Changes: You be the Designer

The first, known, gay friend I ever had was working a Garden Center in the 80's.  Most days my stomach ached when I got home, it hurt from laughing so much.  "He" was most of the reason, along with the rest of our perfecto team.  Of course our Garden Center won major awards, we all pulled our weight, and it was fun.  You haven't lived until you've unloaded 18-wheeler trucks from Florida, on  hot summer southern afternoons, full of plants and a few snakes.
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Will never forget "Him" saying, "Oh no honey, I wasn't born gay, it happened when I joined the Navy !"  Then dancing away.  Mostly he never walked away, he danced away.
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"He" was so good at Garden Design, excepting, knowing when to stop.  Whenever he created a display we all sighed in disbelief at its magic, but then he didn't know when to stop.  We waited till he clocked out, then removed a lot of ingredients, exposing the magic again.  The next day, seeing what we did, he'd be miffed, but ignore it, with the most hilarious rat-faced expression.
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I love the garden, below, but the plants at the front porch look like "Him" before the reduction.  We would have taken the plants to the right of the step OUT.  And added more stone steps along the front.
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Pics, above/below, here.
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But you already knew that about plantings at this front porch, right?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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With the porch plantings, above, you're caged in.  Remove the plantings, freedom, and flow reign.  See more pics of this beautiful home, interior/exterior, here, it's worth it.  Also, note the caption written for this same picture in the original article.  I hear AC/DC, B-A-D.  Captions should take the narrative of an article/picture, and add another layer.
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I show 'Changes' pics because it's how I learn best.  Hope you realize I'm not bashing this home/garden, in the least.  Heart on my sleeve with gardens.....

Copy Valentino

Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.  Check the ego, earn your Cheshire Cat smile, once realizing, there is no such thing as copy-exactly, each site is unique, hence the algorithm proves you a genius, each time you copy.
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Valentino, below.  Yes, 'that' Valentino.  More than clothes, his gardens.  At his home outside Paris, Château de Wideville, below.  In your garden, you are safe to copy anything Valentino does.  After all, it's the exact method Valentino uses, copy-copy-copy.
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Catching a hint of Furlow Gatewood, below, in Valentino's garden?  It's no accident the pots, below, have cone shaped evergreens contrasting with the weeping focal point.  Classic Garden Design.



Garden Design course, below, moving from formal at the house, to less formal, and though not in the photo, below, I know a Wild Wood ends the progression.



" at the Love Ball, the estate got a fairy tale makeover courtesy of famed set designer Alexandre de Betak, who created a magical, Dr. Zhivago-inspired mise-en-scène. Bryan Ferry performed, and guests such as Carine Roitfeld, Stella Tennant and Daphne Guinness were treated to a unique fashion show featuring one-of-a-kind dresses from 45 international designers. Mistress of ceremonies Anne Hathaway wore Valentino, of course. ", from, pics too, Valentino Garavani Museum.    

Why didn't I think of this?  A Dr. Zhivago-inspired mise-en-scene themed garden party?  And, every bit a tax deduction.  What I would really like to know, is how they mow perfect stripes, below, at the stone focal point.  Do they move it ahead of mowing?  Amusing, I really don't know how they do it.



Wish we all had Valentino's gardeners, in our own garden.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Furlow Gatewood, below, just in case you missed the iconic shot.
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Pic, above, Veranda.

Subdivision vs. Manor Home Landscape

Subdivision home vs. Manor home landscaping.
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Do you see both within the landscape, below?  Which elements are the manor home plantings, which elements are the subdivision plantings?
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Easy change, below, to go from USA gated subdivision plantings to historic European manor home.



Pic, above, here.
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Once you 'see' the change, above, and understand 'why' the change, you won't/can't ever go back to this moment, not knowing what is off-kilter, above.  More, you'll realize how much easier, and affordable, historic manor house gardening is and why it's more than 'gardening' but an intellectual pursuit within your quiver of life skills.  The gift of stewardship vs. amusement, conviction with humility.
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Replace annuals in the pot with a simple mushroom top evergreen, matching what is already in the garden.  Replace annuals at the door with another row of evergreens, matching what is already in the garden.  Done.
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Annuals, above, are vestiges of ca. 1983 high-end apartment complexes across Atlanta, GA.  Still a beautiful garden design conceit, for that niche.
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Historic manor house gardening is the ultimate status symbol, and eco, and sustainable.  If you like eco/sustainable you don't even want to think thru the footprint of cell-pack annuals upon this dear sweet Earth.
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Garden & Be Well, XOT
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Why the drama of conviction with humility?  Remember well, in my early 20's, degreed engineer, no horticulture degree yet, and heading to the garden center with a mission, I was going to buy flowers & a few bushes, come home and plant everything, creating the best landscape ever seen by mankind.  My heart/efforts were in such earnest, what else but smiling in memory?  That garden?  Worst ever seen by mankind.  The 1st major humbling in my life.  Humility arrived, thick, upon that garden lesson, I had wanted my pretty garden so badly, THAT DAY, instead, whooped by a mere horrendous garden.  Oh my the humor of it.
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1st visit to many of my clients thru the years?  There is so much laughter.  Bearing witness to conviction without humility.  It's human nature, to begin gardening with conviction, humility not upon the horizon.

