Hidden Layer of Design in Plain View

In plain view all pics, below, the Garden Design affecting each photo.  A layer I've never read about in a Garden Design book nor heard spoken of in a Garden Design lecture, not mentioned in a garden show on TV.  I have written of it in past postings maybe 1-2 times.
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Designing my previous garden I had no awareness I was creating this 'unknown' layer of Garden Design seen in all of the pics, below.
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Living in my previous garden 30 years, beginning with bare Earth, this 'unknown' layer had to grow, perhaps 20 years worth.  Once arrived, I knew immediately it had been there much longer than my date of awareness.
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Do you see this unspoken layer of Garden Design, below?  Do you have it in your home?
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Enjoy the pics, below.  I'm a firm believer in epiphanies.  If you don't know this layer of Garden Design I'm focusing upon, below, hopefully you will see it with your eyes/heart and be able to give it a name.






























All pics, above, via Cote de Texas.
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The garden, above pics, paints the light inside the home.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Pot Cluster Double Axis

Moving backward thru these blog pages you'll discover several posts dedicated to the Pot Cluster.  Studying historic gardens across Europe for decades, this American was smitten by the Pot Cluster.  Often at a front door, often at a back door, often sprinkled somewhere in the garden.  Pot Cluster, I got the memo.
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There is a common thread with Pot Clusters, they are classic or interesting pots, with a choice array of plantings.  Occasionally the Pot Cluster is on a plinth, aka table.
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Whether studying in a historic garden attached to a modest cottage or 2nd3rd5th10th... home/castle of a monarch, there you'll find the Pot Cluster.
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What else to call it?  What would you name it?  Me?  The Pot Cluster.
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Last weekend, Cote de Texas sent me a personalized post, seemed that way anyway.  Within, she posted a double axis with a Pot Cluster, and didn't even know it.
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I adore a Garden Design class in a single photo.  Pot Cluster Garden Design class, below.  More, the home, below, is huge-historic, and the garden space, minuscule.  More than a Pot Cluster Garden Design Class you are also taking a lesson in creating a lush garden in a small amount of space.  How many layers do you see, creating a lush garden in a tiny realm?  Name those layers, describe them in winter.
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If you take a garden tour in Europe always pay extra for the tea/scones.  Most often, served inside.  A Garden Design study is nothing without seeing inside the house, discovering the axis into the garden, site lines, usage for interior, and exterior.  Flow must be entirely around a garden, and from house to garden, and garden to house.  Effortless, beautiful, seamless, no matter the necessities of hvac, water/hoses, etc....
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Enough, let's go inside.



Notice the lamp inside, above?  Same lamp, below.



Different time of day, below, and the lamp staged differently.



Prepared for a dinner party, below, sofa removed and table on axis with French doors into garden.




Interior & exterior of this home are a Garden Design class of Vanishing Threshold.
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No matter your price point, this is your Garden Design class.
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A friend I met at church lived in a welfare apartment.  She is a gardener.  98% found plants/pots/furnishings on her 2nd story balcony.  I had a blast designing her balcony with what she had, using every Garden Design layer used in the home, above.  Rearranged a few things inside too.
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That's the thing with me, I don't except the excuse, 'I don't have the money......'.  My story is backwards in postings, if you know a bit you know I did it without money.
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Excuse the vulgarity, mentioning money.  Perhaps it's because I remember well, in the 80's after college when my gardening began, and the Smith/Hawken garden catalogs arrived in the mailbox, I assumed those beautiful gardens were not for the likes of me, they were shot in gorgeous estates blah-blah how ridiculous those thoughts.  They slowed me down, and I don't want anyone else to be slowed by that, I've proven the money thing to be wrong.
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There's another thing the garden does for the house, above.  Will show it in next post.  Do you already know what it is, and in shock I've been able to refrain from putting it in this post?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T  
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Why are there so few good gardens?  Why is it so difficult to create our own beautiful garden, at the front end?  Several layers, at the beginning.  Ignorance, we don't have the knowledge.  After beginning with ignorance we enter the phase of ineptitude.  Knowledge gained but applied incorrectly, typically using a fragment to expound the whole, with a strong bias towards understanding the map but not the territory.  

New Layer for Fall & Winter

Time to begin hunting/gathering for winter gardening.
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Incredible silhouettes, below, and packing a punch with a strand of lights.






