Showing posts with label Doorstep Gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doorstep Gardening. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Choose the Right Doormat

Doormats with writing?  No.  Front door, home & garden are the trinity saying, 'Welcome'.


This doormat, above, recently sold for over half a million pounds.
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Footnotes

  • Property of a Lady

    Provenance: 
    The temple stone was removed from 'Brackenhill', an early 20th Century Tudor Revival house in Crowborough, East Sussex. From 1935, Brackenhill was the home of William Murdoch Thyne (1878-1949), a Scottish civil engineer working in Ceylon between 1915 and 1937, and later in Jamaica. Thyne was responsible for the design and execution of many large reservoir projects including the raising of the Labugama Dam in Sri Lanka and the filtration works for Colombo. He was a Vice-President of the Ceylon Engineering Association and is recorded as having used elephants for the lifting of heavy masonry at Labugama. Thyne and his wife, Lilian, returned to Brackenhill in 1937 prior to departure for Jamaica where he was appointed chief engineer and member of the water commission at Kingston. During the Thynes absence from home in 1938-39 it would appear Brackenhill was let to Oscar Mackrill, a solicitor, and his family. Mr. Thyne continued living at Brackenhill after his wife's death in 1949 and died in Crowborough in 1952, whence the house and temple stone passed into the possession of the current vendor's family.

More about this sale, here, from Bonhams.com .
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic via Bonhams.  Major take away?  When the finder of the doormat died, his home was sold, doormat included.  It was the new owners who won the doormat lottery.  One of the best garden stories I've read in years.   For all  Lucia fanatics a new chapter must be written.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Side Porch

The kitchen has a door to the side porch. 




Kitchen door, above.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Amazing how few homes have a side door & porch.  Same home as previous post.  Painting by Christine Shockley.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Front Porch Questions

Every element sings together on this front porch.






Field gathered furniture swathed in the came color.


Porch questions.  Is the porch so wonderful I must go inside and see the home?  Is the porch so wonderful I must see the garden?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend, same garden as previous post.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Japanese

Invitation.  




 "...eternals as applicable in the smallest of spaces as in the vast acres of a country house garden." Sir Roy Strong.  Above, vast as a mountain range.


Water Mirror, miroir d'eau, above.




Water breaks the footprint of the Tea House, above.  Small touch, huge impact.


Looking outward, above, from the bamboo window seen coming in the entry, top pic.


Framing the view, above, for centuries this has been done.  Is a brick ca. 1960 ranch less worthy?


Hidden, then meandering, above, then spilling into the pond, below.


Why, above, do we like walking on water?

 At the minimum, 2 stones.  Male & female.  Earth & sky.  Ying & yang.  Even the shadows are benevolent.


Leaving the Japanese garden from its other side, above, into a pecan orchard.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken Massee Lane Garden last weekend.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Front Door Pendant Light

Endangered object, below.


Sweetly scaled pendant light.
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A front door is always a focal point.  When architecture & materials are already good why compete?  Beware 'too large' exterior lighting at your front door.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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pic via DIY Home Staging Tips.  You'll love the link, it's the best tips of Home Staging for 2012.  Of course, too many decades of USA homes lack good materials/architecture, mine is one, so you want to consider the possibility of large exterior lighting.  Then, beware of lipstick-on-a-pig.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
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Details about online design services.
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Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
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Details about lecture titles here.
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I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Color in the Garden

Which part of this doesn't speak?

A full narrative.
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Great metaphor.  It's more important what we say 'no' to in the landscape.  And life.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic via Slim Paley - A Classic Combo

Friday, November 2, 2012

Lost Garden


Client recently decided to rent The Cottage this plan was designed for.
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Inspiration for another day!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Still pouting since I received the call a few weeks ago.  Pic, lost provenance.  If you know I'll credit.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Creating Layers

View into the garden, below.  Pic taken at jobsite last week.


 Not mature yet, above, but doing its job.  You don't know what that job was.  Means the job was done right.


