Garden Design: Use Axis to Site Stone Steps

Where, below, to put fieldstone steps, gathered on site, into the slope?

Fieldstone steps on a sweet slope in a meadow are both focal point and invitation.

At the crest of the slope, above, I face the house where every axis faces my eyes, front porch, side door, windows, back porch.
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There, will be the digging-in of field stone steps.
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The more entry ways a garden has the better a garden is.  The more axis a focal point has the better the focal point.
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Those air conditioners?  Not a problem.
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Solved that, below, at another client's.  Will do the same lapboard 'fencing', above.  Panels are removable.  Life is good with custom carpentry.  Better with a garden you adore around your home.

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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Same garden as previous post.

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I know what meadows are, aside from status symbol.  A gift from Providence.  From a meadow, crops & livestock for our survival.  Free for the taking.  Toil?  Hardly.  In the process of taking from the land we are given metaphors for life.  Providence does speak.

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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.

Free Garden Design Class: Flow

 “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”

— John Muir, 1838-1914, American naturalist, author, and wilderness advocate

Arriving at jobsite yesterday morning, below.  Already knew: 3 generations, 80 - 7 mos., gather here, 400+ acres, cattle, 3 acre lake, view a mile deep from the back porch.

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Matriarch wants a new gate, below, patriarch a stone column.  Will match stones to the house, field gathered from the property, smaller stones as plinth with fieldstone topper as done a century ago.  Sourcing historic farm gates from England making every effort to keep this gate's frame & let an iron monger copy our new (old) idea.  

Do you know what an Alice In Wonderland house is?  They get bigger the closer you walk.  That's this house.

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Go slow reading this, v e r y s  l  o  w.

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What is missing, below?

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Flow.

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Cole Porter wrote about this house, don't- fence- me- in.

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Coming off the right side of the porch, I've put steps.  

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This door, below, leads to the kitchen.  What do you think I designed here?

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Seriously, design this, right now, in your head.

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From the corner of the front porch, and along the entire side of the house I've put in local gravel, 26' wide, straight to the foundation of the house.  A priority making things simple for the matriarch & matriarchs she's raised.  Aside from being historic they must unload groceries easily from their car.  

What else did I do, below?

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What would you do?

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Remember, Cole Porter.

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Have sited fieldstone steps, gathered on site, into hillside.

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More about 'exactly' where they go in another post.  Very easy, stay tuned.

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View, below, from the back porch.

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Have removed the 1st fence, not needed for cattle anymore, and put a gate, needs to be sourced, into the second, with a stile too.  A path of invitation to the lake, adding a flagstone terrace, fire ring, and Old Town canoe with tiny motor attached.

Do you see, below, Cole Porter again?  Where?
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Help, I can't get on/off the porch at the side of the house.
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At the open end of the porch, below, I have put in steps.

Fireplace, and 2 pair of French doors are inside this screened porch.

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Help, I can't get out.

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A pair of screen French doors have been designed into the far right panel, on axis with an interior pair of French doors, with stone steps.  You knew that, right?

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 You should be in the swing of this 'flow' thing.  Finish the song.
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1 thing left to do, below.
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What is it?
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A pair of steps off the left side of the front porch.
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Voila, FLOW.
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Garden design, for plants, must be vintage with no maintenance.  What do you think I did?

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Sleep on it.  Will post the plant design soon.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pics shot at the jobsite yesterday morning.

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This patriarch is one of the closest copies to John Muir I've met, though he looks exactly like Deke Slayton, who lived around the corner and my dad designed booster rockets for, with Wernher von Braun, and trained at the controls .  The matriarch?  I bow low in praise of her.  Met one of the matriarchs she produced, close to my age, at a jobsite we shared, and how I came to the work.  Matriarchs are a special love of mine.  Yet many do not produce matriarchs themselves.  Odd, yes?  When women of a certain age have not crossed into the matriarch zone it is Joseph Campbell, 'if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere.'   Discovered Garden Design 'flow' at Lake Rabun, the family home I married into/out of.  Would marry that alcoholic again solely for what I learned about Garden Design at Lake Rabun.  Driven for Garden Design?  A bit.  Toss in decades of studying historic gardens across Europe.  Yes, I was anal enough to add a motor to the Old Town canoe !

