Garden Design Template: Gravel & Green

A trade article I read earlier this year, European sourced, blamed the lack of young'ish people gardening upon 'older' people being poor examples of gardeners.  More than missing the boat, greater than missing it by a galaxy, they shot past our universe, to be wrong.
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Whatever !  Not going there now.
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Isolating Garden Design templates, you know, the ones that keep cropping up.  (Sorry, too amusing, that horrible pun, it wasn't intended.)
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Garden Design templates, all are centuries old, most are BCE.
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What, oh what, to name them?
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Continually, I'm doing Garden Design work, with no name.  Tara Turf, for example.
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I came to Garden Design, same as most of the herd.  It's a pack animal belief system, especially in USA.  "What do I want to do?  I want this & this & that & etc.  Oh, I love that, it will be wonderful in the front yard."  Wilderness years.  Money & effort, no results, aside from visual proof, arrogance, with zero use of intellect.  Most, alas, never set foot into the wilderness years.  No desire, I get that.  Those getting into the wilderness, never quite pull themselves out.
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A tiny few, decide to leave the wilderness and hire a Garden Designer.  When I decided to leave the wilderness, zero funding.  Off to college for a 2nd degree, this time, horticulture.  Total bamboooozzzzzle was that USA horticulture degree.  Next, off to study historic gardens across Europe for decades.  Finally.  True beginning, learning Garden Design.
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Back to those Garden Design templates.
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You're looking at one, below.  Every element of a garden room is here, sky, ceiling, walls, chair rail, flooring, focal point, flow, function.
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Gravel & Green.


Pic, above, here.
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Wonder lies in each template.  Intuitively, you know, "I can do this."  Better, your mind/heart, understands and morphs the Gravel & Green into shapes, plantings, focal point, perfect, and original to you and your site's needs.
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Now, this moment, whether you like the Gravel & Green template or not, mentally eradicate your existing Garden Design, replace it with Gravel & Green.
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Fun, yes?
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Garden & Be Well,     XO T
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BCE?   Never saw, BCE, until I went to Israel and did the Foot Steps of Jesus tour.  Two weeks of wonder & joy.  Love Israel.  Shock of seeing Jerusalem, from Mount of Olives, and realizing the West Bank is merely a Landscape Architecture construct.  Going to a new settlement and realizing it is literally, Guns and Roses.  Building new homes upon rock, bringing everything it takes to grow plants.  Building settlements is Horticulture.  Landscape Architecture & Horticulture in this humbling biblical place, from its earliest settling.  Ironic, exactly where G*d first placed people, in a garden.  Earth.  BCE, Before Christ's Era.

Garden Design Course in a Single Photo

In many others, and my own, there is a demanding Muse for Garden Photography.
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Every layer, below, Muse's demand, decadently satisfied.
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A Garden Design course can be taught from this pic, below, alone.
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Muse's demand?  Speaking to Jean Cocteau, Sergei Diaghilev said it best, "Astonish me.".


Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Want bonus points?  Label every layer, above.
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Love pairs of words, ASTONISH ME, double lovely !  Had to use this new pair after discovery in an article about Andre Leon Talley in NYTimes yesterday.

How To: Break Garden Design Rules

Made me laugh, below.  Know why?
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Think back to a Garden Design Rule.  Broke it here, in triplicate.  Backhand down the line winner.
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Shooting this Garden Room, many angles can be shot, proving this particular Garden Design Rule reigns.  Pull the shot back, Garden Design Rule broken.
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Know the Garden Design Rules into your DNA, break a Garden Design Rule when it makes your soul smile, a wicked smile.  That's what made me laugh, below.
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Garden Design is a language.  In the beginning, Garden Design was what I wanted it to be.  Rules?  Not for me.  In time, a koan arrived.  In bed last nite, zero desire to read on my phone, instead, wildly strong urge to read from a book, though the lamp would have to be turned off.  Oh my, the bother, yes?
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Two books, grabbed, Daily Strength For Daily Needs, by Mary W. Tileston.  Recommended by Celestine Sibley, a well known columnist for the AJC when I moved to Atlanta over 3 decades ago, and used in many of her columns thru the years.
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Thomas (1795-1880) Carlyle, puts it clearly about why you must break Garden Design Rules, "Know that 'impossible', where truth and mercy and the everlasting voice of nature order, has no place in the brave man's dictionary.  That when all men have said 'Impossible', and tumbled noisily else whither, and thou alone art left, then first thy time and possibility have come.  It is for thee now: do thou that, and ask no man's counsel, but thy own only and G*d's.  Brother, thou hast possibility in thee for much: the possibility of writing on the eternal skies the record of a heroic life."
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With this quote, above, Tileston chose, Matt. xvii. 20, Nothing shall be impossible unto you.
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Along with,

