American Farm House, Now

Farmhouse style with her own flair.

Between formal dining room & kitchen, below.

Few built-ins, below, in the kitchen.

And a surprise in the living room, below.

Braid rug.  Bold.  Been so long since I've seen one it was 'new' again.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend, same home/garden as previous post.

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.

Front Porch Simplicity

When the competition is an old Pecan Orchard I know to go simple, below.

Soon the tea olive, above, will engulf the end of the porch.  And then be pruned into a tunnel, for the pure life necessity of leaving the porch at its tiniest entry.  Silent Partner doesn't think this is needed.  He has his reasons, I have mine.  200 acres and I am particularly interested in this square foot.

My competition, above.  Fields, Pecan Orchard & Home, a perfect trinity.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken this month at jobsite of several recent posts.  Leaving the Pecan Orchard alone includes creating Tara Turf, siting daffodils, boxwood & historic brick path, keeping fence at the road and saying 'no' to foundation plantings.
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Another fabulous Landscape Design making me unemployable to the largest landscape design/build/maintain companies across USA.  Planned obsolescence of irrigation, keeping fence, no foundation shrubs, no zoysia, no annuals.
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MATH on what 'those' companies would lose in installation & a single decade of maintenance with my design.  New fence, irrigation system & rows-upon-rows-upon-rows of green meatball shrubs. Lawn: 2 acres sod, mowing, irrigation, pre-emergents, fertilizer, edging.  Shrubs: several prunings yearly, mulch in the beds, pre-emergents, fertilizing, replanting annuals 2/year.
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Minimum annuals charge is $500/season by the best firm (of course I use the best, Simply Flowers, & of course they are needed in many commercial, and residential situations.)  Monthly maintenance $500.  Fence $4000, irrigation $4000, mulch 350/year, chemicals/fertilizer 200/year, &  foundation shrubs $5000, 2 acres zoysia sod $52,800.
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$141,300.00 for a decade of traditional USA Landscape Design.  My Landscape Design, above, $50/month maintenance fee, no foundation plantings, no irrigation, no chemicals, no mulch, little pruning, no sod, little mowing, keep fence, no fertilizer, no annuals, $6,000 for a decade.  (A kind woman, I give away the concrete foundation expense of the brick path, mine are in dirt.  Otherwise add another $5000)
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$135,300.00 difference. 
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Has the math sunk in?  
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My work/style is not meant to save money, yet it does.  It's historic Italian.  Enfilade from the interior of the home, pollinator habitat, a thanks to Providence, a joy to look at and live within.  When away on vacation my gardens are carried in the heart with a yearning to know everything while gone & return soon.  If you can leave at all.
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Chill Pill Urban Ag!  There are other ways in this industry to make money.  Ask Silent Partner !  Thank you for letting me be on your Outreach team.

Vanishing Threshold

This, below, is a disaster.

At a minimum prune the crape myrtle trunks into elegance, add sasanqua espaliers & sconces along fence.

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This room stops at the windows.  Why settle for so little?

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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pic via Cote de Texas. 

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By the Glamorous Age you must be able to have a couple of friends over for a delicious lunch you prepared in a lovely setting of garden & home.

Tree Arbor

Have never understood the concept, "I can't afford a nice garden."

Can't afford an arbor?  You can afford a few trees.  Contact your Extension Service and discover myriad trees available for pennies on the dollar.
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Site the trees along the western exposure of your home and save money each warm month on a/c.
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Trees raise property value.
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Choose native trees as butterfly hosts in addition to bird habitat.
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Mary Sarton is wrong, gardens aren't silent.  Who can live without the sound of wind thru leaves?
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Trees teach me every fall, trust Providence, let go & be enriched.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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pic via Bumble at Home.  In a small garden, for above, I would use #89 granite gravel instead of lawn less maintenance.
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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.

Create Enfilades

My childhood home was built around an open courtyard, many were during that decade on Galveston Bay.

When the courtyard is designed to be part of the interior an Enfilade, a view into a view, is created.
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Enfilades are the most common photograph of gardens to be chosen for hardcover books & magazines.
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A fact I noticed decades ago, and began then, creating as many enfilades as possible.
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Why should YOU create enfilades?  Copy what the best garden designers & photographers do.  Enfilades are historic for a reason.  Great impact with little input.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pics  of Pablo Paniagua's work.

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

Vanishing Threshold with Color Theme

Modern addition with classic architecture, as if THAT is often successful.  More deeply sublime are the accouterments.  Garden focal points placed on perfect axis with interior doors, secondary focal points placed on angled axis.  A perfect square with the planters & a circle in stone.  

Layers of green, lean-green-serene.  Statuary & planters color themed to echo house.
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It's obvious this is a tight collaboration between owner & landscape designer.
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Vanishing threshold is magnificent here.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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pic via Pinterest.  Which part of your vanishing threshold is 'magnificent'?

Gertrude Jekyll: Munstead Wood

Christopher Lloyd said, "The garden dies when the gardener dies." Gertrude Jekyll's beloved home, Munstead Wood, above.

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Technically correct, but dead.

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I see a garden needing its mistress. Missing her. Aching for her.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic above, Charlotte Wehychan.

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I also see maximum pollinator habitat: canopy/understory trees, walls, groundcovers, high density, low density. When Jekyll designed landscapes was she aware of her interface with pollinator habitat?

How To Place Beautiful Things

My beautiful pot on plinth, below, placed on axis with the middle window pane of my bay window at the drawing room. Thus sited, it's part of my drawing room. Not separate.How to place, below, a beautiful summer house?
On axis with a main pair of windows from the home, of course !