Front Door: A Course in Beautifully Scaled Details

Off the edge of perfect, below, beyond perfect.
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Have never understood the predilection for oversized lights at a front door.  Studying historic gardens across Europe for decades, diminutive lighting, compared to USA, is the memo.
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Tara Turf, below, to the foundation.  Alone, enough to instigate a nastygram from any HOA.  Here's the deal with Tara Turf, it's a rich way to live, according to Providence.  And me.
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Opulent patina, not pressure washed away, on the walls, below.



Pic, above, here.
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Who knew I would ever think a collection of little green meatballs was charming?  Indeed, these are.  Here, they are a whimsical pun.  You already thought the same thing, right?
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The pair of small spheres.  Swoon.  Their plinths, double swoon.
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Notice the climbing roses?  Not the physical plant but what they do for the design.  Taking very little space, espaliered, they give maximum lush.
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Tiny gravel, above, color of the house, drifting into most-of-a-circle tiny flagstone, again colored to the house, terrace.  With no edging between gravel/plants or gravel/flagstones.  Your already picked up on this huge detail, edging, right?
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Enfilade, above, is something we have at our ca. 1900 American farmhouse.  Ours, 80' long, with heart of pine floor, I'll have to figure out how to get the shot, we even have the trees in back, but our pond is behind the trees.
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Our house, now, has a small gravel parking court in front, we kept the previous owner's half-round of bricks at the front steps.  Unbelievable, the vernacular language is the same, this home, above, and ours.
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This front door, above, says the most important thing, "Welcome."  And, "You want to come inside, this house is interesting, the people who live here I want to know and see more, the garden, and....."
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Beloved is a pressure washing fool.  One of these days, at present I leave the premises when he pressure washes, I will stand my ground, and instead of crime scene tape outlining a body on the ground, Beloved will pressure wash around my body on the wall of our home.  If this were our home, above, I know his pressure washer would have something 'wrong' with it each time he tries to use it.  Buy a new one?  It would have something 'wrong', always, too.

Simplicity vs. Cliche

From forever I've learned best from completed problems, pictures & places.  Copy the best, copy what works, saves time/money.
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Simplicity, below, at top form.
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Easy, you think, they've got the money for 'simple'.
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Not so fast.  More than money, below, their landscape is rich in wisdom.  Garden Design of the ages.
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When you have a natural focal point, frame it don't compete.
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Had the good fortune of learning this while studying historic landscapes in northern Italy, Lake Maggiore, to be precise.




Pic, above, here.

Garden design cliche, below, when there isn't as much money, space, nor existing natural focal point, as, above.
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Yet.  Life's riches are no less precious, below, than, above.
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Good garden design is not about money, it's about using your full intellect.
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How would you garden design a richer life, below?  Seriously, what would you do to the garden, below?

  

Pic, above, here.
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What would I do, above ?
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I would remove all porch railings, add a stone step between porch columns, take out foundation plantings, placing those foundation plantings along the sidewalk at front, and add more along the sides of the home, about same distance as those at the front.  For starters.
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As is, this home is already pulling me inside, imagine if the landscaping were good too.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Edith Wharton: Voids & Masses

"Proportion is the good breeding of architecture.  It is that something, indefinable to the unprofessional eye, which gives repose and distinction to a room:  in its origin a matter of nice mathematical calculation, of scientific adjustment of voids and masses, but in its effects as intangible as that all-pervading essence which the ancients called the soul."  Edith Wharton