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low. Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.
R.W. Emerson


Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design Rules, now I trust them, knowing how to break them.  More, they are the tools to break them with.
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Garden Design Rule broken, above?  Garden Design Rule: One Focal Point per Area.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T

Front Door: Choosing Color

Thirty years I lived in this architecture, below.  Looming driveway/garage, wall with large windows, finally, a teeny tiny sliver, and voila, the front door.
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Garden Design's focus, at the front of the home, is the front door.  More than knowing you by your front door, I should know you from the curb.
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Fun opportunities ahead for this home, below.
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A few changes to make in the coming years, below.
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Move the flag holder from the column to a corner of the house.  No need to crowd the front door more, and zero design sense having 2 focal points side/side.  Garden Design rule, one focal point per area.
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Add stone, left/right of the sidewalk at the front door.  Take out the shrub, below, to the right of the front door, place stone, and to the left of the front door, remove the shrub, add stone.  Finally, breathing space.  And the front door 'stoop' opens to the left, and to the front.  Place a classic iron urn on plinth on the stone, to the right of the front door, at the brick wall.  Plant it seasonally, never more put a wreath on the front door.  Nor, have a cluster of pots at the base of the column.  They're crowding the space, shortening the column, and hiding a portion of the zone's best feature, a proper round column.
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Shutters, at right, below, need to be replaced with properly scaled shutters, with an arc at top.  Yes, very nice.
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Let's spend more money.  In addition to the stone already added, stone the front walk, and the front porch step.  Replace the light fixture.  Theirs is nice and more than acceptable.  Light fixtures are jewelry for the house, go for it.  More money?  Replace shutters at left with custom shutters too.
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These pics are from a color consultation by Kylie M. Interiors.  I've done exterior color choices for 30 years with my Garden Designs.  Along with patio/deck furnishings, views into windows with window treatments/furniture arrangement, lighting, urns, all in an effort to get clients OUTSIDE.  Never as an extra profit center, what a quaint world my career began in.
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Black front doors are hard to get right, when they are, wow, shazaaaam.  Mostly, black front doors look like a void, as if the door is open, not there.
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In addition to choosing a front door color to coordinate with house siding, roof, trim it must also, for me, pop from the interior art & textiles.
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Blue, below, is excellent.  However, I would need to go inside this home, see their art, and other color choices, before a final 'blue' choice.
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Choosing color this way is too fun, "Oh I love that color."  Well, I know, you've chosen it in your art.  A zone that makes you HAPPY.


Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design choices for, above, I see 'instantly'.  Having a brain 'fixing everything' is tiresome while driving thru neighborhoods.  How many times has Beloved heard, "Gosh I want this whole neighborhood." ?
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A past client posted a pic on Facebook yesterday, she's bought a new home out of state.  Many comments congratulating her.  Me?  It's obvious my comment to her, "You need me !!!!!"
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Client needing me, above, a lot like me, no kids, doesn't cook.  I designed/maintained her townhome garden for several years, decades ago, every Friday.  Chose that day wickedly.  Her townhome was in the hi-rent zip code of Atlanta, and Fridays were the best estate sales.  And I drive a truck,  A nice match, still living with many of those pickings.  One Friday, she was cleaning out her fridge.  She had left a large tin of lasagna in her fridge so long it had eaten thru the tin.  More stories with her but they cannot be written in this forum.  So, what kind of forum?  A lunch with me in the Conservatory, just a few of us gals, wine, laughter, everyone's stories.  There is my gold, for writing.  Wish I had been taking notes all these decades.  There is a safety in women's sharing.  All share, none will tell or they'll be exposed too.  Yes.  Total safety.  You men should be worried what is shared.
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No worries, I know the reverse is true with men !

