Garden Design Rule for Eyesores & Terrible Garden Gifts

This client was not home at the start of my work.

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I lasted an hour before I HAD to Move-The-Duck.

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Wish they had hired me before the new concrete walkway, and electrical outlet.
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Not much to do, if the dressed duck must stay.  Did you know there is a Garden Design Rule for this situation?  If you have an eyesore, place a focal point nearby.
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Doubt my professor imagined this dressed duck as a focal point.
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However, when children, grandchildren, or the toughest, a bit too prickly daughter-in-law are involved, the fill-in-the-blank must be 'displayed'.

Now, the dressed duck is drawing the eye away from the electrical box and providing welcome at the steps.
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A mentor said, "It's what we do with what we have."
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This garden has a child.  The duck will happily stay as long as the dressed duck magic is needed for her.
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The prickly daughter-in-law?  Easy, use her gift prominently in the garden for a few months then it has an 'accident'.  Tree limb, wind, ice, when it is safely taken to the thrift store.  In one garden the offensive item, a resin dollar store birdbath, could not be easily 'lost', that daughter-in-law had prickles of toxic steel.  The birdbath was horrendous.  Epiphany !  I designed a creeping fig at the base to engulf the offensive birdbath turning it into something lovely.
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Knocking at a friend's door for a lunch date I locked eyes on her new wind chime, melted glass beer bottles hanging from fishing line on a bit of tree root, then her.  She merely said, "My step-daughter."  I replied, "It fell and broke into shards."  Now you know the story of that thrift store item.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken at a jobsite this spring.  In the South terrible garden gifts are received with a smiling exclamation, "You shouldn't have, bless your heart."

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.

Keeping & Fixing

Along the side of her home, below, a mass planting of hosta.

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Most of the year these hosta are herbacious.

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During fall they are literally senescence yellow.  With tired mulch.  Two layers of death !  Welcome home.

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She asked for a design in front & back.

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How could I not address the hosta along the side?

My ego isn't about ripping out & starting over.  A bigger challenge is, keep offensive plantings & turn them to delight.

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In the South, blessedly, sasanqua thrive.

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Two sasanqua have been planted & will be espalier pruned flat against the wall.  No trellis or wires needed.

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And all that hosta?  Remains in place.

Soon, these 3 gallon espalier sasanqua will be lush plantings, diminishing the impact of gas-a/c.  And the fleeting impact of the hosta.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at a jobsite this month.
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Sasanqua espalier are often in my Southern garden designs.  Never do we install already espaliered Sasanqua.  Too d&*% expensive.  Instead, we do the pruning.
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Of course we have to rip plantings out.  Decades of plant-shape-only installed by builders helps no one and literally decreases property values while sometimes cracking foundations-drives-paths.
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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.

Top Garden Design Feature to Help Sell Your Home

For decades this, below, was a bare slope with mulch.

Now, flow exists around the entire home.
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Flow.  Is it easy to walk around the entire home?
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90% of my out-of-state Garden Design work has come from past clients hiring me for their new home. They've each said the same thing, "You helped me sell my home, fast."  The ubiquitous beauty, color, lighting, etc. was important but I know the, unexpected, #1 reason they assume their Garden Design helped sell their home.  Flow.
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Flow.  Get you some.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara  
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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.

Does Your Landscape Describe You?

Beside the front porch, below, is the mudroom entrance.

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 I feel the welcome & delight in each detail.

The wreath is in honor of the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival & this home/garden are on the tour.
Been in Southern Living magazine too.

As if the bench still-life were not enough, the little wall, below, along the path is 'done' too.

Precociously my Tara Dillard garden design rule, "I must know who you are from the garden before ever entering your home.", is wowza answered here.

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Today, seriously look around your garden & home's exterior.  Do they tell me who you are?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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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.

                                                                                 .

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.

Front Porch: Color, Shutters, Narrative

In a subdivision, below, without the trees you would see neighbor's houses from the front porch.

Whenever you see the gardener, dressed up/down, she's arrayed in black/white.  With a bit of bling too, but you knew that from her front porch.

The shutters are bi-fold doors from a closet.  Ick to fab !