Very nice fix, above, to scale, proportion, flow.  Yet there is an added design element not abiding to the rules of scale/proportion and landed onto the terrace from Mars.
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Which is the good fix?  Which is the ill conceived addition?
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First, brava to the terrace design flanking the entire back of the home, flowing in vanishing threshold from every window/door.
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Yet, that is not the 'good fix'.  Adding the checkerboard 'path' to the terrace is the 'good fix', a genius fix.  I sense it was not in the original design, yet makes the original design magic.  A nice reminder of, 'A landscape can be installed in a day, a garden takes a lifetime.'  Many layers of nice thought, above.
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Yet one zone, above, is awkward.
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Have you nailed it yet?  It was more common at the front end of the trend, but has tamed itself in recent years.  The fireplace.  Oh my.  It's a fireplace with a house, not a house with a fireplace.  Fireplace monument to the gods.  The monolith floating in space at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, ca. 1968.  A fireplace with no soul, merely a good salesman.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T



Pic, above, from the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, here.  Remember well, and not understanding seeing 2001 at its premier, not far from the Astrodome & Gulfgate Mall.  Oh my the joy of growing up shopping there, especially, Sakowitz.  Their clothes & shoes, and their fabulous decorations at Christmas.  Neiman's was a wannabe back in those days !  Odd to learn, just now, below, Gulfgate housed some of NASA before it could be completed for workers.  Helping mom choose dad's crypt the salesman shared his story of painting NASA buildings as fast as they could because NASA workers were sited all over Houston/Pasadena awaiting their buildings.
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Wikipedia, "It was the first regional mall in the Houston area, opening as Gulfgate Shopping Center on September 20, 1956 with Joske's,Sakowitz, Weingarten's, J.J. Newberry and W.T. Grant.^[2] The architects were John Graham & Company.^[3]

Gulfgate Kiddieland opened in the mall on March 21.^[4]

In the early 1960s, while the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) was under construction in the Clear Lake area, NASA personnel opened temporary offices in center in about 3,000 square feet (280 m²) of floor space donated for the purpose by the Gulfgate management. MSC had a continuing operation there until additional office, engineering and laboratory space could be leased and made ready for occupation. Operations at the Gulfgate offices were largely concerned with procurement, personnel and public affairs.^[5]

The shopping center was enclosed around 1967 and, after years of decline and competition, shuttered in 2000. In 2001 the original mall and the former Mervyns (across Woodridge) were demolished and redeveloped into a strip mall configuration, anchored by H-E-B, Best Buy, Office Depot, Marshalls, and Lowe's "

Take it Easy, Mon

What is your landscape to you?  What role does it play in your life?  How does your landscape leverage your life?  Is your landscape a monthly check to someone else?  Is your landscape full of chores?  Your landscape informs the world of your views, what information is your landscape telling me?  Have you ever thought to ask yourself, "What does my garden say about me?"  Are you to be patted on the head for keeping the HOA happy with your landscape, and no more?  
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This spring, for your landscape, choose your own perspective.
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This perspective, below, is my favorite idea of a landscape.
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In a word, do you know what that perspective is?



BACKDROP
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I want my garden to be the backdrop to my life.
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Who wants a garden, typically installed by the builder, to be endured?
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A garden backdrop to your life is leverage, joy, and grace.
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Green meatballs are usually a negative, yet look how many green meatballs are behind Tory Burch, above.  How smart her urns, never need planting or watering.  Ever.
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Green, brown, white is the most successful garden color trinity for centuries.
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If you maintain lawn/bushes, why not choose them as beautiful backdrop?  Delight in thinking, how to go beyond builder installed plantings, how to make magic from HOA rules.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Obviously this post is about certain ages of life.  Have had several clients this year, moving from their many decades family home, into retirement communities.  All of them, landscaping is provided & maintained as part of the 'package'.  All are in their 70's.  Each of the phone calls quite hard for both of us.  Life must be faced, and they are doing it in grace & elegance.

Don't Design Bifurcate: Interior & Exterior

For years I would write the editor of a specific interior design magazine asking why they would show beautiful interiors with terrible views out the windows.  No reply, ever.
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However, the month arrived when that magazine had every interior photograph edited/photoshopped to its exterior views with a brightness as if a glare of a beautiful garden, all the ugly views, poof/gone.  And, the magazine has continued editing exterior views for years.  Nice story, yes?
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This, below, is not that magazine.
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Great interior, yet a bifurcation of decorating styles, life choices, from inside to outside.
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What to do?



Quick thought, without seeing the rest of the home's interior, stain the deck a shade, or 2, darker than the walls, above.
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Poof, interior/exterior no longer bifurcated.
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Another solution, add a shutter to lower half of the window, leaving only vistas of sky, trees, birds...
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Money is no issue solution?  Enlarge the deck, choose a new rail, stain same color as walls, turn window, above, into French doors, fix a drink, put a new album on the turn table, enjoy.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic, above, here.