Historic Layered With Mid-Century Modern

Divine smash-up of mid-century modern AND historic Garden Design.
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My kind of maintenance too.  Rustic, refined.  Sharp mind, sure hand.  
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Ooooh, that color on the furniture.  I'm in.  Had me at hello.
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How little can you have in your garden, and it's useful, and it's beautiful, and it's easy to maintain ?
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Keep it simple sweetie, check.  Pushing all the right buttons.
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Both masculine, feminine.
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Can you label the parts?


Pic, above, here.
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Canopy trees, understory trees, wall, floor, focal point, flow, axis.  Exterior architecture, a garden room.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Binary Thinking is Not For Garden Design

Anatomy of designing a garden first for winter, below.

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Through the year, let Nature take its course or play with seasonal plantings in the urns on plinths, below.

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Perhaps lighting in the pond/pool, below, shining in a direction you wish to see wavy watery shadows in the evening.  A fountain for sound?

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Maybe flowers/candles floating in the water for a party.

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Get the point?  More than a garden, below, it's a proscenium for your life.

Pic, above, here. 

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Binary thinking does not lend itself to Garden Design.  

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"No truly great thinker is siloed in a small territory."  And, that is the mind, a truly great thinker, creating the garden, above.

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"Quantitative thinking is knowing the dose makes the poison."  Just enough, above, any more, and the Garden Design is poisoned.  Had a super talented assistant manager when I worked at a nursery for several years.  Alas, he always poisoned his talent, Garden Design, in the last 5 minutes.  He put in too much.  We would wait for him to leave, and take away the poison, leaving the true beauty of his work.  Never, did he get angry with us.  Instead it was always a great smile, after his initial questioning gaze.

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Binary thinking is a fixed mindset.  Garden Design is a growth mindset.  "Blame is a big part of the fixed mindset."  Garden Design receives the blame, too often, and erroneously, of "I can't afford it.".

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No time to go there at the moment.  Another day.

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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

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Quotes pulled from, Creating A Growth Mindset, by Carol Dweck.

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I didn't save her quotes for Garden Design, though they fit.  Instead, been taken to my last nerve dealing with binary thinking from....  And, happy to get this lens of thinking to up my own game, when my game is stalled.  A growth mindset, for sure.

Mid-Century Ranch: A New 'After' Pic

Most mid-century USA ranch homes still wear their 1st landscape installation.  A landscape predicated by banks for builders to close their construction loan, and get the certificate of occupancy issued.
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Starting from that point, for improvement, using existing plants, moving a few, getting rid of some, adding 1-5.  Copying the aesthetic, below, "With a little imagination.", (Anne of Green Gables), a landscape suffering the uglies for over half a century, enters the new century, with beauty, simplicity, and a setting for the home instead of a detractor to the home.
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Truly, this landscape design, below, is art.
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Great for a non-gardener, and even better for Aging-In-Place.  Within a subdivision, if those original ranch landscapes decided to reform into, below, the entire subdivision would experience a bump up in value.  No small feat to transition from ugly to pretty.  Happy, is the result.  Home value bump, lovely, but happy is the hunt, priceless.          


Pic, above, here.
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Casting bread upon the water here.
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Good bread.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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This garden, above, is the fine line of green meatballs/bad vs. green mounds/good.  Yes, love the piquant success of this landscape, above.  

Oddly: Design For Winter

Winter.  Design your garden for winter, and it will be pretty all year.
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Terra cotta pot, below, stopped my eyes/heart/head.  Hmm.  Never seen this particular Garden Design effect.  In this particular moment, below, the terra cotta looks like a movie effect, not real, injected artificially.
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These are the moments, exactly this.  Design, plant, time passes, wait for the exact right weather event, poof voila, you have, below.
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These are my moments of choice.  Dancing with Nature.  And knowing it, while in the dance.  In the moment of awareness, feet are not tethered to Earth, time no longer a force, only the oneness of pure atonement.  Joseph Campbell writes of it much better, "If you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere."


Pic, above, here.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT  

Play a Bigger Game: Focal Points

Well placed urn focal point, below, at the end of the path.  The Garden Design for the urn is playing a Bigger Game.  Do you already see?
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The more directions a focal point is a focal point from, the better the focal point.  It's playing the Bigger Game.