In my garden shed are several balled strands of white lights, extension cords, urns, and in our woods, plenty of sticks/branches/greenery.
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Mechanics & ingredients accounted for.  Now, pure pleasure vision questing where to place them.
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Yes, will leave the lights on all nite.
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This is your heads-up.  If you enjoy the anticipation of a new garden layer, as much as I do, a new layer has arrived, just now, sublime.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Would be fun seeing how many ships sail from this port.  Better, their structural mechanics.
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Pics Deborah Silver.

Design: Changing Narrative

A 'simple' Garden Design, below, all the layers dramatically in place.  Starting at the top of the picture, now, in your mind, label each layer of the Garden Design, below.
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If you've come to Garden Design, age 50 up, this type of Garden Design holds significant charms vs. coming to Garden Design in your 20's.
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But I'm getting ahead of my story, most of us come to gardening, if we do come to gardening, as the song noted, 'In a heated rush'.  And, 'Seeing what you wanted to see'.
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Until Seth Godin a few days ago I taught garden design for beginners at the Atlanta Botanical Garden and local college, knowing my students needed to unlearn most of what they already knew about Garden Design, as beginners.
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Garden Design appears easy, we try it, and the results prove Garden Design has a lot of elements not readily apparent, though beautifully designed gardens hide nothing.  Excepting. how can you 'see' the process of designing a good garden, how can you 'see' what was left out of the beautiful Garden Design?  Time to switch the narrative from what you thought you knew about Garden Design, as rank novice, to learning the nuts/bolts of real Garden Design.
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Garden Design is not voodoo or feelings about what will work, it is science and art, a historical process, unchanged, since well before the birth of Christ.
 


Pic, above, here.
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"Narrating our lives, the little play-by-play we can't help carrying around, that's a survival mechanism. But it also hotwires our feelings, changes our posture, limits our possibilities.

The narrative is useful as long as it's useful, helping you solve problems and move forward. But when it reinforces bad habits or makes things smaller, we can drop it and merely be present, right here, right now."  Seth Godin

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Exactly, the narrative we have as beginning gardeners, total novices, is our own narrative.  Limiting our possibilities, doesn't move us forward, literally makes our lives smaller.
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Every historic layer of Garden Design, thousands of years worth, is, above.  Though it appears quite modern.  Bless good Garden Design for that.  It allows playfulness with abandon.
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Thank you Seth Godin, now I know it's not the unlearning of our beginning Garden Design ideas we need to do, it's literally changing the narrative.  When we change the narrative, we change our lives.
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Live a smaller life, never move forward, limit possibilities?  What's not to like about changing the narrative?
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More than gaining a new narrative and ability to create an extraordinary Garden Design, the garden once built/planted will continually renew itself, with abandon.  What does that mean?  Once you've put the effort into building a beautiful Garden Design, the garden rewards you, no effort on your part, with a larger life, forward momentum, and limitless possibility.  And with some brownie points included, again without effort, raised property value, lower heating/cooling expense, easier maintenance & lifestyle.  Not bad, for changing your narrative about Garden Design.  
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So, have you named all the layers of the Garden Design, above?  Sky-ceiling, tall trees-canopy, small trees-understory, pruned hedge-walls, low meadow-floor, urn-focal point.  A garden room.  Plant it and you'll have a moat of grace around your home.  And life.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Still Life: Put it in Your Mission Statement

Lecturing in Greensboro, NC many years ago, I had the privilege of touring a private garden.  In the audience, after the lecture, a woman chatted with me and I knew, I must see her garden.  Don't know if she invited me to her garden, or I invited myself.  With facts this bare, we know, I invited myself.
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High summer in Greensboro, NC is not for the faint of heart, heat/humidity rule.  Walking our small group into her home, she casually asked if we'd like lemonade.  You know we did, pure drama and story line, We- had- a- tart- glass- of- lemonade- before- walking- her- garden.
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Blessedly we wanted the drama of the lemonade.  After bringing out her pitcher/glasses, and pouring a round, she set the pitcher onto a small table in her kitchen.  
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Poof.  A new element to my personal Garden Mission Statement.  Can you guess what it is?  Alas, this garden visit was well before cell phones or even the desk top large computers.  No photo of this fateful moment.
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My life, inside my home, and in my garden, must look like a still life, not fake, but a life lived, and in the living, the calm of still life views, reign.
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A small moment, below.  Still life.


Pic, above, here.

Vanishing threshold, below, with still life views.

 
Pic, above, here.