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Color, seating, flow, layers, texture, invitation, relaxation, all ages, conversation, dining, narrative.

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Which shouts loudest?

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I adore the narrative, above.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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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.

                                                                                 .

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.

Design Rule: Hint of Invitation

In the bright morning light, below.

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Hint of something, saying, come-this-way.

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Gravel path, boxwood, bench & hydrangeas.

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Paths should engage: foot, eye, mind, heart.

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The language of invitation.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken this month in Susanne Hudson's garden.

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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.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Garden Design Course: Free in a Single Pic

Under a pecan tree not much grows.

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Tara Turf is best.

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Why?

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Increased pollinator habitat increases crop yield up to 80%.

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 Susanne Hudson found herself with 4 benches needing a home.  Exquisitely, they found a home.
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Please put this on one of your Pinterest boards.  It's a free Garden Design course !
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Garden Design: backdrop, canopy-understory-groundcover aka ceiling-walls-floor, color, texture, scale, flow, garden rooms, mystery, serene, poverty cycle, curb appeal, focal point, subsidiary focal point, vintage theme, simplicity, low maintenance, pollinator habitat, urban gardening, structure all year.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic snapped with my phone last week.
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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.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design: Hired to Solve Problems

A current job with incredible modern ca. 1970 architecture, revived with a superior architect ca. 2014, has major challenges.

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Garbage cans, 4 of the hurly-burly-honkers, in front of the house.  

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And.

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Minimal parking trying to shoot you & your car off a cliff.

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Welcome home. 

Have never dealt with this parking problem.

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Solution?

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Balls or low flat planters.

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Have gathered several resources for both and look forward to what the client chooses.

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There is more than 1 right answer.

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Better a car is dented than shot over the hill.

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I adore problem gardens.

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 I'm hired to solve problems.

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Balls with plinths would be awful, want 3 balls, top pic, without plinths.

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If they choose the low planter, I do like its plinth.  And want a round large ball of chicken-wire covered in small leaf ivy and drip irrigation.

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Their lifestyle is more suited to the Balls.  Less maintenance.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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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.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Front Porch: Foundation Plantings or Steps?

Easy knowing they use their front porch, below.  Mosquito repellent sitting at the French doors on the right.

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Their front yard is large & they have children.

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Foundation plantings here are an interesting choice.

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Of course, they have a fabulous large back yard too.

Privacy isn't needed otherwise the foundation plantings would be a bit taller.

Would you, if this were your home, keep the foundation plantings or move them & replace with steps?
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Plant selection is perfecto.  Large house & garden, 2 careers, children, dogs, and a yard easy to maintain.
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Always ask questions.  Makes you an instant garden designer.
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If this were a town home front porch it's amazing how a bit of height on the foundation plantings provide a sitting area with privacy.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics at a soiree last weekend.  This house is close-in Atlanta.  A pocket of woodland in the city.    
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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.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Words: Use with Caution in Styling

With some people, years ago, I learned not to share joyous news.  They took delight in diminishing my joy.  Another epiphany, not too long after, 'I choose the plants in my garden, choose the people in my life.'  Within seconds eject button pushed on several persons.

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Lightening life's load was instant.  No regrets decades later.  

Words in the garden, be wary of using them.  Words, most often, dominate any mood, any narrative, weather, ephemeral delicate beauties, etc.
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Gardens speak, without words.  It is the human cheapening their language.
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Instead of admonishing with a picture proving my 'words' I've chosen an exception.  Words in a garden providing pleasure.  If my garden needs a sign, 'Spring has Sprung', do not ever, in a lifetime galaxy of black holes, hire me.  My garden decadently overflows spring's bounty.  Front door, above, is not my home/garden, it belongs to a young woman.  Her mom renovated/styled the home, to perfection.  'Words', included !
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Love exceptions, and breaking rules.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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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.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

The Proper Direction of Stewardship in a Garden

"We discover G*d's presence inside whenever we override our ego's pride and courageously put aside all that we hide."  Rabbi David Aaron

From the mailbox & gravel drive, above, my best work begins.  