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Flow is done in a Garden Design first.  Not plants.

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Please pass this post to any of your friends who are interested in Garden Design.  It's that important, aka it took me 30 years to be this simple, and sure.  And, my work for Hedgerow Farm.  

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.

Garden Design: Dancing Naked in the Potato Patch

Ca. 1900, below, a 1794 engraving.  Have designed across Atlanta for decades, of course I know where the best junk shops are, and go when clients are nearby.

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Tried not to buy this platter, barely $10, below.  Yet its image seared the might of Providence & what we've lost across centuries.

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The scene, common until post WWII, and in thanks of Providence.  Food & lifestyle & health & metaphor combined.

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Why WWII?  Cheap gas, in USA, and the selling of lawn chemicals to housewives 'needing' to protect their children from harmful insects.  Did you know housewives were a first target of international chemical companies?  

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Men needing their testosterone lawns.  Power equipment, weed free, deep green, perfect.

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Not where I'm going with this post, just a primer for the direction.

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Saw the cabbage truck driving, below, last weekend.  A few slid off on the curves & made cole slaw.  Understand the mood we were in?  Adult giggly, silly, happy for a fine day, and down time.

From childhood have adored garden sheds, garages, garden rooms.  The smells, tools, solitude, no adults near, atonement.

 Harvested last weekend, the dirt gracing these potatoes, below, made me want to find their field, take off my clothes and roll.  A primal urge.  I must be a potato'ist, or soil'ist, no man/woman has ever made me feel this way.  Skip naming my team the Redskins, I'm a potato'ist and can name my team the redskins.
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Soil on these potatoes is alive & asks my hands to reach out and touch.  I do.  There is benediction. Never felt in church.  Read, gout de terroir or, taste of the soil.   

Views from the farm stand, below, there it was again.  Perhaps a slight sprinkle of rain, everyone let's take off our clothes and go dance in the field.  This vanishing threshold of bounty & nature is high church.  Let's give thanks in dance.  Prayers in singing.

Along the side of the road, below, where we first saw the cabbage truck.  This is why Garden Design never bores.  Providence humbles.

Had a wonderful day of Joan Rivers last weekend.  She always said what everyone was thinking anyway.

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This is what I was thinking at the vegetable stand.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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I shot the pics last weekend.  

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Baby, hope this explains why I kept telling you to get the okra but my brain/mouth were saying squash.  Was lost in naked dance with the soil in the fields, thanking Providence.   

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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.

Why You Need to Know Dinky is Stinky

Aside from repetition- contrast- color- copied the window boxes are screaming one of my favorite Garden Design rules.

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Dinky is Stinky.

At the entry way to this hotel, above/below, are begonias.

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When I'm asked a question, and the answer is, 'Dinky is stinky", I know what comes next, widened eyes & complete epiphany.

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The best gardens know, Dinky is Stinky.  A treat to come across a commercial garden getting their garden right.

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Nothing dinky or stinky here, of course we stopped for a refreshing summer cocktail on a hot afternoon in the Great Smoky Mountains.

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 Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Pics shot last weekend.  Gin, elderberry, cucumber, lime, sublime.

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Those begonias !  Remember well, a tiny era during the 80's when interesting begonias were easy to find.  Those days, long gone.

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Collateral information, if you can count the number of flowers, you don't have enough.

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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 Ideas: Double Axis

Garden Design is almost a features game.  A template of features show up in every good garden for over 10,000 years.  Literally.

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Focal point on axis, below.

Focal point on axis, below.

When the same focal point is viewed in 2 axis you have a Double Axis.

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You must have Double Axis with your Garden Design.

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At a minimum.

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But don't stop there.  Sissinghurst Castle has a male nude statue on axis from 5 main views.

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Do the math, that's 10 axis views.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Slow down, go back to the 10,000 year remark.  Why did I put it in?

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A little point made, you will not recreate the wheel.  Instead drive the known wheel, make it travel where you want.  That, alone, is enough to keep you occupied for a lifetime.  

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I shot the pics last month.  

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.

Front Porch: Remove the Rails

No rails.