Antiquing with a friend in Florida last week during vacation, she surprised me with this wire egg holder, below.  She knows my chics aren't producing a lot, but this was home 2 days, and 2 eggs, snapped the pic and sent it to her.  Table/chairs ready still life props.
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Moving beyond the still life mission statement, is what I've learned, living this way.  My surroundings leverage my life.  Friends for lunch?  More than easy.  I can ask, Do you want to eat on the front porch, in the dining room or kitchen, maybe in the garden near the chicken coop?  Living here only 14 months, more destinations are on the list.  Not just for guests, but still life spaces for everyday, me alone.  Lunch arrives with the question, Where do I want to eat?  Seasons dictate, work dictates, many lunches in my office, and within my office there are several places to sit with still life views, and eat.
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Keeping boredom at bay with static still life views, I change the details, T R Boote , ca. 1880 'Summer Time' tureen on the table, below, will soon go into the china closet, a fall tureen replacing it.  The table topper changes at least 6x/year, so far.  Working at my first retail garden center, in the mid-80's, we changed displays seasonally, pure luxury with so many flowering plants plus the seasonal merchandise, and it made me aware, the seasonal displays, each, a gift of thanks.  Thank you for being alive another season, another Valentines, another Easter, another Memorial Day, Christmas.  Exactly how I feel in the garden when the akebia blooms, the oakleaf hydrangea, the azaleas, tea olive, thank you, alive another year, taking in the scent of daphne....
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Sure, all of this seems small, unimportant, but how can the days of anyone's life be unimportant?  After touring the Greensboro, NC garden we came inside to her 'garden room', 3 walls entirely windows, French doors to the garden, her library, desk, and seating area were here.  On the desk, a book, Living A Beautiful Life, by Alexandra Stoddard.  Thumbed thru it, and ordered it when I came home.  Have since given it as a gift many times.
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To this day, that Greensboro, NC garden is one of the best I've ever walked in.  I learned more of its story, later, from a friend of hers.  Diagnosed with severe Lupus, she had hired a garden designer, then, before her husband would leave for work, she had him carry her into the garden and set her down in a spot to work.  His office not far away he would come home to move her in the garden several times a day.  That was the start of her garden.
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I came into her story after she had worked for many years in her garden across good days and painful days.  The day we toured her garden, zero sign of Lupus.  What a victory for her, deep, soul satisfying.        


Pic, above, in our kitchen last nite.

It's amazing the dichotomy of still life spaces.  Once filled with your life, alone or with friends, inside or in the garden, you'll long remember the voices, laughter, conversations, how they made you feel.  Rich.


Pic, above, here.

Without knowing, adding still life spaces to my mission statement brought me to, below.

 
Pic, above, here.

Receiving the 'more' is both material and metaphorical.  Significantly weighted, in deep grace, to metaphorical.
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Designing beautiful gardens for clients is a joy as their plantings mature, better, are the phone calls, notes, or texts, clients letting me know of the metaphorical riches, aka stories from their lives, their gardens are bringing them, their family/friends.  So, more than adding still life to my personal mission statement, it seamlessly slipped into my professional mission statement.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Contrast Makes Your Garden Pop

Contrast is the basic ingredient of Garden design.  Both pics, below, use the same type of contrast.  Can you label it?
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I grew up, as most Americans, without a vocabulary for gardens.  Worse, after receiving a horticulture degree, I still had no proper, historic, of the ages, vocabulary for Garden Design.  Garden Design and horticulture are 2 different professions.  Toss in Agriculture, and you have 3 professions.
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That's another rabbit hole of conversation, so, back to labeling the contrast technique used in the pics, below.
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I've taught horticulture and Garden Design for over 20 years at a local college, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  One of my favorite teaching tools is adding proper vocabulary to Garden Design photos.  Name it to claim it.  Never more be moved by beautiful garden photos, yet unaware how to describe them in detail.
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Of course there is an entire TV industry of garden shows thriving on viewers lack of knowledge.  Most often the ambush garden show, with fast before/after, are comedies of the wrong sort, dark comedy.  If you know horticulture, aka plant care/culture/habit, you know how quickly the 'after' garden will fail.  Discussing merit of those Garden Designs, mostly what I learned in college, incurves and outcurves, planting beds, drifts, accent plants, landscaping, all well represented.  If you want any of that stuff, don't hire me.  I won't do it.  Historic, of  the ages, that's my venue.
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Beyond beautiful, below, it's historic Garden Design, and the plantings show deep knowledge of planting materials, aka horticulture.  What is the contrast, below?  The main contrast is spikey with rounded, followed with contrasting color of foliage, and contrasting foliage sizes, and contrasting layers of height.  Four more elements, huge, below.  You know horticulture well if you have already labeled the last 4 elements.
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Drought tolerant plantings, below.  Deer proof plantings, below.  Disease resistant plantings, below.  Insect resistant plantings, below.  The last asset, below?  All year interest, plenty of structure left for winter interest.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Same Garden Design conceit, above, but the plantings, aka horticulture, could be either fabulous or problematic depending upon your location/zone/elevation.  Peonies & foxglove, classic spike/round combination.
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In the deep south peonies can do well, but not the lush abundance of northern climates, and a dry, hot, southern spring/summer, will invite spider mites to the foxglove, and irrigation will be needed.  Also, above, this section of the garden will be bare, empty, with so many herbaceous plantings during winter.
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A lot to consider, above, about Garden Design, and personal choices of what you wish to look at in winter.  And, excellent examples of using spike/round contrast.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Garden Design Class in a Pair of Pics

