Showing posts with label Enfilade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enfilade. Show all posts

Friday, October 17, 2014

What Your Home Should Say, from the Curb

Your garden must tell me who you are from the curb.


'Overdose on your theme', is the best way to get there.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic, 5th and State, take the link, Debra's done an excellent treatise on matching pots to houses.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.
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NOTE to my gardening friends... look for changes to come. 
Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.'   Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.
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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'.  Saved the article for a year before reading it.  Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.
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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0.  A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life.  Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact.  Signed up  for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow
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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method.  Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix.
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What do YOU want?
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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.
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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Just so you know... 

 I  welcome your input.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Pinterest: Furniture in the Garden

Still glowing & fragrant, Southern for sweaty-from-the-day, 48 hr whirlwind with Susanne Hudson in good gardens.
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Had to share at least 1 pic from our jaunts, below.
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Acreage, antebellum, private home of _____________.
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How have I not known/met this man, or heard his name?
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Unavailable, he gave us access to his gardens & barns.
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A garden design class is in this pic, above, but for now it is merely enough to know Furniture in the Garden.
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Pinterest, at present, is a joy to eye & intellect.  Adore intuitive learning from good pics.  Since childhood I've been attracted to British shows on PBS and furniture-in-the-garden.  OF COURSE I titled one of my Pinterest boards, Furniture in the Garden.  Click, here, to see it.
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Local interest, Martha Tate owner of HGTV's Gardener's Diary, and Liz Tedder, 19 times (so far) in Southern Living magazine were with Susanne/me.  Met Martha in my early 20's professionally and sadly only recently met Liz Tedder, she came to the Conservatory Susanne & I built for a Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival display 3 years ago, which is now fronting editor's letter of Better Home's Gardens magazine this month.  1st time in Tedder's garden.  How does that possibly happen, should have been 76th time.  Best news?  Liz is writing a book.  And, I was demanding of what it should have.  Don't you do that?  Why not ask for what you want to see pics of and know about?  This doesn't begin to cover spending the nite in Susanne's world famous garden, again.  Luff, luff Susanne's mom.  Asked her if I could call her, MiMi, today, she's 80's & I'm 50's.  Hugs & kisses in both directions.
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Drawing a garden for a Federal style home tomorrow.  Life is rushed, and good.
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Notice Tara Turf, above?  How could I not adore this 'new' friend?  Will post more pics, and his name/link once I meet him and get permission.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Nurture Your Creativity

Ca. 1950 ranch.  Front yard, house on the golf course.
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Drawn on site.  Folding table/chair moved a dozen times.
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Don't mess with how I work.
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How the potter molds clay, similar to how I design.
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Feet in the garden, eyes/mind/Spirit/hand, in symphony.
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Performing.


More regions of the brain activated, than sitting in the office on a computer.


Designing on the computer would be like playing the violin by hooking it up to wires and tapping on the computer keyboard to get the sweetest sounds played.  Not !


Whence my creativity, I know.  And, nurture.


Within that zone of creativity, is, I imagine, what others gain from cocaine.  Don't know, never tried it.  Don't need to, got better.  

 "Some get a kick from cocaine**
I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrific'ly too
Yet I get a kick out of you."   Cole Porter



Each time a plan completed the awe in time.  Felt like seconds, yet hours passed.  Little in life allows me to forget time, or hunger.
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" My general formula for my students is "Follow your bliss." Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it. 

Joseph Campbell
The Power of Myth
pp. 120, 149 "
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Great fear, indeed.  Campbell should have added some in your life add to that fear, not trusting the path you've chosen.  
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My father was horrified at my career choice, and embarrassed.  And vocal.  My engineering degree unused, the horticulture degree supporting me.
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What I do for a living, and how I do it, are the best life choices, for me.  Bucking my dad literally made me ill at times.  
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Best choice I've ever made, and the hardest.
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Garden  & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from jobsite this spring.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

How to Site the Perfect Backyard Fire Ring

Fabulous begins here, below.  Alas, merely a few minutes old.  Mulch, literally a dead brown color, is prominent while evergreen groundcover, dots of green below, grow into a mass sheet of lush green.
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Slope is nice, not long.  Did you notice the trick creating greater drama & depth?
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Steps lead from wider to narrower.  
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Steps are pre-cut, cheaper to install than natural fieldstones.
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Fire ring with circle of Adirondack chairs.  A no-brainer siting the fire ring on axis with the steps.  
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Chairs are new, curing, and will be stained  to flow with color choices from the home's colors.
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More, this is a double axis.


Looking back at the house, below, the steps & fire ring are sited on axis with the gable's peak.

