Garden Design: No Flowers

Designing a garden, now, with horrid views thru a pair of formal dining room windows.  Horrid.
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Pool pumps, rickety/collapsing/rotted potting table, spent/broken pots, stacked plastic bags potting soil, you have the vision.
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Luckily pool pumps are backed by another wall of the home, clad in lapboard.  Easy fix.  Carpenter will fence pool pumps, to proper height, in matching lapboard, each section removable for maintenance.  Have ridden this bull at rodeo before.
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Remaining disasters easy fix too.  The pair of windows are several feet apart on the same wall.  Carpenter will make custom potting table running full length of window-wall-window.  At each window, clustered, a collection of topiaries in her well chosen lead color pots.
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A flock of topiaries, plenty to swap inside her dining room, yet have rich amount for outside views too, on that new potting table.  This is Vanishing Threshold.  Notice, Garden Design goes inside.  More than the topiary arena, but that's beyond the scope of this missive.


Pic, above, here.

Garden Design begins inside your home, below.  Views to the garden, everything.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Just wow, below.  Curtains take on a new meaning in this home.  Candle & vase of foliage pure homage to the work of Providence.

 Pic, above, here.
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How could I let my client look at pool pumps and a broken potting table?  Not in my realm.
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Pic, above, here.
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Another new layer for her Garden Design.  Replacing a wall of windows with this door, above.
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Shot pic, above, in Susanne Hudson's garden.
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She's also getting her Conservatory this layer.
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Pic, above, here.
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Muse surprised me, above.  Client is also getting the open portion of this structure; client's scaled a bit longer.  It's on axis with the opposite end of her garden. 

This is phase 2, with my client.  Mentioned new clients to her, and their husband's mostly worried about the 'Garden Designer' spending money on flowers.  Her best laugh of the appointment.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Best Color Trinity

Towards the front end of your Garden Design, choose a color trinity for your exterior.  House, furniture, gates, light fixtures, pots, hardware, fencing, watering cans, door mats, knobs, etc.  In addition, choose a name for your home/garden.  Once you've done both, order note cards, name cards, using the color trinity.
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Green-Brown-White is the classic color trinity for over 2,000 years.  Chosen by the best minds across centuries, seemingly chosen by Providence.  Magic in Green-Brown-White ?  It's unique for all permutations.
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Where do I pull colors from for clients?  Inside the house.  Art, furniture, wallpaper, rugs, etc.  Uniformly, once colors suggested, "I love that !"  Of course.


Pic, above, here.
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In addition to Green-Brown-White, you get to choose a subsidiary color/s.  To be used as hints, and also pulled from interiors, especially your art.  Scrumptious Green-Brown-White, below.  Saved for colors but seems more a current USA political poster.


Pic, above, here.
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Through many years of choosing exterior Green-Brown-White, something pops immediately.  At first painting, home/garden recede into their niche, radiating considered contentment, an air of inevitability, and timelessness.   

 
Pic, above, here.
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Humbling, this moth, below.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Aside from Green-Brown-White, above, all those subsidiary colors.  Be still my heart.
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There's little I encounter, not seen thru a Garden prism.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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An answer to my question, yesterday, about Lucinda Wharton:

"Curious about her parents, how they raised this old soul child."

Lady Rebecca Eildon Courtenay (b. 1969), is married to Jeremy Lloyd Wharton; they have three daughters: Alice Lucinda Wharton (b. 1998), Emilia Rose Wharton (b. 1999) and Tatiana Elizabeth Wharton (b. 2002).

-the above from Lucinda Wharton's grandfather's Wikipedia entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Courtenay,_18th_Earl_of_Devon
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Thank you, The Hunting House, would not have known where to begin.  Lucinda's love for her home in the country, palpable. 

Garden Design: Lucinda Wharton, Permission to Go Big

“A flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even one solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it.”

– VitaSackville-West

At the curb, I must know who you are.  Your home/garden speaking, your language.  Garden Design is not about where to put a 'plant', instead, Garden Design is getting the language right.  More correctly, the language is opera, an intensification of reality.   
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Came across this garden, below, recently.  Immediately adored, understood.  A single photo.  Stop luxuriating in my words, go, now, to your garden/home, think, a single photo.  Do I know you, and understand?  Not necessary to 'adore', understand, yes.  Does your photo take me somewhere?  No?  Maybe you have been somewhere, but if you can't take it to show-and-tell, you've heard the language but don't understand it.