The Language of a Garden's Entry: Not What You Think

Are you aware there is a classic repertoire of garden design language?  You know, the one without words.

A witty welcome, below, shouting, 'Come in'.  Restraint, grandeur, provincial, elegant, color, while informing reams of information about the house and its owner/s.



The language of garden design is quite simple, contrasts.  Simplicity with decadence, rustic with formal.



Designing an orchard next to this garden room, above, is obvious or at least it should be.
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I've known this fact for decades, since 1st studying historic gardens across Europe.  Only later, much later, an embarrassing slug's pace, did the epiphany arrive, Providence never separated agriculture from ornamental horticulture.  They are entwined, they are one.
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Amusing, and sad, how many elementary school gardens are planted with vegetables & herbs, without their contrasting ornamental garden.  Why sad?  It is the ornamental garden adding up to 80% increases to agricultural yields.  How?  Pollinators.  Worse, the full language of a garden is not passed to the elementary school students, nor their teachers.
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Another way to look at the top pic and garden design?  Most often, in USA, a stone wall leading to an estate or high-end gated neighborhood is fabulously planted with a cornucopia of ornamental plants & monoculture lawn, everything irrigated, chemicaled, maintained.  Ironically, copying the best high-end apartment complexes.  Often, also, a piece of farm acreage purchased to construct a fine home, builds a couple of stone plinths connected with a gate then a few plantings tossed in.  Their new neighbors wondering, "Did that land sell-out to build a starter home subdivision?"  
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Oh my, the language of garden entry ways.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Pics from NaramataBlend.

Face Heads Correctly in Your Garden

Dogs, horses, lions, mostly, are the heads I have the joy of placing properly in gardens.  Don't I have the best career ever?
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Heads-up, these dogs, are looking in the correct direction.  



If you have a pair of heads in your garden, their correct placement is most often, above.
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Oddly, irritates me no end driving thru neighborhoods and seeing heads facing that grand morass-muddle-chaos of the great beyond termed The Public.  Wouldn't you rather give a lion's ass to the public?  Don't give the power of your garden away, facing heads the wrong way.  It's your life, joy, beauty.  Beauty.  There is a garden design secret I discovered about Beauty.  Designing your garden to be beautiful from every window of your home, yes every window, creates beauty in the opposite directions too.
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Got heads?  Getting heads?  Think it thru.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic via here.

Consider Views into Your Home from the Garden

In a garden your home is the quintessential focal point.  Not content to leave this design facet forsaken and alone, views into your home are subsidiary focal points.
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Today, this moment, think with your mind's eye, walk in your garden, around your home, all the while, looking at your home.  No window view, into your home, can remain undesigned.  An unfinished basement window?  I don't care about the reality of the situation.  That unfinished basement easily becomes the guest suite, or perhaps the multi-media party room, in theory, depending upon your window treatment.  Again, who cares about the reality?  Reality, don't go there with me.  This is the reality.
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And, looking into your windows from the garden, you must be interesting.  I must want to know who you are from those views.
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So.  Who are you?  Do views into your windows tell me who you are?
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"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.", "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.", Carl Jung.



Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic, view into my home of 30 years.  Cannot wait to start working on views into our American farmhouse ca. 1900.  Not to that layer yet.  Have done the fake it till you make it views into windows at present.

What is Special About this Garden?

What is special about the landscape, below?  Take away the lovely home, insert a 3 bedroom 1960's brick ranch with a carport, and still, every drip of special about the landscape remains.  Small input, huge output, in the garden, but specifically, why is it special?



Most USA homes are entered from the driveway.  Above, a garden entry leads you into the home.
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Normally, the garden entry, above, is lawn next to the driveway.  Perhaps you would like a pretty garden instead.  Welcome home.
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Note, too, layers of green.  Layers of green never fail, and succeed quickly.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic via Pinterest.

Washington Post: Richard Arentz Home & Garden

My construction team laughs at my proclivity for garden designing French doors from windows, adding retractable screen doors too.
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From the French doors, below, site a focal point on axis, add a path to the focal point, plant an allee of understory trees with flying buttresses of canopy trees, underplant with an evergreen groundcover, finish this garden room with its walls, an evergreen hedge.  Put in a cross axis just behind the evergreen hedge.
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This garden design, written, above, pictured, below, is a classic 1,000's of years old.  It sites beautifully along the sides of a home too.