Attracted to the marvelous sliding doors, below, the wood stoop and small planters had me send this fabulous home & garden to my Pinterest Changes board.  Lastly, a 3rd issue from garden to kitchen for the Changes board.  Especially a home with young'ish children and these gorgeous interior wood floors.  
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A mini Garden Design course in 2 photos.
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Do you see all 3 changes immediately?
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I'll give you a moment to look at both pics carefully.  There is an easy inexpensive solution for the stoop, and a better, not inexpensive solution for the stoop.  At the open sliding door threshold is a minor 4th issue.  See the easy fix for issue 4?
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Classic mistakes, below.  Human nature !  At the front end, before getting a Horticulture degree, then traipsing Europe for 2+ decades studying historic gardens I made the same mistakes too.  Once you know what the Garden Design mistakes are, your eye is trained to see them, correct them, easily, every time.
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Of course there may be zero mistakes, below, solutions could already be designed, just not installed.  A likely scenario if you take a tour of the interior, here.
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Look at the pair of pics, below, again.  Got your Garden Design solutions?





Pics, above, here.
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Change #4, the door mats inside & outside should match.  The tight space will enlarge, flow, and become more of a 'foyer' between inside/outside instead of the current abrupt divide.  My choice would be a pair of door mats, large, similar in looks to the existing mat inside the home already.
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Change #3, transition from beautiful stone terrace to gravel to wood stoop to interior of home.  This change makes me smile, I made the same mistake as a garden designer in my 20's.  Matching stone from the terrace should be installed into the gravel transitioning to the wood stoop.  Why?  Significantly reduces amount of gravel stuck in shoes, or paws, to be tracked inside, and gouging/scratching that beautiful wood floor.
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Change #2, Dinky is Stinky, need much larger pots at those sliding doors, and wider apart, setting them left/right off the wood stoop.  Remove 2 bushes at right of wood stoop, replace their planting bed with more gravel.
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Change #1, will start with cheap/easy do it today.  Stain the wood stoop same color as sliding doors.  The house is much too elegant for this wood stoop left over from the set of F Troop.  A more expensive change to the wood stoop, replace it with a single slab of stone, custom cut the same or a bit deeper.  Wood stoop vs. stone landing.  Already the verbage is a nicer story.
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Again, seeing the interior of this home, I think the 'Change' layers I've mentioned are already on their to-do list.  Their attention to detail quite wonderful.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Put that green extension cord under the gravel.  I know you already thought that.  A funny thing about gardening, the small victories.  Just getting the cord buried is a big deal, having the door mats match.....

Choose the Classics: Add Your Character

This would be a fun Garden Show template, below.  All entrees must use a day bed, 2 wicker chairs, wicker coffee table, wicker end table, the same amount of space, but after that, no rules.  Color, cushions, accessories, free to choose.
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The classics with infinite variety.


Pic, above, here.
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Next to, above, I would like to see the entry belonging to modern cutting edge techno masculine.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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No budget for , above?  Hunt/gather furniture basics, paint all the same color, you're on your way.

Detail & Restraint

Vanishing threshold, below.  Amazing detail and restraint.
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Detail and restraint, something to ponder.  More, once achieved, it must clearly be who you are.


Pic, above, here.
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Home, above, is in Carmel by the Sea, complete house tour, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Good Looking Green Meatballs

This exception, below, was too many years arriving.  Good looking, year round interest, not too much maintenance.
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What's the exception?  These are green meatballs that look great, have an intellect, and finally proved me wrong about how horrible green meatballs are.
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Most often green meatballs evolve in default.  Perhaps you have some now, maybe you can look at them thru this prism, below.  Poof, voila, create good green meatballs from bad.