Pic, above, here.
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Looking at the urns, above, from the side direction, they are placed as an asymmetrical pair leading into the covered porch.
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Very nice.  No thought of the ubiquitous pairing each side of the opening.  More, the wider asymmetrical placement creates the illusion of a wider entry into the covered porch.
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Wish I could see the entire garden, I'm sure there's more to these urns we're not seeing here.
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Adore being in gardens playing the Bigger Game.  Even better, designing a garden on paper, putting in a focal point on main axis, then immediately seeing were 2 or more axis belong with it too.  Muse has quite the humor.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Enlarging Territory

Another Garden Design tool, below.  Does it pop to you too?  I'll be starting a new project in a couple of weeks, have already been to the site, and know it will have a variation of this Garden Design tool, below.  At present the new client has a horrid little sign tacked to a post, Private Road.  Their home not visible from the road.
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What to call this tool?
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It's always a good day when your Garden Design quiver gains a new arrow.
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Columns, below, Enlarge the Footprint of the home.
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Often, I use this tool, Enlarge the Footprint of the home, in subdivisions too, where the road is not a concern in the least, but scaling the home properly is.
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Back to the columns, below.  Four columns seems a lot.  Amazingly, this Garden Design arrow-in-your-quiver will also work if there were only a single column, below.
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Two mental models, below.  Place a single column, below, at the right of the lane.  The lane becomes 'public property'.  Next, place a single column, below, to the left of the lane.  The lane is 'private property'.


Pic, above, here.
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Yes, am curious why there are 4 columns, above.  Pure ego, drama queen stuff?  Oversold by the landscape architect, getting that commission check?  Entry to a compound of several homes on acreage?  Perhaps those 4 columns are much older than the house, above, and owner of the house decided to keep them all?
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What do the 4 columns, above, say to you?
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Lastly, imagine the home, above, without any columns.  Hmm, not so good.  Needs at least one column to enlarge its footprint.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Paired Down Richness

Minimal embellishment, below, yet, I want what they are selling !  Whatever it may be.  At the front door, they have me.
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Color, potted plant, and font.
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Oddly, there's a great example too of Garden Design and downspout color.  At right, below, downspout color is the wise choice.  At left, below, must be neighbor's downspout.
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Best proof, ever, white jumps forward, and tries to act like a 'column' with a downspout.


Pic, above, here.
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A richness, above, having nothing to do with filthy lucre, and everything to do with warmth, confidence, come-inside, you won't regret it, for there is joy within.  And, you'll be back.
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My favorite Garden Designs are the ones with the fewest ingredients & richest living.
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Notice how they handled the slope, above?    Becomes a non-issue.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Intuitively I sense, owner/s of Brassica live/breath, quotes, above.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Hedging Properly

Almost on the edge of 'too busy', below, for me, the landscaping calms the interior.  I think the windows slide up far enough for ease of walking inside/outside.  Vanishing threshold of interior/garden, perfect.
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But that's a rabbit hole, and not where I'm going with this garden, below.
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Millions of mid-century to ca. 1990 ranch homes across USA, have the same landscape, below.  Except they don't know it.  Those millions of ranch homes were sold with a ribbon of green meatballs spanning the front foundation, and since then, those plantings have been pruned into a gruesome story.
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Plant abuse, millions of those green meatballs want to be tall & wide bushes or trees.  Faithfully, decades of hacking, keeping them in line.  Literally.
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Won't go any further, too gruesome, you know the game, seen it your entire life.  In defense of that ribbon of green meatballs, they are required by law to close on new construction.  However, they did not have to be in their particular configuration.
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Using those same gruesome hacked green meatballs, dig them up, in winter, planting them in a tapestry hedge away from the house, exactly as, below.  See it?  Millions of those ranch homes with foundation green meatballs face the street, and worse, are not too far from the street.  Poof, cars gone.  Double poof, toxic fumes/particulates dramatically decreased.  Triple poof, noise reduced.  Quadruple poof, privacy added.  Quintuple poof, aesthetics added, property value increased, no more looking at neighbor's homes.  Sextuple poof, lifestyle enhanced.  Septuple poof, many will have reduced HVAC expenses blocking summer sun-winter winds.  Octuple poof, pollinator habitat increased by a logarithmic factor.  N-tuple poof, maintenance reduced.  Let me know what I've missed.
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Odd to imagine so many millions of people choose to live with a gruesome green ribbon of meatballs, instead of using what they have, differently.  I hear Anne of Green Gables, "With a little imagination."