Notice, potted plants each side of the French doors, above, become interior floral arrangements.
Choosing a rounded bowl for the orchids was no accident, nor choosing the arching/caning habit in contrast to the exterior understory trees.
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Staging this shot, they've used both house/garden as 1 proscenium.
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In addition to describing how to design this house/garden, above, the verbage is correct.  Most often, clients know what they want, have a pinterest board, yet do not have a vocabulary for what's in their pictures.
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Garden, above, is also little maintenance, and with the right plants, deer proof/drought tolerant/no chemicals/pollinator habitat.  If the house, above, is facing western sun, the allee of trees is shading the house in summer, dropping its leaves allowing the winter sun to help heat the house, lowering HVAC costs.  And, raising property value, while increasing the joy of living here.
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Pic, above, from Richard Arentz's Washington Post article, by Adrian Higgins.
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Biggest take away?  House & garden are a single proscenium.  Site the garden from inside your home.

Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Garden Design Rule: The Tablescape

Vanishing threshold, below, a fecund tablescape.

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A tablescape proscenium.

Across Europe, studying historic gardens for decades, have seen tablescaped tables on  terraces, luring, without words, propelling feet & intellect to investigate.  

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Their insouciance ineluctable.  

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So often seen, having a tablescaped table on a terrace/deck/patio/porch seems to be a Garden Design rule. 

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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Pic by Carolyn Barber from here. 

Nicky Haslam & Miles Redd

Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.  If you don't like rules, who does, you'll like this one.

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Each permutation of 'copy' is unique, guaranteed.

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Copying from the best means you are opening a treasure chest to major talents across the globe, and time.

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Copy, it's a 1st rule of Interior Design too.

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Nicky Haslam, below, at a Sussex Farmhouse. 

Miles Redd, below, at his Momma's house in House Beautiful.

Copy, it works for 2 of the best, above.  It will work for you.

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Copy, glad my epiphany came, but why was I stubborn for so long, thinking I could recreate the wheel?  My work became more original once I knew to copy.  Who doesn't enjoy riffing on a theme?  Though, beware the trap of derivative works becoming stale.  

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Florist Shop Technique in Your Garden

I remember well going into the old tiny white clapboard house, engulfed with oleander, gardenias, and sago palms, on the way to League City, TX, with its front half turned into a florist shop, they lived at the back, with mom when she needed to send sympathy flowers.  In the 60's this was not a phone call or internet purchase.  The large glass front refrigerator stuffed with flowers awaiting, scents, vases, ribbons, cut stems in a pile, no, I was not waiting in the car.  Life was electric in that tiny shop & home.
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Saw that house, long abandoned, during my last trip home in December.
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No matter its current state it has sailed a thousand ships in my work.  I have a Pinterest board for Florist Shops.  Clients with acreage, and little time, I send to that board to inspire when they have an open garden or private function.  Temporary beauty easily arranged.
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Claus Dalby, below, from Denmark uses the Florist Shop Technique.  No matter your continent, style, budget, the Florist Shop technique is for you too.    



Pic, above, Claus Dalby.
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Florist Shop Technique.  My favorite type of gardening, see it do it.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Thank you Janelle McCulloch for another great find.

Willie Nelson & Wendell Berry: Save Farmers Save USA

Late to the party, realizing, first from Wendell Berry, then an English ironstone transferware platter, a century old framed print of a farm, studying landscapes across Europe for decades vs. abhorring my USA ornamental horticulture college education, and most recently Willy Nelson and his Farm Aid, the separation of agriculture from ornamental horticulture is not possible.  It is the industrial complex separating them, to their benefit, our loss.  Connecting the dots has been slow, not boring.  Ironic, forces of industrial farming,  commodities/labor, are now borderless, and have played a role across Europe since WWII, cracks in those borders are daily news, and huge in our current presidential election.
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With industrial farming, residential landscapes became industrial.  Mow-blow-go, chemicals to kill bugs, chemicals to kill fungus/disease, chemicals that create bombs are used to fertilize plants while killing beneficial mychorizal fungi/earth worms, aka killing soil, even poisonous used car tires are ground up/dyed & used as mulch, releasing toxic heavy metals into the soil, groundwater, and above a certain temperature become fumes absorbed thru your skin.  How did residential landscapes flip industrial?  After WWII chemical companies lost their buyers.  First buyers targeted by chemical companies in USA?  Mom's with small children playing in the yard.  Spray chemicals to get rid of bugs.  Voila, start of industrial residential landscapes.  Discovered this tidbit a few years ago when keynote speaking at the Perennially Yours Symposium & hearing Paul Tukey speak.
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Lose family farms, lose rural towns across USA, Wendell Berry has written for decades.  What?  Without family farmers, there is no community of shop owners/service providers/arts venues/car dealerships/medical providers/small banks etc, instead there is a WalMart/Family Dollar/Dollar General servicing several dying communities within driving range.
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The Extension Service, for decades, while providing help to farmers, has based success upon production of crops/livestock, solely, not success of farms & communities, even less, healthy soil, safe drinking water.    
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Depressing, above, yet liberating and joyful to 'see' and step away from the industrial complex, more, empowering.
Note, below, from Willie Nelson, he saw all the above, 3 decades ago, deciding to help & stay strong and positive.