Pic, above, here.


Pic, above, here.
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Who knew even ugly green meatballs could have new life chapters?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

A Garden of the Mind: Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe

Immediately made me smile, the pun, below.  Then, more closely, I marveled at the contouring.  Please tell me you see the pun too.
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It's in the filled space vs. open space, the stone bridge.  Wicked good.  What a devious mind.
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Back to the contouring.  Who knows what this site began with.  I do know the equipment & men to create it.  I know the sound of the caterpillar, men's voices, shovels.  Time.  Finally, I know the sound of shovels stopping when I arrive, all those men's eyes, totally on my body language.  My job is the finished garden, their job is getting it there.  My boss is the client, their boss is Beloved.  Even Beloved does that little 'freeze' thing, focused on my seeing the nearly completed project.  The men know up front, it takes Beloved a bit longer, when I speak, I mean it.  "The front right corner needs to be raised 3", and what's going on with the mid section of the upper rill to the left, didn't you pull a string on that, good job on the wonky tree, but why did you place the entire rill/pond/waterfall further up, I told you earlier the upper waterfall would need faux geometry..... ?", for starters.  Each concern has a detailed answer.  Sometimes Nature cannot be manipulated, I give in, other times a new solution must be found, while looking the same, other times, I am adamant.  My job, at this critical juncture, is to be fierce.  The men love the theatrics of this phase.  Beloved with his 30 years experience, me with my 30 years experience, in discussions.  Beloved's boss is the cash register.  Tick-tock with men, equipment, materials, ring-ring goes the cash register.  Hundreds of dollars/hour, every hour, just to be on site.  Once all of the, above, has occurred there is another sound, men & shovels & caterpillar back to work, sweet.  Sweeter still, a completed garden.    


Pic, above, here.
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Another bite of humor, above, squares & straight lines.  In college is was all the incurves/outcurves blah-ti-bla-ti-nightmare to the 29th power.
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I liked this garden, above, so much I had to follow the links, hoping to discover the designer.  Great answer, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe.  Alas, having met and been able to spend time with Christopher Lloyd & Rosemary Verey, Sir Geoffrey got past me.  A friend, director of Atlanta History Center, many years ago, hired Sir Geoffrey to pull together a master plan/vision statement for the center.  Didn't learn of the visit till well past the event.  So close....so close.
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Pic, above, and to order, here.

Great title, above, exactly what Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe's gardens do to me, get in my mind, and stick.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Expense for labor, travel, materials, regulations, insurance, layers of government Atlas Shrugged, make operations needle sharp.  For decades if a client pulled men off our work in the bid to clear a patch of kudzu or haul away a pile of debris, not in the bid, we could absorb.  Now, the men are only allowed work within the bid.  What seems merely a few guys spending an hour on weeds, is now several hundred dollars plus, at times, pushing travel into rush hour traffic, adding hundreds more dollars, toss in rain, delaying a day.  The amount of money 1 hour of work outside the bid adds is outrageous.  Then, the ridiculous expense of adding a 'tree'.  The extra tree has its own pricing without reductions for quantity , from the nursery from the original bid, delivery overhead, and voila, that extra tree, costs as much as several of the original trees.  Wildly crazy, but true economics of today's business model.  Now, it's a change order for that pile of debris or pulling out kudzu.  Never thought my industry would become like this.
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Some neighborhoods have a fee for using their roads.  One client, a large job, told us a few days into the work he did not want us working past 5pm.  The bid was priced on work from sunrise/sunset.  We lost, aka, added 3 days time to the work.  Not listed in our bid, we absorbed the loss.  Yep, pricing from sunrise/sunset now in the bid, change quitting time to 5pm, not a problem, change order.
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Early this summer we filed for a work permit in the city of Atlanta.  At the front end of the process we saw a local newscast, the city of Atlanta had fired most of its building permitting office including the director, corruption.  Cost us almost a month of waiting, and other jobs were on a timeline with signed contracts.  It gets worse, but all is done now, 97% done, we are so close to fall, their fescue backyard should wait, then all is 100% complete.  I think of these things as getting another MBA.

Classic Garden Design: For Every Price Point

They got the memo, below, siting urns on plinths.  Sitings, below, work equally well at gate keeper's cottage, head gardener's home, mid-century brick ranch burger, a new Spitzmiller & Norris.


Pic, above, here, Stoke Edith House.

