakes are made they must be on the side of Too Simple.  Easier & cheaper to add something later than to undo paths, trees, bushes....  This isn't a mistake merely the garden speaking its wisdom and us paying attention.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Do You Know When to Edge a Gravel Drive?

Soon the crape myrtles will arc & touch over the gravel lane.


Designing this century old property back-to-its-history the edges of the gravel lane, above, have been designed with extreme concern.  Perhaps you think they are undone?  Not considered?  Messy?  Amazing how subdivision landscape design taints perceptions.  I can see Flannery O'Conner walking down this lane not a curbed concrete ribbon in one of today's subdivisions.
 

Yet, at the end of the crape myrtle lane, above, a parking court is tucked in with neatly clipped hedges & gravel edged with cobblestones.  Formality.  Bang.  Huge garden design decisions not meant to be 'noticed', but, deeply intuited.  Even by those not interested in gardens.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics at jobsite last week.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Work in the Barn

Left open with intention.


Come inside.


Unfinished & mostly empty, the old barn has pulled us inside for over 2 years.  Structural & mice & wind & electric & rain & heating & flooring issues are done.
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The completed list is a definition for 'beloved'.
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Big plans.  Of course you will be kept in the loop.  And I'm sure, one day, invited.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this week.  Incomplete, the power of intention is already producing results from this space of grace.  Often I design the Poverty Cycle into plans.  This barn is literally historically from America's poverty cycle.  Top pic is instructive.  Do I include that much integrity of personal character from the hand-heart-mind that built this barn?  A rich thought, humbled by a barn.