Pic, above, here.
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More than secular, all of the above, the Divine.  G*d Almighty first created a garden.  Garden, above, is biblical.  Quickly with gardens, Sacred vs. profane, surfaces.  Amazing, keeping green meatballs, yet moving them, transitions profane, to Sacred.
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What began planted by the rules of filthy lucre, hacked & ignored for decades, can become Sacred.  Power of intention, indeed.
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In metaphor to moving those gruesome green meatballs I hear Charlton Heston, "Let my people go."
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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(Paradise | Define Paradise at Dictionary.com

www.dictionary.com/browse/paradise

heaven, as the final abode of the righteous. ... late 12c., "Garden of Eden," from Old French paradis "paradise, Garden of Eden" (11c.), from Late Latin paradisus, from Greek paradeisos "park, paradise, Garden of Eden," from an Iranian source, cf. Avestan pairidaeza "enclosure, park ...)
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(Daily Bible Study - What Is Filthy Lucre?

www.keyway.ca/htm2010/20101022.htm

Oct 22, 2010 - The English word "lucre" originated from a French word, lucre, which itself originated from a Latin word, lucrum, which meant to gain, or to profit ...)

Control Amongst Chaos

A scintilla of control, below, amongst the rusticities.  Perfect.
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Does the scintilla jump out at you too?


Pic, above, here.
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Formally clipped boxwood, above, without ego, no fear, total matriarchs, framing perennials, climbers, flowering shrubs for their turn owning the stage.
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Take this vignette into winter, and a dusting of snow.  Oh my, those matriarchs know what they are doing.
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Gardens must be designed for winter, before the ease of late spring/early summer.
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More good design in this garden, above, but won't take that path at present.  Photographer perfectly captured the scintilla of control over chaos so brilliantly.
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Have you already figured out the percentage of control to chaos, above?  No?  Hmm.  Get to it.
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These matriarchs, above, teaching a pertinent tale.  Wild chaos can reign, in beauty, with a hint of control.
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Adore the temporality of this particular moment.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Easy Garden Furniture

Furniture in the garden has intrigued me from childhood.  Thankfully, my parents had a cool iron chair, I adored.  Bought new in the 60's, it had arms, tall back, detachable iron 'bonnet', separate foot rest, it turned 360, rocked, and had nice cushions.  I rocked, whirled, read books, and even napped, with my orange marmalade cat, Tigger, in that chair on the screened porch with deep overhangs, Galveston Bay always hot/humid.  Most memorable moment in the chair, awakened from a nap by a loud chorus of tree frogs.  Looking around, none visible.  Still, the chorus.  Found them, by the 100's, rimming the underside of the chair cushion.  Managed to hop out faster than an Olympian, without harming a single tree frog.  50 years later, I cannot see a tree frog without thinking of that chair.
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Time passed, mom gave the chair away.  I see those chairs occasionally in advertising, or at antique shop.  None, complete with bonnet & foot rest.  A good thing, I would probably buy the chair, if it were complete.
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Dad had the worst end of the deal with that iron chair.  Cleaning the patio, hosing it off, he had to move the chair at least once a month.  Maybe it was him, glad to give the chair away.
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Now, easily moved garden furniture is the hunt.  Aside from lightweight, it must have arms, a back tall enough to rest the head back, and nap.  More than the personal, garden furniture must leverage having friends in the garden.  Create a setting for conversation, laughter, lingering.  Especially after meals.


Pic, above, here.
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Have the good fortune of sourcing 3 of the wicker chairs, above.  Each for a song.
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Amusing to see Freud in a photo new to me, attracted by the outdoor furniture, round circle of iron in the railing contrasting so well with squares of the French doors, and those chows.  Freud.  Not my cup of tea, more Jungian.  Thankful for both.
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That balcony.  So much narrative, without a word, wisely playing backdrop.  Yet, take away the man/dogs, the backdrop narrative immediately jumps forward, owning the stage.
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These are the things I design in gardens.  Some, too rich, think it's all about a few bushes and a little garden furniture.  Those, are not my tribe.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Cluttered and Sparse

Notice the straw basket, below?  Used as accent inside, and in the garden.  Dropped a load at the thrift store last weekend, ending with the obligatory slow aisle walk.  Two incredible baskets, with eye dropping low prices, brought home.
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Cozy garden room, below, draws me in.  Makes me realize my garden materials yard should be merchandised a bit.  While our garden is undergoing macro work, I wander into the materials yard, about 2x/month, knowing it fills me with joy, and strength.  Surveying what remains of my 30 year garden, anticipating how it will all be used in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse garden.


