Showing posts with label Focal Point. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Focal Point. Show all posts

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Little Input, Big Impact

A bit of meadow, stretch of wild wood, bench.  Done.


In the depths of winter, still, one of the best invitations.
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Pictorial definition, LITTLE INPUT, BIG IMPACT.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Front Porch: Color Choices for Views & Guests

Built in the late 50's for the Queen's sister, Mount Corbett has a few original pieces remaining, below.
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This table wasn't designed for meals, propping feet, or bridge.
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This table leveraged conversation, cocktails, cigarettes (I can hear, & smell, the Zippo lighters shutting), & considering the era, 'stuff'.
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More than views, colors were mutedly chosen to show case people.
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How I would love to go back to the early years and see the clothes, hair, jewels.



Instead,


alone on the veranda, I was the color.
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My Ken Doll did  construction & landscaping at Mount Corbett a few years ago, hence my afternoon lolling in the pool & enjoying views while he gabbed with friends at the estate.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken this month in Jamaica.  We both wanted to prune the hedge blocking the views.  Alas, or maybe good for you, Mount Corbett is for sale.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Monday, February 10, 2014

Focal Point: Don't Compete

If you have an eyesore place a focal point nearby.


If Providence gives you a focal point, don't compete.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken at lunch yesterday.  Jamaica.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Elements of a Focal Point: Sandra Jonas

Focal point, double plinthed, on axis, Tara Turf, contrasting colors. contrasting textures, contrasting formal/informal, high density/low density, pollinator habitat, Getrude Jekyll delightful, Jane Austen narrative, and best of all 


this is my beloved friend's garden, Sandra Jonas.  We've been across Europe & USA together studying Garden Design.
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Wonder what she thinks I see here?
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Refreshing: Interior Plants Do Not Look Store Bought

Notice something extraordinarily different about the plants styling the dining room, below?


They look as if they came from the conservatory on site.
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Quite rare to see this attention to detail, though saucers should be included with the coleus & orchid for a complete narrative.  (I have clients on tours, in magazines, TV, so, yes, I'm paid to be this particular!)
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And that doesn't begin to mention the delicious focal point on axis with the vanishing threshold.
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Nice, indeed.  Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Architectural Digest.  Cote de Texas had the pic on a post about wall paper recently.
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  If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Sweet Serendipity: Tuteurs + Lights

A picture note for the garden.


Shopping list: lights.  Prefer to make my own tuteurs.
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Twigs/wood can be found easily.
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Why have I not done this sooner?  Must get it done during this season of early nightfalls.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, lost provenance.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

When a Garden Crosses the Line

Gardens begin inside your house.


Your garden is art on the wall.
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Gardens must be a backdrop to lives lived inside.  Beauty to enrich spirit, increase joy, diminish sadness.
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If you don't have this now, with your garden, you have a surprise awaiting.  This is what happens when your garden crosses the line, one of the best & most enduring friendships of your life.  Once you do have it, and see another with the same type of relationship, voila, a new friend.  
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Hen House.  
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Team Elements to Touchdown

Urn on plinth.


If Garden Design were parsed like football stats, urn/plinth stats are touchdowns.
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I adore the team  formations for every touchdown urn/plinth.  Above, backdrop hedge, lollipop standard sentinels, lawn line defense at a 90% run, contrasted textures/colors, zone coverage for heights, even the fake out play drawing eyes to the sky.
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This urn is a Heisman Trophy.  Once & done.  No maintenance, planting, watering......beautiful 24/7 for decades.
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Mostly, the touchdown urn/plinth is partially executed.  The teamwork backing urn/plinth isn't played.
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In metaphor, urn/plinth stories can be told thru: music, ballet, the bible, race car driving.....they're all teamwork.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic Faux Fuchsia.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Ricky Lauren: The Hamptons: Food, Family, and History

   

Ricky Lauren the Hamptons Food, Family and History, is a good read for recipes, voyeurism into a sweet lifestyle & history of place.  