My job?  Hide the view (pic taken 2 years ago) of the dependencies, above, create mystery, pull your feet to investigate, be a proscenium for all weathers, fill the spirit of any mood, provide entertainments for small groups, large gatherings & yet be easy to maintain while providing maximum pollinator habitat for potager, bees, & yet more.  Now we're in the realm of my Landscape Design classes.
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Every step in Landscape Design is counterintuitively simple.  
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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My basket is in yet another pic.  It was a 2 basket day.  Did you know I rate my days by how many baskets are needed?  The best days are 4 basket days.  Means I've been designing & lecturing & overseeing an installation.
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Last visit home my sister told me it was infantile and not appropriate for a woman my age to use baskets.  In fact, the little basket I was using embarrassed her.  We were having Sunday lunch at the club with mom.  It's a joy to irritate her without trying.  When the server was clearing away she told me how cute my basket was & what a great idea to use it.  Sensing the Cheshire smile my sister received from me?  Obvious I'm the younger sister.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Checkerboard: Before & After

Exploded brick ranch, below, before their checkerboard this week.  Water issues where the lawn won't grow.  And an entertaining area, go figure, at the bare dirt & low wall.  This neighborhood is thick with children and the parents have earned their margaritas & canapes set up on the low wall while their progeny go wild on the lawn.


Mr. CDC  cut 48 paper squares for the trial run of the checkerboard, below.  My contractor watched, amused, as we spread them out.  Of course, totally confident, he only purchased 48  18" x 18" bluestones.


Do you know the 1st, and most important bluestone, below, to be laid?  The rest of the Checkerboard relied upon this beginning.


Dead center, above/below,  at the entry from the carport.


The Caterpillar was used to contour the land for drainage.


New sod up to the low wall AND the steps of the porch.  Simple, potent, functional.
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Garden & Be Well,                XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this week.  Cannot wait for the sod to root & a party to take place.  I want to walk slowly by (incognito stranger) & see if my visions for the space are correct!  Several young children accumulated on the wall while Mr. CDC & I were placing the paper squares.  They were speechless & still, sitting on the low wall, with staring eyes at what the strange adults were doing.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Stone Wall Needs to be Seen

A well maintained century, below, at this home.

 Stone accent wall near the entry, above, is obscured by a gorgeous Japanese maple, below.
Have asked the pruner to create tiny views thru the Japanese maple  to the stone wall.  Yet keep the Japanese maple gorgeous too.
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Garden & Be Well,          X O Tara
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Same house as previous post.  Pics taken with my phone & you see my little work basket.  It holds pencils, circle templates, erasers, keys, phone.....and shouldn't be in the pic.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

How To Make These Windows More Fabulous

At her bluestone terrace, below.  Inside is the kitchen.

Soon, French doors will open onto the bluestone terrace.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday at a jobsite.  Notice the gap in the ferns?  Saw the culprit eating them.  Her dog!  Unrepentant.
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When I told her the windows HAD to be French doors she smiled and said it was validation.  Her thoughts exactly.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Pot Planting

A bit of clipping, drip irrigation, enjoy.


                               Oh my, the dappled light.
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I haven't put an annual in my pots for decades.  Magazines & nurseries push-push-push annuals.  And I listen to what I'm asked for EVERY design, 'my landscape must be low maintenance & not expensive.'
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Gravel to the house, bushes in pots, necessity furnishings for meals, entertaining, relaxing.  Why are so many Americans afraid, above, of this?  "Let's build a deck, make it too small, add built-in seating with the rail which won't ever see use......"  "We'll pour a cement patio barely big enough for a mop, Weber grill, round table + 4 chairs."
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Pic via Desde My Ventana

Monday, September 24, 2012

John Rosselli Garden Room


Two years junking & thrifting and most everything, below, should be found in-some-variation.

John Rosselli's magic.  Pretty, charming, welcoming, color, light & etc.
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This is the perfect room to come in from the garden with dirty shoes, tools, leaves in my hair & a few bugs falling off my clothes.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic via Veranda on John Rosselli Antiques.  The more I scratch the surface of John Rosselli I know why Bunny Williams married him.  Did you see Garden & Gun was hosted by Bunny at Treillage?

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Front Door Ideas

Puppet Barbuda's wicked eye.  


Boxwood disgracefully pruned into helmet hair, and wider at the top creating leggy hags with pockets of space at the bottom.
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Coiled hose lingering for pride of place.
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Blocks of wood anchoring exterior lights? Oh dear, at least stain them the color of the siding.
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The delight of the sweet round doormat.   A great touch.
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Charming vernacular baskets over the front door.
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Adore the shutters open in welcome.
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Why mulch when a groundcover is less maintenance & more lush?
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Elegantly shabby seeing money stretched.  The steps/rails are solidly good and tell a story.  Windows are at a crossroads of rotting but surviving with storm windows attached. 
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The window box & front door paint color tell Puppet Barbuda she wants inside this sweet cottage.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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A Cousin Cathy pic from Nantucket this summer.  This cottage reminds me of Aunt Tillie in her 80's, widowed & easily taking care of her brick cottage & garden.  Plenty of money but not one red cent to replace the furnace.  Smiling with a glint in her eye, "Let the next owner pay for it!"  Blessedly several of her antiques are now in my home & garden.  
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Who is Puppet Barbuda?  Landscape Design Critic of course.  