Plantings, above, beyond marvelous.  They frame the opera.



Felt strongly enough about the home/garden, top pic, to investigate further.  Discovered the owner of this home/garden.  Pure gold.  Large branches and stalks, above/below, are my favorite for inside.  Who is this person, liking them too? 



Then, better, below.  The branches dropping their gold. 




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Playing with arrangements in the same spot through the seasons, above/below.
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During college I spent breaks/summers at my grandmother's home, incredibly happy years.  Myriad layers of happy.  With no training/classes/mentoring, farm raised, grandma always had a gorgeous Garden.  Abundant flowers, from the Earth she knew to enrich.  A Garden Whisperer, in hindsight. 



In my bedroom, during those years, there was always a huge antique leaded cut glass vase on my dresser, backed by a large mirror, stuffed with grandma's flowers.  Nothing else on the dresser.  The flowers my joy.  Changing the flowers, I would go into the dining room, and stand in front of the sideboard with grandma's collection of antique crystal vases.  Gazing.  Knowing what was in the garden, and which vase would be best, next.
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These years were my late teens to age 22, college graduation, marriage, real life begins. 






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Not a one-trick-pony, above/below.  More traditional.








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At the front door, above, again.  Time, has passed, the opera performs.  Understanding from first glance, top pic, now, above, understanding is sublime.  Garden & interior a well written & performed opera.  More, in the sharing, joy is given. 
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Most surprising part of the opera, and it shouldn't be?  The author is a young woman.  The ages I was living at grandma's.  Lucinda Wharton, below.  Looking forward to following her career.  Her life embracing garden, home, art, talent, history, architecture, and more.  In addition she's already famous for her art works, here.  Adore a good opera.
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All pics, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Collateral to Lucinda's story is life.  What it gives, takes away, teaches.  Wasn't too deep into my 20's, a second college degree, paid for wasband's master's degree, working dreg jobs in the Jimmy Carter 21% interest economy, blah, blah.  Infertility.  No friends my age, they had babies.  Instead, friends, incredible women 50's-90's.  Their mentoring, love, fun, life success/failures.  Life gives us all the same teachers, excepting at different times, with different sources.  Pay attention, or not. 
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I had to veer from that girl choosing vases & cutting flowers.  Had to.  They weren't mine, after all, were they?  G*d bless the child who has his own.
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Bless the path given, and taken.  Also 21% interest rates, a better economy and I would have never turned into the garden center parking lot, with a sign, Help Wanted.  At that point, working for a bank, soul crushing.  Knew I had to leave the bank when imagining, in great detail, my head exploding, brains dripping down the frosted glass of my bosses office door.  Yep, time to go. 
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Wish for a different life path?  No. 
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Looking forward to Miss Lucinda and all her doings.  How she nurtures her talent, what comes her way, and makes her path even better opera.  Zero sarcasm there, a lot of war, death and strife in opera too.  Anyway.  Move along.  Happy to be Lucinda's cheerleader.  Curious about her parents, how they raised this old soul child.

Design Your Garden for Winter (not spring): Beauty All Year

Best epiphany about the garden in winter?  Designing the garden for winter is superior to other seasons.  A garden beautiful in February is beautiful all year.
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Rosemary Verey's book, The Garden in Winter, is your source for this epiphany if you're in a bit of doubt.
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In addition to winter being the best season to create a Garden Design, another realm is included, simplicity.  Into those realms, considered micro, is the full blown macro garden in winter.  Your life. 
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Winter's pace is meant to be.  Winter's events in the garden are meant to be.  Pining for the glories of spring in winter?  Not me, never have.  Winter is deep strength in the garden.  A season controlling how we dress, our circadian cycle, our activity levels, and what the activities are, and more.



Pic, above, here.

At the front end, I knew Garden Design, below, was not for me, my station in life.  Middle class, subdivision, working for a living.  Ten good staff, but they are all on my own hands.  Could not have been more wrong.  Instead of seeing the Garden Design, below, I saw station-in-life.  Guess what else I didn't see, below, at the front end?  Yep, the garden in winter, how to design her. 
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Pic, above, here.
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Now, this is what I know, below.  Garden Design does not vary for station in life, it varies by your intensity of perception, whispering the details, taking them for your own.  In the taking, lives are born.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Garden design, both pics, above, are the same.  Both pics are a complete garden design class for the garden in winter.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Studying historic gardens across the globe for decades, I've been into many art museums in different countries too.  Having the art of Providence, above, in my own garden?  Priceless.  Finding these scenes upon a winter's day, a casual walk/perusal, makes time disappear.  Timelessness of other realms become the reality, the unconscious begins its serious work of creativity, grace, joy, peace, putting connections together. 
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Pic, above, here.