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Getting here was decades.  Learning simplicity & the humility to let the site speak without reference to my 

skills.  Honestly, I wonder how Providence has time for anyone else, attention lavished upon my character defects never wains.
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Nor must I 'own' this site.  My pride/ego is rooted in the work.  A walled orchard is built, a gravel drive spread, potager planted and more, and with each, they are taken by the owner's hands before my feet leave the site.
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I'm in love with this site, and so is the owner.  It is very much the 3 of us.  That is how strongly we relate to these acres.  She is a good steward of her acres and in return I get to watch her acres in stewardship of her.
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Gifts of loving these acres arrive in many forms & layers.  Telling us we are doing the right thing/s.
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Tasha Tudor's favorite line of poetry, 'take joy', in action.  Joy is always there, but it must be taken.
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What does any of this have to do with you?  Stewardship.  Not your stewardship of the garden.  But the stewardship your garden has for you.  Do you have that in your life?  Are you in relationship with your garden?  Does it fill you with joy, enrich your spirit, give you energy just seeing it from the windows of your home?  Good news, it's not about acres & money.  It's putting the garden into relationship with your home & life with historic templates.
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This reads a bit like an altar call.  Ironic, she says her deep feeling with her garden is 'abiding', I feel 'atonement' in mine.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic at jobsite this month.  Silent Partner, I can see your face reading this and know you understand the metaphorical use of filthy lucre.
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My garden is one of my best friends, unconditionally loving, rich in narrative.  A language I can understand.  People?  No, easier to understand my garden.  
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1.  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.

 

Daffodils: Ordering, Siting, Planting

Abiding in the Rustic Barn until the coyote roundup is complete, Jefferson, below, was totally enthralled with our entry for the daffodil bulbs.  

Thousands of bulbs, below.

Once sited thousands seemed like two, maybe three.

A century old the home had no daffodils.  I'm siting them to look as if they have been there longer than a century.  Great billowy drifts.
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These daffodil bulbs, above, will drift thru the fence as if the fence came later.
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Humbling to watch my team plant the bulbs.  On their knees, each bulb hand planted with a small miner's pick.

They start planting at the middle of the drifts, facing each other, on their knees, then moving outward.  All the while bantering amongst themselves.  Teamwork.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Bulbs ordered from Brent & Becky's Bulbs.  Mostly 'Carlton' daffodils.
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Pics this week at jobsite.  Isn't the top pic purrfectly catalicious?  Jefferson was not about to admit interest in our activities.
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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.

Copy from those at the Peak of their Game

You do a thing in the garden with your full IQ, passion, energy, wallet, time.  Influenced by era.

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At my front door, above, if you know the 80's, you're seeing Horticulture magazine, covers of Smith & Hawken catalog, and articles, pages long, from House & Garden magazine.

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So, where do you think I'm going with this?

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History.

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That trinity of resources, above, was from the best brains at the peak of their game.

  Drenched in the poverty cycle of the Great Depression & rusticities of turn-of-the-century Lutyens/Jekyll with generous splashes remaining of the Belle Epoque.

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So, when asked what plant should go in a certain spot or what is wrong with their lawn.  I pause, long.

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Themistocles comes to mind, " "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city."

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So, when I'm told, "I want a garden but I don't have a lot of money."

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Winston Churchill comes to mind, "....when he was asked to cut arts funding in favor of the war effort, he simply replied, "Then what are we fighting for?"

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The best thing I've ever done in my life was to say, Yes, when my soul told me to have a garden. 

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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.

Element of Ranchburger Vile

Iron panels grace ranchburgers across USA.

Reading the English  Telegraph I see, above.
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And I think, Come on USA you can do so much better.  We have the same iron panels to work with yet they are vile.
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Adore getting every new ranchburger client.  Too easy to create charm from vile.  Toss in the builder's ranchburger landscaping & I can barely drive without carefully wearing my imaginary Ranchburger Blinders.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Ranchburger?  Me?  I live in a Guppy ca. 1985.  You know, gaping garage + drive facing the street with a teensy front door.  So bad, some neighborhoods were built with deed restrictions against them.  Go team !
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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.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

                                               Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.