Shutters are full length door scale, adding 'height'.  Screen door with long top panel, and a plain bottom panel, again adding height.
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Gravel to the house.  Yes.  Downspout is piped away, and round, very nice.
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To enlarge the space further, add step across entire front & side.  More flow/movement.  Cole Porter's, Don't Fence Me In.
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Wonder how the shutter color is being used inside, curious about the color on the ceiling.
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Ironically, everything is done with a sure hand except the pots.  They seem like mere filler (or magazine staging at its pinnacle of pots/pillows) until the correct pots are chosen/planted.
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Historically designed, low maintenance.  Unskilled labor could easily keep this in shape.
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Maria Killam had this pic recently & nailed it on the color.  Made me laugh, all I could see was the 'entire' excellent garden design, color included.  Of course I'm always happy seeing a front porch rail liberation. Would like an architect to do a post on this pic next !
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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.

Learn to Love Garden Design Styles You Dislike

Didn't like these types of gardens, when I began.

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Didn't understand them.

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Decades, and continents, of study later.

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I understand.

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Love these types of gardens.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic lost provenance.
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Historic Garden Design, not ignoring answers for you.  Use your own brain.  That is the gift in this method of learning.  Do you already 'get' these gardens?  What do you 'get' ?  I had the joy of learning this way.  Why take that joy from you?
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Garden Design overlaps much with interior design.  And goes beyond.  As it must, Providence is on the team.
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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.

Gathering Pears: Safety

Their mom wanted to move, the house was for sale.

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Her friends thought otherwise & connived an invitation for me, to come with them, to her luncheon.

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Since then, their home is off the market, we have become bosom friends sharing tears, laughter, grace.

Her husband is now one-of-my-husbands.  He's handy.  Their old deck obliterated, enlarged, improved, a game 'chancha' for their home.  All done with his intellect, heart, muscle.

The helmets were his idea, they had to shake the pear trees to get the last of them down.
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As the layers of my Garden Design arrive, these 2 sprouts, above, are always, as they should be, the focal point of the garden.
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Received these pics a few days ago.  Without words, they tell me I've done my job well.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Last winter's freeze caused pipe damage & flooding inside their home.  The entire downstairs affected.  Lost this husband to his interior work.  Now complete, we've got him back in the garden.  And, when it was time to put furnishings/art back after new floors, walls, painting etc. she did things so differently it was obvious she's entered a new chapter of life.  Simply from how the art has gone back up, the original lunch group 'saw'.
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Pics from client.  Thank you for permission.  Won't begin to tell you more about these girls, aside from how smart they are with common sense and lovely deep streaks of creativity, kindness, humor & wide ranging interests.  Manners, athletic.......and.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

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.

Be the Designer Families Pass to Children & Grandchildren

Why women hire me, below.

Of course I'm hired for many reasons but this is the best, grandchildren.
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Singleness of mission, driven by love.
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Of course they want to be the coolest grandma on the list, more, they want an enchanting garden to inspire & delight growing minds.
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This is a particular sweet spot, my grandma remains the best relationship of my life.  Understand 'grandma think' because mine nailed it.
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Have already designed dozens of gardens for clients, now grown, children.  Don't know when, but it's coming, I will design my first garden for a client's grown grandchild.
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Who knew this would happen, being the garden designer families pass thru  generations?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic The Lime Walk.  The greatest shocker?  Time.  Doesn't seem possible for this to happen.  Designing gardens is fresher, a greater desire, now, than when I first began.
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 For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

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.

Place Focal Points Like Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst

You must see the table + 2 chairs the way I first saw them, below.  Hidden amongst the boxwood parterre.

Walking a bit further, along the front garden's main central axis, below, a hint.

Walking toward this wickedly sited subsidiary focal point, below.

  Walking toward the home and old millstone table, below.

 Walking away from the home, the impromptu trinity of furniture in the garden, below.

Here's the deal with well sited focal  focal points.

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The more axis a focal point has, the better the focal point.

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There is more detail about this in one of my books.

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This isn't something you learn in school or a symposium lecture.

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You learn it studying the best historic gardens across the globe.

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For decades.

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I have a favorite, easy, multiple axis design.

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Works every time.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken this week.  Same garden as previous post.   Remember, the more axis a focal point has the better the focal point.

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Sissinghurst has a naked man statue, on plinth, with 5 axis.

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Hello, I was awake & got the epiphany.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

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.