If you don't have a garden work area yet, put thought to it in winter.

 
Pic, above, here.
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The garden in winter is inside your home too.  Mainly from the views looking out, which is where every garden begins.  Bring the garden inside physically, all year, especially in winter.

 
Pic, above, here.
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What shrubs for your zone with bare stems in winter will bud/open when cut & brought inside?  Don't know?  Contact your local Extension Service, etc.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bulbs usually go on sale in winter, cheap/easy to pot.  Adore this grow box, below, never seen one before.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bringing a few plants inside for winter, below.  Finally, have done this for myself this year.  Take heart, I'm 30 years into it.  Life was never conducive to interior plants, took the plunge in December.
Discovered a trick, not pleasant at first, about a winter's interior plant table.
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Found at local thrift store for a song, that table, when I moved into my house 2.5 years ago, was stowed with the cats in a back room.  A few fur balls later, the table had a bad side.  No problem, brought table out and put that side next to a wall.
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Life conspired further, work travel.  My pet sitter, cats/chickens, is the best.  But adding topiaries to her duties did not seem polite.  Pulled a leaf up on the mahogany table, placed copper trays filled with water, from Smith/Hawken, for humidity, watered pots/foliage, left for over a week. 
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All was great with chicks/cats and topiaries.  Alas the mahogany dropleaf table.  Unpleasant to be honest, but I've ruined the table.  Took a couple of days to get over the fact of ruining a good piece of furniture.  Get over it I did !
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Whoever gets the table after me, has the choice to keep using it roughly, or refinish.  It's solid, no veneer.  Until then, I have a fabulous interior winter plant table.  Then I noticed other winter plant tables, below, and they are spotted just the same as mine.  On trend, go me.         

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bringing plants inside for winter, below, pay attention to their containers.  I found almost the exact wood container, below, about 3 years ago.  Bought it as a gift for a friend, she brings plants inside.  Then I moved, who knew where that planter went.  Once my topiary order arrived last December I rummaged through the basement.  Found that container, below.  Now it's mine, no thought of giving it away.  Found a classic antique plant stand for it at an estate sale last month too.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Your interior plants don't need to be repotted if you have a variety of soup tureens, clay pots, baskets, other weird containers, to slip them into, below. 
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Soup tureens with a crack or chip are easy to find, and cheap.  Perfect for interior plants.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Bunny Mellon is famous for her topiary use inside, below, all year.  Discovered recently she liked the idea of topiaries after seeing them in ancient Roman artwork.  I've copied her, topiaries, below, are a copy of her, and next maybe you.


Pic, above, here.
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The garden in winter, at its best, below.  How many years have I done these, but outside on my winter patio?  Decades.  Better, branches are easy to procure, free.


Pic, above, here.
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The garden in winter, below.  The pot could be black plastic from the nursery.  Doesn't matter.  Wicker goes with everything. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Have found several of these containers, below, at thrift stores thru the years.  Line with plastic, add soil, poke a few holes, plant the bulbs.  Done.  Stagger planting times, leave outside, bring inside when started to grow, or skip the outside part.  Don't overthink. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Perhaps the least understood garden design, for me, at the front end, below.  Glad through-a-glass-darkly became clear.  It's about all year beauty, ease of management, living life in the garden, not living life having to work in the garden. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Giving a Garden in Winter talk tomorrow, handout, below.  Pay no attention to the plants, it's for our zone 8a.  Plants are first on the handout, yet the most important Garden in Winter facts are at the bottom.  It's all about the Garden Design.
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Have a lovely powerpoint to go with it. 
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It's in a historic church 1 county over.  A large group, and active.  More than gardening, this group is proactive politically, historically, conservation, agriculturally, planning/zoning, and etc.  It's amazing what you learn at Garden Club.  If you think it's all about gardening, it's not.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

                                TARADILLARD.com

                                       SEEN ON CBS, NBC, HGTV, PBS      

                                                    NATIONAL AWARD WINNING

                                                 AUTHOR, DESIGNER, SPEAKER

                                                    TaraDillard@AGardenView.biz

                                                                  678-933-1514

                                                   Beautiful garden, beautiful life.             ******************************************************