Friend Welcome to Farm Aid! Whether you're a farmer, a music lover, or someone who cares about good food and family farmers, Farm Aid has something for you. Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and I serve on the Farm Aid board because we believe that when family farmers thrive, we all thrive. Family farmers are stewards of the land and grow the kind of good food that we all want. And successful farms strengthen their communities - they are the true economic engines of our country. We've come so far since 1985. Over the last 30 years, Farm Aid has inspired more people to care about where their food comes from and the family farmers who grow it. Stay strong and positive, Willie Nelson Farm Aid email: hello@farmaid.org web: http://www.farmaid.org/

Pic, above, via here.

Plates, above/below, I had thought, for decades, 'boring'.  Then, 'saw'.  The patterns, prayers of thanks and method to daily honor what is so freely given, to us.  USA constitution had considered these prayers of thanks, inalienable rights, "

Natural rights are those not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).

Natural and legal rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights"                                                              .

Pic, above, via here.

STANDING WITH FAMILY FARMERS

Farm Aid works year-round to build a system of agriculture that values family farmers, good food, soil and water, and strong communities. Our annual concert celebrates farmers, eaters and music coming together for change.

Pic, above, via, here.
Found/bought a platter in the pattern, above, it is a scene of agriculture sustaining an entire community.

 

A friend recently bought a home and moved to Saint Simons Island and posted this picture, above, of a sunrise, including this line of poetry, "The holiest of all holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart..."   Without a garden I doubt I would have understood its meaning.  In my garden I celebrate secret anniversaries, by the hour.  My greatest root of 'strong & positive'.  
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“It’s mighty hard right now to think of anything that’s precious that isn’t endangered,” Wendell Berry told Bill Moyers. “There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts.”   “People who own the world outright for profit will have to be stopped; by influence, by power, by us.”            "  
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Amazing words from Berry.  They call poets, canaries in the coal mine.  Berry is a poet, and "fierce laureate of the natural world."  
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A current article, below, about industrial farming, including foreign refugee workers in a small USA town. Workers, brought in as refugees, needed as low paid workers for industrial farming with taxpayers subsidizing the rest of their needs. Ironic, USA family farms paid living wages, and created communities which were the backbone of USA, and without killing soil/poisoning water supply.  Until I read Michael Pollans's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Cargill was not on my radar.  Not so now.  Cargill is all about corn, and Pollan manages to make corn sexy.
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In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune  recently:

"Cargill will change its hiring policy — allowing employees to be potentially rehired 30 days after termination, not 180 days — in response to a walkout by Somali workers in Colorado.

After a dispute over Muslim prayer time, about 150 employees at Cargill’s sprawling Fort Morgan, Colo., plant didn’t show up for work for three days — grounds for termination. They were fired. Some of those workers claimed they weren’t allowed to take prayer breaks, while Cargill claimed that it was still following its policy allowing the breaks.

Minnetonka-based Cargill said in a statement Friday that it will change the hiring policy at all of its North American beef plants, allowing former employees terminated for “attendance violation or job abandonment” to be considered for rehiring 30 days after being fired. The workers would have to reapply for their jobs.

“We believe the change in our beef business policy related to how quickly a former employee may be eligible to reapply for positions at our beef plants is a reasonable update to something that’s been in place for quite a few years,” Cargill Beef President John Keating said in a statement.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been representing many terminated Somali workers, said it welcomed Cargill’s change in hiring policy, though it criticized Cargill’s prayer break policy as ambiguous."

Again, Cargill, and others in the industrial farming camp, need cheap refugee labor, salaries paid are not a living wage, the USA taxpayer fills out the rest in welfare payments.  Don't mean to paint Cargill as a 'bad company'', but it's been obvious to Willie Nelson & Wendell Berry, for at least 3 decades, this is exactly where leaving the family farm was headed, the path of unintended consequences.   