Monday, September 17, 2012

Gravel To The Foundation

 
What is the incessant USA love affair with foundation plantings about? 
Bushes are either leggy hags or green meatballs.
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Ugly, requires maintenance, depreciates the value of a home.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Adore the gravel solution, above.  Pic from Deborah Silver who owns Detroit Garden Works.
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I left USA for Europe to study gardens once horticulture degree was firmly in hand.  Was taught how to be a guy with a truck mow-blow-go.  Worse, they taught  how to landscape design from the street looking at the house.  Europe was a grand teacher.  Will never forget the first time I saw gravel to the house foundation.  GOT IT.  Love moments of epiphany.

Friday, May 25, 2012

How To Increase The Drama

Subtle drama, ego in check.  Pair of stone columns, iron gate, half-round stone steps & on axis a Japanese maple.  Not a gaudy statue or etc.
 Do you see the opportunity to increase the subtle drama, below?
Remove the pinestraw bed & let the turf flow to the stone wall.
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Small tweek HUGE impact.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic taken last weekend at my lecture venue.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Simplicity


Dare you?  This simple?
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Yes.
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Gravel to the walls, color theme, mix of stone-wood-iron, vine-on-house, evergreen cones in pots, round downspouts, beautiful views into the home, finials on the roof, custom shutters, 3-d lite over door.
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If you like it, break down the reasons.  Beauty in one spot can be translated into yours.
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House is the focal point.  House is the backdrop to the landscape.  Specifically, the front door.
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It's brutal to be this simple.  But POTENT.
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And low maintenance.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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pic via Things That Inspire .  Even a disastrous brick ranch ca. 1963 can be turned into a historic caretakers cottage.  This house , above, tells you how.  Have fun.  If you, indeed, live in the disaster.  Of course I can be this blunt.  Living in a brick 1986 box.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Copy. Price Is No Excuse.

Copy, it's one of the 1st & best rules of Landscape Design.
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It's not the price point, alone, creating this welcome.
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What can you copy?
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Lights on inside, door/walls with confidently chosen colors, urn on plinth so fabulous it can remain empty & a confidently chosen color, welcoming bench, fabulous light in maximum-3D over the door, metal boot scrape, wood mat, scoring of stone.
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Not having a welcoming entry because you don't have the money is not an excuse.
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Much to be rescued on garbage day, returned paint found cheaply at hardware store or really cheap at a thrift store, cheap pot with good shape smothered in ivy, faux paint scoring, and etc.
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Desire & intellect will provide your beautiful entry. 
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Don't have the courage to post drive-by-shootings of hi-end properties with ridiculous front door areas.
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You know, champagne budget , beer taste.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic via Belgian Pearls.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

5th & State On Mary Bairstow

 5th & State came to Atlanta recently to visit her friend Mary Bairstow, interior decorator. 
 You'll like Mary's interiors but I fixate on her exterior.  The woman has Vanishing Threshold.
 I swoon, above, at the diminutiveness of these steps & matched in scale boxwood and asymmetry.
 A taste of Mary's interior, above. 
Is there any doubt, above, you are about to enter a fabulous home/garden?  None.  When every element of simplicity/function are achieved you know you are looking at the work of a master.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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5th & State took the pics.  Still pouting I didn't know she was in Atlanta, I would have invited myself along on this visit to Mary's magical home/garden.
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Did you notice the layers of green Mary uses in her garden?  Layers of green give you serenity & calm.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Small Lives Large With Axis + Focal Point

On axis with the doors, below, this tiny space lives large.  It has the potential for 3 more potent axis.
Purring at the formal lines + rusticity of plantings.
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At first I looked too quickly, thinking it was metal chairs.  No.  It's a bike & chair. 
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Don't you want to go inside? 
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That is Vanishing Threshold!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Don't forget the Landscape Design rule: COPY
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Pics via Modern Country, taken by Shootfactory