                THE GARDEN IN WINTER

******************************************************

COPYRIGHT 2018  BY TARA DILLARD

PERENNIALS

Carex                                Vinca minor

Rosemary                          Thrift

Thyme                                Dianthus ‘Bath Pink’

Saxifraga stolonifera         Helleborus

Liriope                               Mondo

Christmas Fern

TREES

Prunus mume

Contorted Filbert                     Cryptomeria

Chimonanthus praecox           Crape myrtle

Acer griseum                           Magnolia

Corylopsis glabrescens             Holly

Hamamelis                               Conifers

Tea Olive

SHRUBS

Camellia             Sarcoccoca      Aspidistra       Lonicera fragrantissima

Daphne               Pieris               Skimmia         Boxwood

Quince                Edgeworthia   Anise                Aucuba

Holly                   Kerria             Hydrangea       Azalea

Scotch broom      Plum Yew      Yew                                    

VINES                                 BULBS

Carolina jessamine               Crocus             Winter aconite    Colchicum luteum   Snowdrops

Evergreen clematis               Scilla sibirica     Grape hyacinth     Iris reticulata     Anemone blanda

Jasmine ‘Madison’

DESIGN:  Know What’s Important

Axis                    Trees                    Color             Texture      Photograph/Feb    

Focal Points        Hedges                 Silhouettes   Fragrance   Ruined Table

Paths                   Groundcovers      Line               Rooms       Vanishing Threshold

The Garden In Winter, by Rosemary Verey,  Beautiful By Design, by Tara Dillard

A Southern Garden, by Elizabeth Lawrence ,  The Garden View, by Tara Dillard

Decadent & Austere

Creating a Garden Design I ask for several layers of narrative.  One, a mission statement, no more than 2-3 sentences of what you want from and for your landscape.  Some clients don't have that type of brain, so I ask for 2-3 sentences describing their finished garden.
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Years ago I began keeping journals.  Not written entries of my day/week kind of journals.  Too simple, beyond boring.  Journals to elevate the days/weeks of my life, no matter its days.  In spite of some of those days.
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Several themes emerged.  Both gardens, below, living large one of those themes, pairs of words.  First pairing of words to emerge, Sacred & Profane.  Remains as delightful as first discovered, excepting now an old friend 'pairing'.


Pic, above, here.
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Both gardens, above/below, intensely restrained prosceniums yet overtly decadent in metaphor, Decadent/Austere. 


Pic, above, here.
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A sacred/profane trip to small town, south Georgia, Americana presented itself this Thanksgiving.  Couldn't pass it by.  A courthouse square, and the night of Thanksgiving, lighting of the Christmas tree and strands of lights from the courthouse to ancillary buildings/streets.
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Sacred & Profane, small town, still using religion and commerce.  A total joy, no one deluded.  Not even Santa, he was total game, ahead of turning the lights on, exactly on time, Santa drove around the Courthouse Square in his sleigh, bottom pic, reindeer included. 
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Before pulling Santa, below, the reindeer were corralled and snacking.



Blurry, below, Santa & his reindeer were moving fast around the square.  Santa had to get that tree and lights lit, signalling the beginning of shopping on the square.  Later, I realized I didn't know who paid for the gorgeous extravaganza.  Chamber of commerce, churches, a mix ?  No worries, the crowd was huge, and the underlying intent, profane, honored the sacred.
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Bought a new journal book, shopping on the square, after Santa lit the lights.  The next morning, up early, cozied in a chair by the Christmas village, with coffee and new journal, hoping for something good to enter.  The hotel coming to life, the ladies cooked a fragrant  breakfast, TV tuned to Macy's parade coming on soon.
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Time flew, the reading was good.  Many pairs of words.
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Mystery/Meaning, Creation/Transcendence, Law/Grace, Righteousness/Corruption, Universalism/Particularism, Pious/Secular, Compassion/Violence, Justice/Judging, Prayer/Listening, Ultimate/Common, Mystery/Reason, Ideas/Realities.  Are you conscious of word pairings too?
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With word pairs came quotes.
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"Vocation is a gift not a goal."  Parker Palmer
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"Design at its core, thrives when a human being cares enough to do work that touches another----it doesn't thrive when it gets more efficient."  Seth Godin.
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Before the internet most clients, in their mission statements included, easy-to-maintain, and not-cost-a-lot.  Efficient, yes?
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After the internet I'm not asked to include little maintenance/money.  Why?  Greater understanding of what a good garden is, from those hiring me.  Good gardens don't have low maintenance/cheap in their mission statement.  That paring flows, more deeply, and is inherent, designing a garden that will change your life.  Seth Godin nailed it, again.
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What pair of words describe the garden you have, or want to create?
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT   