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A job in Alabama this year had me at Auburn University taking a government regulated landscape certification exam to legally put plants in the ground.  I took Lauren's book to mark recipes for any waiting room slowing my pace.  


More than recipes Ricky maps the decades of her marriage, raising children and stays at their various Hamptons homes.  She pulled me in.  You see my list from Alabama, below.  Ricky gives breakfast, picnic, lunch & dinner recipes.  Of course she had me at the picnics.  Redolent of the life changing picnics Jenny, my mother-in-law, created.


Fresh vegetables with angel pasta was the first recipe I cooked.  If you like Julia Child/James Beard you can taste their influence.  Ricky put her mark on it, in fewer steps + greater simplicity while leaving all the flavor.
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You know I passed the exam.  Alas, had to study for it, drive several hours, pay the exam fee, pay the licensing fee, pay the police ticket parking fee for parking where I was told to park, then discovered the license was only good for a few weeks.  Not even a year.  And that parking ticket?  Auburn was in the newspaper not long afterward for a parking ticket scam !
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Yet, I did get my Ricky Lauren list.  Go me.
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Chandelier, top pic, proves you cannot have Too-Much-Chandelier in the garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic Harpers Bazaar.  Bottom pic my harvest table.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Simple Complexities


More than pretty, easy to maintain.


This is great pollinator habitat.  High density mixed with low density.
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Focal point on axis with the front door is also on view from every front window of the home.
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The more axis a focal point has the better the design.
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 Sir Roy Strong says gardens must have a sky mirror.
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Of course there is more detail, it's almost a Landscape Design course in a single pic.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic I Love Your Style.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Double Axis: Consider Both Directions

Outside, at the tiered fountain looking into the window, I wonder if the wreath is double sided.


Double Axis, if a view is pretty in 1 direction it must be pretty in the opposite direction.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

How to Design a Grill so it's not an Eyesore

Movable grills are awkward, not aesthetic, & do not 'fade away' into the backdrop.  Mostly, movable grills are an eyesore.  

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If a movable grill is on your buy-list study the exterior design, above.
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This is an expertly executed exterior design.  
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Obviously a styled photo I can still smell what's cooking.  And we 'know' there was no cooking going-on for the shoot !
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Why does this movable grill look good?  Props: comfort chairs-pillows-table-umbrella-mood, a color trinity was chosen/green-gray-stainless, simplicity, focal point (if you have an eyesore place a focal point nearby), contrast of many square shapes vs. round armillary sundial, formal landscape choices contrasted with informal plantings, repetition of flooring from dining area to garden area, an easy to maintain garden lets you focus on LIVING in the garden.  Simply.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic via 5th and State.  No excuses about the house, above.  If it's beautiful at a historic estate, it will be beautiful in your landscape.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Garden Design: Bedroom Axis

Try this for your interior tabletop design.  The largest piece...outside.


If there is another window in the room, I swoon.
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You do know about rooms with windows on 2 walls?  We are hardwired for them in our DNA.  Christopher Alexander,    A Pattern Language, describes the architecture our souls desire & thrive best with.  
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Ginger Barber, above, decorating.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic Ginger Barber found at Cote de Texas.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Where to Site a Garden Focal Point

In the garden, your house is the main focal point.
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For centuries, this, below, has worked.

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If something has worked for centuries, there is a reason.
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And, it will work for you.
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Urn on plinth.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Never had a college instructor or seminar speaker say, In the garden your home is the focal point.
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Why?
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What did those 'experts' miss?  Paint colors on the home, lighting, hardware, views into windows, style choices, where to correctly site exterior focal points.  For starters.
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Most common question I receive, Where should I put this plant?
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If only that were the question.
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Garden design is about where to put a plant?
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Hardly.
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Friday, November 29, 2013

Pot + Plinth: Making the New Timeless

From the 1st appointment earlier this year I KNEW a focal point should be on axis with the front door.


Earlier this week, above/below.