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Landscape design is not voodoo or what feels 'fun' or includes 'stuff' just-because-you-can-afford/rescue-it, but a true science, with sprinkles of art.
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From your home's architecture most landscape design flows.
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The house dictates, then land, then distance from the house aka 'use', then sun/shade.
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When this garden, above, is ready for entertaining how many guests will realize the myriad layers of thought about the steps or siting the fire ring or choosing color for the Adirondack chairs?  Doesn't matter, they will know it 'feels' right.
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Often enough, true geometry for axis siting cannot be done due to 'blah-blah'.  Surprise, faux geometry works.
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Notice where the Adirondack chairs are sited, in addition to circling the fire ring?
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Perfect distance for resting the feet on the fire ring stones.
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Yes, made the clients sit with me & my general contractor and we adjusted the chairs.  Of course the rest of the team was working/digging/installing irrigation and see us sitting with our feet propped up !  
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Love my job.
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Another design element, fire ring stones are unmortared fieldstones.  Wanted the contrast of rustic, at this distance, to the formality of the home.
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This rustic-ness an element of the 'poverty cycle'.  Studying the best historic gardens across the globe for decades it is obvious which elements are consistent in each.  And, the poverty cycle is one of those elements.
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Neo-similar to Temple Grandin, I pay attention deeply to patterns in visuals of good gardens.
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If you haven't seen the movie about Temple put it in your queue.  Amazing, and humbling, learning from another so different from oneself.

Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Took the pics at a job site this spring.  When is siting a fire ring not about merely siting a fire ring?  Always.   
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Top Garden Design Feature to Help Sell Your Home


For decades this, below, was a bare slope with mulch.


Now, flow exists around the entire home.
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Flow.  Is it easy to walk around the entire home?
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90% of my out-of-state Garden Design work has come from past clients hiring me for their new home. They've each said the same thing, "You helped me sell my home, fast."  The ubiquitous beauty, color, lighting, etc. was important but I know the, unexpected, #1 reason they assume their Garden Design helped sell their home.  Flow.
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Flow.  Get you some.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara  
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Does Your Landscape Describe You?

Beside the front porch, below, is the mudroom entrance.
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 I feel the welcome & delight in each detail.


The wreath is in honor of the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival & this home/garden are on the tour.
Been in Southern Living magazine too.


As if the bench still-life were not enough, the little wall, below, along the path is 'done' too.


Precociously my Tara Dillard garden design rule, "I must know who you are from the garden before ever entering your home.", is wowza answered here.
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Today, seriously look around your garden & home's exterior.  Do they tell me who you are?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Front Porch: Color, Shutters, Narrative

In a subdivision, below, without the trees you would see neighbor's houses from the front porch.


Whenever you see the gardener, dressed up/down, she's arrayed in black/white.  With a bit of bling too, but you knew that from her front porch.


The shutters are bi-fold doors from a closet.  Ick to fab !
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Color, seating, flow, layers, texture, invitation, relaxation, all ages, conversation, dining, narrative.
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Which shouts loudest?
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I adore the narrative, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Front Porch: Formal + Informal


Design Rule: Contrast.
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A touch of the Queen + Ellie Mae Clampett.
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Urn on Plinth + Galvanized Buckets hanging with ropes.

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Your garden must tell me who you are before stepping inside your home.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic taken this month.  Jeri Farmer's lovely home/garden was on the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival Garden Tour.  Jeri & Susanne refreshed the garden this year and time/money were both running short yet pots were still needed for the ferns.  Of course Susanne said, "Put them in galvanized buckets."
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Friday, June 20, 2014

Design Rule: Hint of Invitation

In the bright morning light, below.
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Hint of something, saying, come-this-way.
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Gravel path, boxwood, bench & hydrangeas.
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Paths should engage: foot, eye, mind, heart.

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The language of invitation.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken this month in Susanne Hudson's garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Garden Design Course: Free in a Single Pic

Under a pecan tree not much grows.
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Tara Turf is best.
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Why?
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Increased pollinator habitat increases crop yield up to 80%.
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 Susanne Hudson found herself with 4 benches needing a home.  Exquisitely, they found a home.
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Please put this on one of your Pinterest boards.  It's a free Garden Design course !
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Garden Design: backdrop, canopy-understory-groundcover aka ceiling-walls-floor, color, texture, scale, flow, garden rooms, mystery, serene, poverty cycle, curb appeal, focal point, subsidiary focal point, vintage theme, simplicity, low maintenance, pollinator habitat, urban gardening, structure all year.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic snapped with my phone last week.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Design: Built In Seating Rarely a Good Idea

Harvest Table for 12, arbor, pendant lights, vines & hedges.  Done.


Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.
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Fact, if a garden design was beautiful centuries ago.  It WILL be beautiful in your garden.
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Al fresco dining.  Across continents, cultures, eras, humans are hardwired for Al Fresco dining.
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Yesterday's Garden Design I completed includes 3 square teak tables.  They can be used individually or together as a harvest table.
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Fixed seating, as some decks have, remind me of George S. Patton speaking of war, "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man."
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Give yourself choices.
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Another good one from Georgie,  "If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results."                    .
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic lost provenance.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Transitioning Style: Garden Rooms Different than Interior Rooms

Beyond the house, in their garden, is the rose garden with cottage.
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Formal.
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Quite obvious what type of garden room is next.


Rustic, and wild, below.


Truly, one of the best waterfalls, any continent, residential/commercial, I've ever seen.
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Garden rooms are easy to style.  They contrast formal to rustic and back again.  For many centuries now.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in the Paul/Lisa Brown garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.