Beyond the Obvious: This Gate's Full Mission

Born a Garden Whisperer, holes were left in that primordial gift.  Holes created before birth, when thousands of years of Gardening transitioned from pastoral to industrial, less than 200 years ago. 
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Decades of my life passed before I knew anything was missing.  True to form, lacking knowledge about gardening never stopped me from knowing what it was all about.  The grand gift of Providence to all.  We are set on this garden of Earth, soil, plants, sun/moon, livestock, pastures, weather, poof, we're each an expert.  It's just dirt, right?
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For the few choosing to seriously Garden, realization arrives, in our industrialized era, we have no vocabulary to describe gardening.
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Little time to go deeper, instead, will give you a huge hint about what our era has lost.  Providence never separated horticulture from agriculture.  Still doesn't.  We separate it at our own peril, and do.  Mostly without realization.  No judgment.  How could I?  Lived decades, seriously Gardening, before awakening.
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All of the, above, is about the gate, below.  Secondarily about its brick wall.


Pic, above, here.
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So, the gate, above.
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Pretty, is obvious.  It's form chosen with love, care, purpose.
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Go further, to its function, look past its form.
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Can you tell me the gate's diligent purpose in function?  Beyond the macro, to the micro.
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Seriously, why is the gate formed to function exactly as it is?  Beyond pretty, there is serious business taking place with this gate.
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How did I discover the purpose of this gate's function?  Working for a client, on a farm.  As Providence intended, discovery working from a pastoral life.  Not that industrialization is bad, but the lifestyle of stewardship pastoral living conveys into us has been lost, in the macro, and too much of the micro, with industrialization.
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Getting to the understanding of this gate, and its function, was deeply humbling.  What else am I not
seeing?  If I didn't get-it about this type of gate for so many decades.
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Wildly tempted to not tell you, here, the purpose of this gate's function.  Wanting you to think for yourself.  Not a bit of arrogance, more, sharing in how I adore to learn.
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My grandmother would have known exactly why this gate has its form for its function.  Born early 20th century, raised on a farm, pastoral.  She was living fully in the industrialized era by the time I was born.
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No.  You figure it out.  The gate's full purpose.  My gift to you, figuring it out.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Would not have figured it out myself, without having clients on farms.  Once discovered, OBVIOUS, basic.  Simplicity of answer, a life epiphany.  Pastorally, the answer is 1st order thinking.  Industrialized, I could not have answered it, without dipping into pastoral.  What more have we lost, living industrialized?
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Remember your math book from high school?  It would have a few of the answers at the back of the book, so you could check your work, but not all.  Ha, this is one of those.  The answer is not down here, it's for you to own and enjoy.
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Pic, above, a gate in my garden.
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This gate, above, would be no good, for a potager walled garden.  Chickens can get thru.  Lose an entire crop of seedlings?  Damage beyond repair dozens of crop plants?  Not an option, when the food you grow is mostly the only food you have.

Overdose on a Theme: Squares

A 1st order Garden Design rule is to use contrasts for impact, big leaves next to small leaves, burgundy foliage next to chartreuse, rounded tree canopy with a cone shaped tree, and etc.
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A later Garden Design rule, depending upon your character, is to Overdose on a theme, below.
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Design a square garden room with square pavers planted with square beds, pruning plants into squares backdropped with a brick wall of rectangles.  Oooh yes, made me smile. 
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Great scenario proving Garden Design Rules allow total freedom.  Using contrast and overdose a theme, below, for this particular gardener, created emergent behavior.  "Emergent behavior, in many instances the whole seems to take on a life of its own.  Almost dissociated from the specific characteristics of its individual building blocks."  Geoffrey West. 


Pic, above, here.
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Wicked fun creating your own emergent behavior.  Oddly, you'll find your tribe when your garden begins to manifest.  Build it and they will come, is true. 
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All, using Garden Design rules centuries old.  Promise.
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Don't forget, Copy, is one of the first rules of Garden Design.  No two sites are the same, each copy unique, if not totally emergent behavior.  Choice is yours.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T