Never think elements of garden design are not for your home, counterintuitively, classic Garden Design works at every style & price point.
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Needed a huge stone plinth with ball finial at a client's project, to match existing.  Huge.  There was no budget for it.  Got it anyway, and with great age.  Built exact replica, to scale, using wire mesh meant for concrete road paving, used a glass ball from a light fixture, planted English ivy.  No one the wiser, OUR stone plinth, not stone.
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Garden Design rules work everywhere.  It works if you work it.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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It is gift & curse knowing what to do in gardens.  Driving thru any neighborhood, my 'eye' fixes everything.  No shutting it off.  Excepting rustic, farm, Nature, the beach, Stone Mountain, wide open prairie.  Already perfect.  The 'eye' is content.

Anna Wintour has Tara Turf?

Age 8, saw my 1st garden like this, below, in Augusta, GA.  The adults were content to stay inside & chat.  I did the rude child thing, and begged to go outside.  They were glad to get rid of me.  Had to be, I was more than glad to be gone from them.  Not until I saw the movie, Beetlejuice, did anything describe how I felt, going outside that house, that day, into the garden.  Another world.
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The garden was entirely green, wild, mischievously wild.  Looking ahead, left, right, the garden was telling me to go everywhere, all a fabulous mystery, yet speaking to me in a language I knew.  And, that feeling of being alone, in this adventure, perhaps explains more fully, in adulthood, studying historic landscapes across Europe for decades.  And creating the garden for myself.
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Few ask for. or understand, this type garden, up front, in USA.  I design as much of them into the ubiquitous requests, as I can.  A tiny handful, across 3 decades, have asked for the full monty.
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I was caught by this garden, below, being presumptuous.  It's owner, in the public eye for decades with an international successful career, and public persona so Cruella Deville, Meryl Streep played her in a movie.  The garden, below, takes her mask off.  Anna Wintour's garden, below.    












Pics, above, here.
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Full article from NYTimes, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Pure Delight: Garden Tunnel

When I was in elementary school, we had dinner at a co-worker's of dad's several times, another NASA engineer.  Their daughter's about the ages of my sister & me.
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I adored being at their home.  In an upstairs bedroom their dad had made a small opening in the wall near the floor, with a slide-away panel.  Moving the panel, and crawling in on all 4's, an attic tunnel led to a larger opening.  No lighting, we had to carry flashlights, and crawl this way/that to get to the 'secret' room.  Everything we did immensely exciting in our attic hideout.
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Hope you adore this tree tunnel, below.  It's a subliminal part of childhood, pure delight.
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Pure Delight, a layer of garden design.



Pic, above, Mark Bolton Photography.

Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Family with the secret tunnel & room in their attic moved away decades ago.  Visiting home, driving NASA Road 1, toward Kemah, I pass their old house.  It doesn't seem to have been remodeled, and I wonder, Is that secret tunnel & room still in the attic?
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When I was a little girl, NASA Road 1 was a 2 lane road, few red lights.  Now, 6 lanes, red lights almost every side street.
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When I pump gas for mom during my visits home there is a visual slice, while pumping, unchanged since childhood, NASA Building 1, below ca. 1964, excepting the trees, oaks, pecans, palms, now, huge/gorgeous.  In 1964 we had only 1 car, mom would drive to the curb at the front door, below, sister/me, in the back seat, oh so bored, waiting for dad to walk out.  There he is, no, there he is, no, that one, that's dad, more waiting, finally, dad would be almost to the car.  In those days, all the dads were thin, wore pocket protectors with their shirts, same pants, shoes, short haircuts.  We literally couldn't pic our dad out of the crowd, they were so similar.
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Pic, above, here.
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You know our family loved getting that 2nd car.

Consider: Arc of the Sun & Prevailing Winds

Consider your prevailing winds.  A buffer against prevailing winds lowers HVAC bills.  

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Consider the arc of the sun.  A deciduous buffer against the sun for summer shade, lets the sun shine through in winter.  Reducing HVAC bills.

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Pic, above, here. 

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More than lowering bills, designing your garden with these considerations is stewardship.  More than sustainable, designing your garden with these considerations is regenerative.  More than selfish in lowering bills, your footprint is reduced in what you take from our Earth, grace.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

A Man of Fairies & Unicorns

I watched an early mentor pile layers of seemingly weird into his repertoire of living.  Bits of gleanings, taken from this century or that, this character or that, this art form or that, incarnations of old worn new, for starters.   Adoring each layer, paying attention, I was not a lone audience, he mentored many, performed for all.  Time passed.  Finally, it happened.  He became every bit of those gleanings, and more.
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You have no idea the good fortune for those of us in Atlanta, partaking the welcome he gave, into his realm.  As time passed, his realm became international.  Of course it did.
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Understand, he gave full access to his unicorns and fairies.  His abundance overflowed, a few of us were bold enough to say, Yes. Thank You, I accept.
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How many times, in metaphor, has someone said, below, to me?  I cannot count.  Each time, I trust the unicorns and fairies more deeply, appreciating greater, if that's possible, a mentor's gifts.
  