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Oops. No pic of the view seen while in the summerhouse above. Ha, must get back to the Cotswolds for it.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic in my sweet garden, in the Bay Terrace, aka front yard. I took the bottom pic in the Cotswolds at Sir Hardy Amies garden.

Killing Me Softly With His Words

I do it to other people almost daily, "Your, (insert plant name), must go." What goes is as important as what stays.Yesterday, in my garden, several big projects. My guy suddenly standing in front of me, in my space, mirroring my body language. Not good.

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"Your cedar really needs to go." "Let me take those boxwoods to the compost."

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Boxwoods still here, cedar met the chainsaw.

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This is so hard.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Hard AND personal.

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Pic from the new Laura Ashley catalogue. Gotta love a company selling curtains using an enfilade to the garden.

Enfilades Increase Drama

Enfilade, a view thru to a view. In gardens or homes, I adore an Enfilade.
Standing outside the conservatory this week (in gown/robe/bedroom slippers) in the snow
I discovered a new Enfilade.
Oh yes, sublime.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Good accidents, without waiting 3-7 years for discovery, in the garden are verification you've done it RIGHT. Mostly, gardens take time.

Why Was I Hired?

A beautiful garden, below. Why was I hired? Above, is EXACTLY why I was hired. Mystery & Surprise & Anticipation are missing.
From the garden, above, looking into the patio, it's the same story. Mystery & Surprise & Anticipation are missing.

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Do you know how to create Mystery & Surprise & Anticipation here?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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They thought they hired me for a backhand corner of their landscape. Ha, that was easy. I put in a conservatory, gravel & a table under the pecan tree with a pair of chandeliers hanging from a large branch. Materials are already being sourced from a ca. 1830 home recently condemned. And I didn't mention a huge THORN in the pictures above. For today, I'll let you be the Garden Designer. My Garden Design solution tomorrow.

Fake Geometry

Revelation came slowly, below.The balance is real, below.
Symmetry, below, only an illusion. Do you see?
Slow down, look closely, below.
Fake Geometry; looking real. The columns are not symmetrical.

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Poppets, when the revelation about the columns arrived I knew I was in the presence of genius. Have known about Fake Geometry in Landscape Design but this was my first encounter when it was the columns.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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More pics from my client's home in Macon, GA last weekend. Notice the enfilade from parking court/patio/room/frontyard in the 3rd pic? Taking pics in my gown/robe by early morning lite the scrumptious dogs did not rouse from their beds. Their daddy was making coffee, I was only a guest & you know who they were awaiting, mommy. When she arrived those dogs exploded in joy !!!!

Double Axis: House & Landscape

On the patio, below, looking into the backyard.
On the patio, without moving my feet, below, looking into the house. A room overlooking: frontyard, sideyard, backyard. 3 walls of windows & a fireplace wall with 2 doors. I doubt there is a smaller, more delicious room.
Incredibly exciting Double Axis. Do you have a Double Axis point like this? Get one. Then, get more!

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Tara Questions to answer about Double Axis at your home & garden. 2 pictures taken from 1 spot. Does this picture make me want to see the garden? Does this picture make me want to see inside the home?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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More pics from my jobsite in Macon, Ga last weekend.

Shotgun Lot

Only a few feet from this window, below, are the neighbors, below.

From a front room view, below, see the brick chimney? It's where this antebellum home was 1st located. As family fortune increased they built a new antebellum home on the same site, moving this home to its current location.

In the same room, as above, another view, below, on a different wall.

With a smile & sparkle she proclaimed her home the "first mobile home in Athens, GA."

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Yes, poppets, this is the same home as in the previous post.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last month in Athens, GA. Stay tuned for more interior shots. Beautiful views from shotgun lots are among the hardest achieved.

Double Axis

Looking along a path, below, in one direction. Looking along the same path, below, in its opposite direction.

DOUBLE AXIS. (Same garden as yesterday's post.)

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Double Axis, my landscape design invention (la-ti-da). I noticed the best gardens have beautiful axis, and when you turn around they are beautiful along the opposite axis, DOUBLE AXIS.

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So, dear poppets, it's not merely good enough to have a beautiful view. You must have a beautiful view in 2 directions along the same line.

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Of course you can throw a roundabout into your Double Axis and create a Double Double Axis. Life is good when these are your musings.

Create Seductive Doorways

Invite people thru your garden with doorways. Use a pair of pots, pair of vertical stones, pair of plinths, pair evergreen shrubs, arbor & etc. Drama of a step, narrowing to the path, above, less than 3' wide, lines of boxwood creating a hallway. Focal point on axis, creating a foyer and

beyond is another fabulous living room.

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Doorway, top pic, leads from the terrace in yesterday's post.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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It is this simple. Doorway, landing, hallway, foyer, living room. Gorgeous & low maintenance too.

Foyer, Hallway, Doorway

Welcome to the foyer, below. Beyond the terra cotta urn on a plinth is a hall leading to a frontdoor (iron gate). Ah, creation of mystery & privacy.
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MORE, poppets, if you can stand it !!! Gate & terra cotta urn are on axis with the bronze hatted girl in the previous post.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Enfilade

More windows than shown, below, view the patio. From the windows, thru the patio, across the lawn, and into

the woods. A complete view, an enfilade.

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Imagine, sitting on your couch, enjoying views of the patio, lawn & woodland.

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Nice, indeed.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in Athens.