A few minutes old, above, this urn looks as if she's been reigning at least a century.
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She's designed empty, with a floral designer brought in for catered events.  Remember, a pot must be so fabulous it can stay empty.
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Found the pot/plinth resourcing materials at the Americas Mart with client.  A great 1/2 day.  Would have taken a decade, at least, to hunt/gather what we found !
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this week at jobsite.  Shovels, 5 men, a level, were involved getting this beauty 'right' !

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Port Cachere: Before + After

I was hired to 'refresh' the landscape.
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Leaving the port cachere as-is was not an option.  This is their main family door.  
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We went shopping at the Americas Mart in downtown Atlanta last month sourcing merchandise.  Not everything had arrived by this week but enough to get started, below.


This table is temporary, above-below, a very nice temporary.  Soon, once a vintage large French buffet is sourced I'll get you more pics.


I made do with the few pots/flowers she had last Monday, above/below.


Small moments of beauty, above.
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As she gets into her car to leave, and then returns, her port cachere is embracing arms for going into the world & returning from the world.  A matriarch in every layer of her life, she has a lot going on and appreciates all Providence provides.  It's in the small moment thanks are deeply felt.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pics taken at jobsite last Monday.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

How to Site a Focal Point

Chunky hunka aged concrete, below, is a railroad abutment ca. 1900, found in the garden.


Perfect for a plinth it was easy to place.  It's on perfect axis with the dominate gable of the house, below.


When something requires a Caterpillar to move, perfection is required.
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Driving the Caterpillar he says, Are you really sure?  These moments are amusing.  Of course I'm sure.  His eyes say, Glad I'm not you.  This is my job.  KNOWING where things go.
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Ironically, the urn is temporary.  We are still sourcing the right statue.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic last weekend at the jobsite.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Designing Redolence

Not only historic, I want my garden designs to be redolent of having read, and adored, E.M.Forster.  Jane Austen, Wendell Berry, my grandmother, you get the message.


A garden must be more than 'there', it must take me somewhere.
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For decades I've known, I travel farthest in my garden.
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The owner of this garden, above, discovered me in my gown getting pics at 6am.  I knew it was she who created the magic.  As I walked barefoot in the dewy grass we meandered while she told me her garden's story.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Piper's Cove, Jamaica.  The resort was built in the early 90's and she could only afford tiny plants.  I know exactly how she feels about each one.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Historic World Pivot Point: Rarely Captured in a Garden

Remnants of historic gardens, from garden design studies across the globe for decades, create a trinity: woodland, low meadow, stone focal point.


You are looking at, above, when-the-music-stopped.
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A concrete terrace built during the 20's for evening dances, think Gatsby, was topped with a stone fountain during the 30's.
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It is rare to see, in concrete, when the world shifted.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic Shaw Gardens, Jamaica.  Had quite a 'moment' when I saw this, of course my friends were happily obliviously walking past fast, before I told yet another garden 'thang'.  Poor dears, they had to tolerate my 1 track mind.
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Know what else you are seeing above?  Maximum pollinator habitat: high density with low density + water.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

How to Choose & Site Pots in the Landscape

300 acres, 3 'mostly' matching pots totaling 3 centuries of age and no pots placed on the property, yet.  
(Does the pot, below, tell you, "Touch me."?  If it does it means you are an old soul & kindred spirit.)


Pots must be so wonderful they can remain empty, if desired.  Here, they needed to match the history of the home & be within a certain size range.


Perfect, above, they do not draw attention to themselves.  And still allow seating on the low stone-capped columns.


2 men/pot setting them in place.  My general contractor said, as the pot, above, went up, "...That's a ballsy spot."  As if he earned a response.


3 years getting to this layer, placing pots.  Best part?  Looks like they've always been there.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last month.  Found the pots, plus several more, at Scott Antique Market a couple of months ago.
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Did you pick up on the major component of getting the right pot in the right spot in your landscape?  Something few are good at, patience.
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Knowing to choose pots that can remain empty is such an important 'discovery'  I claim it as one of my inventions.  If you think through the carbon footprint of 'annuals & potting soil & fertilizer' for container plantings along with your time & money you'll understand beautiful empty pots.
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Of course planting sublime pots is a layer of fun in the right season of a busy life.