A book list, helping to move from industrial farms to family farms.

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Wendell Berry's books.
Tara Dillard's books, ornamental horticulture producing crops yielding up to 80% greater.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver.
The Omnivore's Dilemma, A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan.
The Garden in Winter, by Rosemary Verey.  Ornamental horticulture yielding crops up to 80% greater.
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What do ornamental horticulture gardens have in common with agriculture?  Pollination.  Pollination.  Pollination.  A factor increasing crop yields by 80%.  
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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With more time, this should include new scientific studies about Nature & our health.  Nature & our biomes.  Without which, of course, we die or live in disease.  But I have a residential garden needing a hot tub sited !  Need time & every brain cell to create the most usable yet elegant hot tub known to mankind.  

Garden Design Cheat Sheet: Design Shapes Before Plants

Upon the land, below, do you see garden rooms?  Parlors. dining room, foyer, hallways, mudroom, doorways and more.  And, with the garden rooms, do you see what is dealt with?  Flow.
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Site the first garden room, using the world's most used template, see previous post, from inside your home.  Once your 1st garden room is sited, repeat, repeat, repeat.  Play with rectangles, squares, ovals, circles & more, adding enfilades.
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Need a lawn?  That is your Lawn Room or Meadow or Playing Field or Pasture whichever endeavor best suits your 'lawn' needs.
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With this drawing, below, everyone is an expert garden designer.  Intuitively knowing what is a tree/shrub/groundcover/stone/gravel/focal point on axis/double axis/flow.
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Most important, this is the order of designing your garden, shapes.  No worries about specific plants at this phase.  Shape, then specific plants.
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USA has the Extension Service for best plant choices/zone.  Outside of USA visit nearby old good gardens, and botanical gardens.

Pic, above, via Jala Gardens.

Worst garden design question to ask at the beginning?  What plant goes here?
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Our ca. 1900 American farmhouse is at the start of the Garden Design phase.  Garden rooms & flow.  We must flow via foot/car/tractor/gator, and I must have an orchard, potager, shrubbery, vistas, pleasure walks, garden house, chicken coop, vined arbor for harvest table.  The garden must have something coming into bloom every 2 weeks, ease of maintenance, and make me think, 'Oh WOW', each time I look outside any window of our home, zero watering, chemicals, fertilizing, deer proof, provide a tasty tidbit for the table throughout the year, more than Earth friendly, wildlife friendly, a garden of stewardship, enriching in waves beyond my soul.
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Topics inherent within this mission statement?  Increased property value, decreased HVAC expense, happier days, stewardship.
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Read all of the above, again, with laser precision about property value, decreased HVAC expense, and ease of maintenance.  I went after all of the above, for the love of gardens, instead found many of the truths in a simple phrase, G*d almighty first created a garden.  Won't go into that rabbit hole now, instead, money.  2015 was my year for several real estate sales, for myself & others, fast and at market value, with several perks added.  No, I'm not a realtor.  The homes were staged inside/outside.  All of the above skills put money in my pocket, and my friends pockets too.
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I was gardening to follow my bliss, in addition, much later, a great deal later, discovered I was following the money too.  Thinking of selling your home in the next 3 years?  Stage it now, live in the joy/beauty, reap a larger sales price.  Have your cake, eat it too.
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Not selling your home?  Create a beautiful garden, for you, Earth, friends/family.  Beautiful easier living.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT  

Garden Design Cheat Sheet

Big smile when I saw an old friend, below.  Pair of focal points in double axis, laid in line with central pane of central window of house.  Choosing another historic winner, layers of green, while contrasting shades of green & sizes of foliage.  Nor does this garden skimp upon the full design, using, canopy trees-understory trees-walls of shrubs-groundcover shrubs & flooring.
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Magnificent.
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Simple.  Proven.  Copied for centuries.
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Complete garden design class in 1 picture.
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Lovely home, yet this Garden Design is for all eras & price points.  Especially troublesome architecture.  Think 1960's brick ranch backing the garden, below.  Pendulum swing, in full, yet the garden design holds true.