Pic, above, here.

Last week this man, died.  Cooking dinner, his house caught fire.  He went outside for a garden hose, went back into the house to save his dogs.  All perished.
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A week of phone calls, stories, connecting with others who accepted his fairies & unicorns.  So much laughter, so many stories that cannot be written.  
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This man so changed the gardening landscape, in Atlanta, and beyond, I was able to make a career in Garden Design.  More than a career, and income, my life.
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When I found out this man passed, I leaned forward and hugged my unicorn's neck.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Will introduce you to this man next week.  I cannot do it today, need to ride my steed a bit more.

Watering Cans: Leverage Time/Effort

Took me several years to acquire an interesting watering can collection.
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Interesting, and affordable.
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Once hunted/gathered/sited I learned they were more important as 'helpers', they leverage time/effort.
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2-4 months each summer are hot/drought.  I don't want, or like, a landscape that must be meticulously maintained, or watered.  However, there always seems to be plantings that are young/not established yet against extreme hot/dry.  Those plantings are never begrudged early nurturing.
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Having the watering can collections in prime dry positions, it's an easy pour & go.  Seeing something dry never happens when time is luxurious, dry plantings await my exodus meeting a tight timeline, then announce their thirst.  Every time, it seems.
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No worries.  The watering cans are full.
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Mosquitoes not an issue, the water never stays in long enough for breeding.  At leisure they are filled, in a rush poured.
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Along with Tess, my car, the watering cans are my top employees.



Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

Subsidiary Focal Points

Exactly why gardens should be simple, below.  Let Nature speak, play, sing, work, be in companionship to your life.

Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.

Did you know your garden is a proscenium for spectacle?  I love the small moments, the never imagined, unbidden.  Perfect.  Tear drops of laughter, amongst time & galaxies.  

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Creating these moments, name it to claim it.  Macro rule, 1 focal point per area.  Micro rule, subsidiary focal points allowed.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

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Will never forget the years of lunches in my previous garden, during summer, and hearing the hummingbirds zoom over my head.  Do you really think I knew to design my garden for that to happen?  My best Garden Design learning was finally understanding classical Garden Design rules, FINALLY copying them.  Once accomplished, Nature arrived.  Nature more like Tinker Bell than can be explained, excepting through letting Nature reign.

Lighting: Jewelry for the Landscape

Light fixtures are jewelry for the garden.



Pic, above, shot by Doug Hickok of Charleston, SC, here.
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Have not changed light fixture at front door since moving into our ca. 1900 American farmhouse last year.  On the list.  Previous owner chose wisely for pure function.  Variable timer, white to match white siding.  Alas, looks appropriate for a Holiday Inn exterior hall light ca. 1972.  Have spent too much time online looking for the 'right' light, and quit, either too elaborate or too farmhouse cliche.  Will have a light made, from historic lighting parts appropriate to 1900.  Jewelry for the house, remember !
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Notice the depth of field Doug Hickok used?  Amazing.  Love his shot, framing, lighting, everything.
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How many husbands have I looked directly in the eye over this topic, on their own property?  Upfront their only worry was their wife hired a garden designer and there would be too much expense with the plantings.  How quickly I disabuse them of that notion.  My posture, my gaze, their wife silently standing still, watching, with a smile, while their husband receives my gaze.  The gaze.  Transferring 2 pieces of vital information, without words, I am right, I don't play.  Love those moments, another husband bagged.  They've joined the team, game on.    

The Best Way to Create a Beautiful Unique Landscape

Completely formulaic, below, and completely enchanting.  A miniature of what survives in a garden after several centuries, meadow-wild wood-stone focal point.  A balanced mix of ornamental horticulture & agriculture.
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The rule about focal points, 1-focal-point-per-area, below, head-on beautiful.  Then the other rule, the rule I observed after decades studying historic gardens, entry ways in a garden are focal points, and, you can never have too many entry ways in a garden.  You're looking at 4 entry ways, below.  Do you see them?  All 4?   There are no exits in a garden, only entry ways.
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"So simple it doesn't need instructions"

"Eager (and less-talented) designers often get confused about this instruction, turning it into: "It doesn't have instructions, therefore it's simple."