Pic, above, here.


Pic, above, here.
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At the same time this garden room, above, has my heart.  Spare, all year interest, little maintenance.
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Will create both garden rooms, cluttered & sparse, yeah, providing joy to 2 parts of my brain.  Only dozens more to go, life is good.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Vernacular Design

Ralph Lauren, below, more vernacular than the locals.
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Vernacular, single biggest surprise moving into our ca. 1900 American farmhouse.  Moving from a Cottage garden, 30 years there, knew it would be different.  Though correct, missed 'how' different by leagues.
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What does that mean?  Most of what I brought from my Cottage Garden to our ca. 1900 American Farmhouse garden, looked s-t-u-p-i-d.  Two truckloads of Cottage Garden went to the local thrift store.
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Did you see Leonard Cohen's obit in NYTimes today?  His song lyrics vernacular to the human condition.  He gives to his readers/listeners more of their own DNA.  What he gives to other singers of his songs?  Too wild.  It IS their song.  And, that is art.  Leonard's special art, beyond his writing.
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No, your garden doesn't have to solely choose the vernacular of your home's architecture, if you have a deep vernacular within yourself.  What does that mean?  You like all things French, overdose on your French theme.  Overdose.  Timidity shows.  Better to wear your heart on your sleeve than expose a lack of resolve.
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So, Garden Design rules.  Most, simply excuse them into oblivion.  Drive thru any neighborhood, no matter the price point, proof, rest my case there.  Using historic Garden Design rules, liberates you into your own vernacular.
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Is this easy?  No.  You must be broken to bits, and put back together, before you understand, it's easy.  Only then, has the vernacular of your DNA been allowed to surface.  


Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Garden Design: Design in the Silence

Garden Room, below, designed around the Grace of silence, speaking volumes.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Many compulstions to have in a garden.  The best compulsion?  Simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well,     XOT

Reducing Electric Bill Summer/Winter: Trees

"The loss of trees in the planet's water cycle is critical to the advancement of climate change.  their removal exposes land to the drying effects of the sun.  Trees also play an important role in absorbing greenhouse gases."  NASA
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Trees are pollinator hosts, and feeders.  How much of our beneficial gut biome is dependent upon bacterias dependent upon trees further up their life stream?  Watershed management from trees in incalculable.  
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This isn't about climate change, here, trees are about money.  
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Early in Obama's tenure, he said in a speach I saw, not something I read, Americans should be paying more, a lot more, for energy.  Almost double.  He got my attention.  That fall, I planted 2 more deciduous trees, deftly targeted, and not small, they arrived in their 35 gallon pots, about 8' tall.  Years earlier trees were planted to shade my home from the afternoon thru setting sun, deciduous, once leaves fall bright sunshine helped heating.     
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Once the threshold of 'affordable' energy was threatened, I was more than willing to shade my beloved mid-morning sun.  
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In our new house, ca. 1900 American farmhouse, it is a classic of energy use for its era. Coal.  We have 4 coal fireplaces, none working.  More, it's a central hall design, 9' wide X 50' long, 11' ceilings.  Rooms along each side 'had' a door leading into another room.  Odd, yes?  Each door into the central hall has its original thick, tight fitting door threshold at bottom.  Not something I wondered about, until living through our first winter.  Flash, epiphany.  Our home was designed for all the central hall doors to remain closed in winter, the central hall was not heated.  Passing from room to room, via their interior doors.
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In summer, the central hall, aka dogtrot, pulled the breeze, cooling the house.  Several century old pecan trees remain, none properly sited for cooling in summer.  An evergreen magnolia was planted at a western flank within the past 2 decades.  Oh no.  Plenty of blocking against summer sun, alas, blocking the winter sun too.  How we wish that magnolia were an oak.  Money in the bank if it was.  
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Trees.  It's really all about trees.  How trees aid water in the forest vs. suburbs, here.  Including how trees remove toxins & metals too.  I know you're busy, save to read the link later, it's that interesting.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Gingko tree, above, commonly lose their leaves in a day.  And that day has the fragrance of cooking sugar.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Jekyll Island, Driftwood Beach, above.  Have never been to Jekyll Island and not seen a bride/groom/photographer coming/going from Driftwood Beach.  Finally, walked Driftwood Beach this year, 1st time.  Only one word comes to mind, to describe being on Driftwood Beach, Sacred.
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Trees.

Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Monty Don: Innocence Has Been Sold

Garden tours in Atlanta became dicey about the 90's.  Not that gardens chosen were bad, inferior, worthy of complaint.  Yet, Garden Whisperers 'knew'.  Something new had arrived, alas, something of the old had disappeared.  



In the mid-90's touring an Atlanta, GA technically correct and considered lovely garden set in a street of McMansions I saw a friend who was on the Garden Tour committee.  Telling her of all the gardens already seen and my favorite parts, I looked around at the garden we were in and said, "These people are cold, I don't want to know them.", she said, "Oh, you've met them.".  Never met them, was sad to see their personalities writ large in their garden.  My friend said they were the most difficult homeowners to work with putting the garden tour together.  She said their garden would not be a 'repeat', ever.
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Why was their garden 'cold'?
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Reading Monty Don, A French Garden Journey: the Road to Le Tholonet, in bed last night, Don described my experience in the 'cold' garden many years before, and why, "They are still lovely and essentially unspoilt.  but there is a kind of self-knowing quality to them that was not there forty years ago.  The innocence has been sold....."
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Exactly, the 'cold' garden was totally paid for, not an ounce of 'magic', there was 'a sleekness and order that only money can buy'.  "It was like a fine-set face made puffy and bloated with years of ease."
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That last sentence had me laughing out loud, go Monty go.  Especially, 'years of ease'.  I have many clients with weekly lawn care and I always tell them they must take care of a certain area, by themselves, zero help.  How else to be connected to their garden?  Most things that I can do in my garden, I do.  Knowing, hiring out work I can do would become habit, and remove one of life's chief pleasures, and honor.  Working in my garden is, Washing of the servants feet.  Honoring, Nature.



Pics, above, The Gardens of Chateau Val Joanis.
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Garden, above, is not a 'cold' personal garden.  Yet, it had once been a richly warm residential garden, now, a commercial garden.  Don used this garden, above, in the chapters where I took his quotes, above, from.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Kayaking, 1st time ever, this summer in the salt water marsh of Saint Simons Island, we reached a sand bar our guide wanted us to park at, and walk a bit.  Docking my kayak on the steeply sloped beach, the guide was quickly placing his hands on my arms, making sure I didn't fall awkwardly getting out of the kayak.  A very quick, "No, thank you."  He continued trying to help me, "No really, step away, thank you."  In the end, he did not step away, and kept both arms spread as if we were about to begin a ballroom waltz.  Ugh.  Nope.  Hope I'm well into my 90's still getting out of a kayak on a steep beach, by myself.  It has begun, I saw it with Rosemary Very during her 2 visits to Atlanta, many years apart, the transition from physical power to feminine power.  Great topic, Feminine Power, no time to go further now.

Simplicity of Narrative

Last question, finishing a Garden Design, What can I take out and it holds together?
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There is so little here, below.  Yet overwhelmed in layers of narrative.  I see a story/stories, below, you must, too.
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Not, simple-gardens-are-the-best, it is simple gardens including narratives of classic aesthetics across the ages, tied to the life of their home's interior, and owner, with an ease of maintenance, those are the gardens lasting centuries.


Pic, above, here.
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Front door, above, reminds me of a story I was told by a friend, decades ago, in Savannah, GA.  The story teller lived in the historic district.  The story told happened ca. 1950'ish.  An elderly widow lived in elegant deep decay in a large historic mansion.  Her handy-man, an African-American, took care of her, the house, garden, and it was well known he brought her food from one of the best restaurants, he waited tables there several nights a week.
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More, they lived outwardly their proscribed rolls. Yet, within her home they were lovers, in a committed relationship.  Further, the city knew, yet lived the lie.  Protecting both, beloved members of their community.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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The lady in the story, born 19th century, lived the story in 20th century, I'm telling you in the 21st century.  Her home still standing.