Pic, Howard Design Studio.
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There are 2 top garden designs surviving the ages, this is 1, above.  And, the 2nd is a variation added to this one.
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Look at the pic, above, while mentally labeling each part.  Canopy trees.  Understory trees.  Focal point on axis.  Double axis,  Flooring.  Walls.  Once you become familiar with garden design terms, you own the process.  Promise.
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This is perhaps the most copied Garden Design of the ages, yet it is new/fresh with each iteration.
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This is your cheat sheet.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

What Historical European Landscapes Can Teach Us About Our Own Landscape

Freshman year of college, aged 17 & having skipped my senior year of high school, I found myself in a cavernous classroom, with hundreds of souls listening to our puppet master gushing ad nauseam into the ether about macro/micro economics.  Except, for me, it was worse.  Little puppet master, obviously, held the secret to vast knowledge, yet his vocabulary was pure gibberish entering my brain.  Looking around, everyone else seemed to get-it.  Stress was building, my 1st college coarse, and knew the game was over.  Finally, I asked my closest amphitheater attendee, "What is a margarine, sounding like, 'marrghareen'?"  An hour spent locked on that word, nothing.  Smiling, she said, "Margin."  Decades later, it still amuses to think in terms of macro/micro.  A personal inner life joke.  How nice it would be to sit for an hour this afternoon listening to Little Puppet Master again, explaining the world's current banking & etc.
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Years after the macro/micro pairing, I locked onto another, sacred/profane.  Most recent pairing to make waves, amusement vs. stewardship.  (If you've ever locked onto a pairing of words.....please leave them in comments, I would really like to know !)      
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Moving on, into the macro about USA landscaping.  Lawn, foundation plantings, mulch, annuals, maintenance contract, fertilizing, insecticides, fungicides, irrigation, pre-emergents.



Pic, above, Pinterest.

With my starter home I immediately gardened as my father had, mowing, and, chemicals, faithfully, monthly, to kill bugs.  I'm not a rebel.  Within a year, I had stopped the 'method', I was trying to get pregnant.  Thinking to stop chemicals until the babies came.  The babies never came, infertility.  However, within 6 weeks of not using chemicals, to kill insects, I noticed I had fewer insects than when I was spraying to kill them.  Macro to micro.  I never used chemicals again, 3+ decades and counting.



Pic, above, Pinterest.

Within 5 years of zero chemicals, I had zero turf remaining.  Almost 3 decades without grass.  Recently moved to a ca. 1900 American farmhouse, there is no lawn, only meadow or woodland or gravel.  Studying the best historic gardens across Europe, it only took seeing 1 to know there is a template for landscapes, in the macro, trees/shrubs/groundcovers/stone focal point/low meadow cut at 2-3 heights/zero irrigation/no chemicals.
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It took designing/installing historic European style landscapes, for decades, to learn they are not merely about no lawn/no chemicals etc.  The agenda is much greater, pollinator habitat, and balancing the sacred/profane, into stewardship of Earth, community, self.  Amusing, I had accepted micro as macro for so long.
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Surprisingly came across a concise micro/macro about American agriculture in an article in The Guardian,  about Edward Luttwak, " Military strategist, classical scholar, cattle rancher – and an adviser to presidents, prime ministers, and the Dalai Lama. Just who is Edward Luttwak? And why do very powerful people pay vast sums for his advice? "
“Most people live such pointless lives,” said Luttwak as we walked toward his gate. “Not desperate lives – they have cable television – but pointless. For politicians, it’s not pointless, but it always ends in disappointment and bitterness. But meaningful? Their lives are not as meaningful as the Mennonites. The Mennonites are free in the Hegelian sense – they are self-consciously free. And they have unintentionally revealed the ongoing fraud of American agriculture. They don’t destroy the land, they don’t drug animals to death – they make vast profits using 18th-century technology. Personally, I cannot live that life, but I want it to flourish. I relate with Ulysses because I demand an interesting life. I demand it.”
Full article, The Machiavelli of Maryland, here.
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Bunny Williams home, above.  Her garden resonates, it's the historic template, yet more.  Obvious she has demanded that her life be interesting.  Her book, An Affair With a House, is one of the few I tell my clients to purchase.  If you learn best via photos, her book is for you.  It's about interior/exterior, vanishing threshold.
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Bottom line?  What kind of landscape do you want around your home?  The landscape of your heart, that makes you smile, or one fitting in with the neighborhood?  Choose in the macro.  Then follow the micro templates of your choice.
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How do you choose in the macro?  Pinterest.  Create a board of pics for landscapes you love.  Don't stop the board until you have at least 100 pics.  There will be a thread amongst the pics, and your landscape will be that thread.  Promise.  Macro, create your Pinterest board, micro, deduce the thread from your Pinterest board.  More than putting in a landscape you'll be creating an interesting life.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T