Seth godin

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Seeing gardens, below, as a beginner, I thought I knew how to design them.  Discovering, over decades, the layers of design narrative about gardens, below, I can design them in myriad permutations, keeping every important layer, understanding the difference between agricultural/ornamental, and more.  There is both total simplicity, below, and rich complexity.  It wasn't work, learning the complexity, more, it is taking in air to breath, a life necessity.  And, blessedly, I'm still learning.  Loved Seth's quote, above, seeing myself at the front end.
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Hope you will take the link to this garden, below.  A team of gardeners, a team of brains, are responsible.  This garden pic, below, is an entire garden design course.



Pic, above, Wollerton Old Hall.
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"If you want to change people's minds, you need more than evidence. You need persistence. And empathy. And mostly, you need the resources to keep showing up, peeling off one person after another, surrounding a cultural problem with a cultural solution."  Seth godin

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Seth's quote, above, would be incredibly mundane, without his knowing to add, empathy.  Thought of Wendell Berry reading the quote.  He's made his entire life, in empathy, no judgment, about cultural problems and cultural solutions.  Stewardship.  The garden, above, is a text book to Seth's quote, above.
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"Organized bureaucracies thrive on compliance. It makes it easier to tell people what to do.

But contribution is the only way that tribes thrive, the best way to make change happen and the essence of being part of a community.

It's a shame that we spend so much time teaching our children (and our employees) to comply. Far better to seek out contribution instead."

Seth godin

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Getting my 2nd college degree, Horticulture, I knew I couldn't design a garden a donkey would approve of.  Why?  Seth put words to it, above.  College taught me to be compliant with the USA manner of garden design.  Foundation plantings, lawn, a tree or 2, best managed with a maintenance crew, mowing, replacing mulch-annuals on schedule, pruning, etc, all on contract.  Monetize the landscape to fit the monetized contract.  Outsource the stewardship.  Live life complying to the norm, never seek to make a contribution.  Seems simple, that simplicity thing again.  Not understanding the riches gained, in making a contribution.
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"Shannon Weber decided that there wasn't enough love, recognition or connection in her world, so she did something about it. When she finds an unsung (don't say 'ordinary' hero) she makes them a cape.

Caping people, catching them doing something right, shining a light on a familiar hero. 

It turns out that this is way more difficult than being cynical, or ironic, or bitter. Being closed is a lot easier than being connected. It takes guts.

What kind of impact does one act of kindness make? It can last for years.

Go, cape someone."  Seth godin

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Having a garden, learning about the layers of narrative in the photo, above, put me thru the side door of caping someone.  A lot of someones.  In return, my life was built.  Living in a new town/home after 30 years, I knew I would meet incredible people, be able to have a personal life filled with great characters.  Often, caping someone, is being aware, seeing the full picture of someone, and letting them know you see.  Especially when it is good news in their life.  Seems intuitive, honoring good news.  Most often, when I've called or written a note, congratulating someone, their response is so sad, "Tara, you're the only one who's said anything."  G*d bless gardens for teaching me so much.  And I thought I was after learning how to design a garden!
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"Tracy Chapman was outsold by the Doobie Brothers by 40:1. But the Doobie's aren't 40 times as singular an artist as she is.

Lou Reed was outsold by Van Morrison at least 40:1. But again, our image and memory of Lou compares to Van's, it's not a tiny fraction of his.

Singular is the one that we can tell apart, the one we remember, the one we will miss when it's gone.

It's entirely possible that creators with scale are also singular (like Van, or Miranda), but it's not required. Many of the artists, leaders and teachers that have had an impact on you and on me have done so with very little popular acclaim.

It doesn't pay to trade your singular-ness for scale.

Singular might lead to scale, but popular is not enough."  Seth godin

Garden Design rules were anathema to me at the front end of learning Garden Design.  Don't tell me what to do !  My gardens will be fabulous & unique.  How well did that work?  Works now, making me laugh at myself.  Worse than not being fabulous, not being unique, not following Garden Design rules, was the time wasted.  More money can be earned, more time cannot.  Garden Design rules were figured out by wise/brilliant brains centuries ago, best, they are unique each time used, no 2 sites are the same.  Knowing the rules, deeply, you'll understand where best to break them.  Following the rules in Garden Design, you create a garden MORE you.  You are singular, and so your garden will be too.  This fact, following Garden Design rules, is like most of gardening, counterintuitive.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Seth Godin, here.