Garden Design + Interior Design

Garden Design begins inside your home.  Ginger Barber interior design, below.

If the lane is indeed a dirt drive to this home I, seriously,  swoon.
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A trinity for Barber's work, " Designing beach houses, farm house and ruralist." 
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In a single picture, above, a several week class on garden design & interior design can be taught.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic Ginger Barber.   First seen at Cote de Texas.  Pure vanishing threshold.

Garden Design: Color + Proscenium

Choose a color trinity for your garden.  Green, Brown, White is one of the best.

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House & Garden are YOUR proscenium.

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Why?

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So YOU are the star.

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What will it take to get your Home & Garden to this level of competence?  

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Merely being aware.

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It's that simple.  

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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Pic Aerin Lauder. 

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You don't need Lauder's bankroll.  It's all in the attitude.  Taratude, get you some !

Front Porch: Take that Rail Off

"Take the rail off", I said.  Friend, not client, we knew the obstacle, husband.  Years passed. Now, below.    Understand intuitively who took the rail off & built the new step?

Ahead of the curve, they sold their lakeside mcmansion, and moved here, her childhood 2B/1 bath cottage.  When it's full of their 5 children, 15 grandchildren, & friends (lucky me) the house does not feel small, only unlimited horizons of love & joy.

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"Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now?"  William Stafford.  Gifting this lovely quote to my dear friend who lives in the cottage, above.  
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week.

Stephen Sills: On Acquiring Objects

"It's funny with objects.  If you're really passionate, and you really understand your sensibility, and you're patient, they will come to you..."

"That's what I love about the magic of objects.  You never really own anything in this world, but you can be lucky enough to possess something for a time, and enjoy it, and then it goes on to another person to enjoy.",

Stephen Sills in Town & Country, Oct. 2013.
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His simple gardens in the city are caressing arms.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics via Elle Decor.

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?

Remember Gertrude Jekyll's "....the first thing I consider, when planning a garden, is what to put on the house."
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For ease of maintenance I prefer espaliered woody shrubs.  No wires, no trellis.
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House & terrace, above, are vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Half Pudding Half Sauce.

How to Get Guests to the Front Door Instead of the Back Door

Welcome to the front door.   Many park here, below, the family parking court, then walk to the back door.

Perhaps a pair of historic marble urns at the granite step?  An invitation of welcome to the front door.  Not in the original plan but something shouting possibility.

By car, above/below, a drop off at the brick path.  Another possibility shouting!

Front door, above.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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History & subtlety are major goals in this garden.  For decades I've known if mistakes are made they must be on the side of Too Simple.  Easier & cheaper to add something later than to undo paths, trees, bushes....  This isn't a mistake merely the garden speaking its wisdom and us paying attention.

Furniture on the Porch

Hydrangea 'Tardiva' are so easy you must

really plant enough to give blooms away.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic taken at jobsite this week.  H. 'Tardiva' begin blooming in August and will grow into a small tree in full sun where they thrive.

On the Porch: Table Toppers

The clay in her county is well known for its pottery.

Her bouquet of comfrey reminds me I've never once planted it myself.

The wicker arrived from a local junk shop a couple of summers ago.
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Her childhood and most of adulthood were in subdivisions yet on acreage she wields latent powers, including the placing of livestock fencing.
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Profoundly miserable in the subdivision, what if she didn't follow her soul to this acreage, instead going to a therapist?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this month.  Watching her is to bear witness.  Providence in action.  Humbling.    

Overdose on a Theme: Coke

  We knew the red table was perfect.  

In context, above.  Overdose on a theme.

Out of context, above.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last month shopping with client.  We knew another layer had arrived for her property and had a successful day at Scott Antique.  Ironic, how many times have I passed things by because I saw no context!
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Remember well when I could not tolerate any garden design rules.  Any.  Now, quite a few are my favorites.  Overdose-on-a-theme is at the top of the list!

Desk & End Table on the Porch

Perfect place to get a few things done on the laptop, a quick lunch, perhaps a grandchild coloring?

Maybe it's only an extra chair.

A magic table:  end table AND desk.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday at jobsite.  Did you notice the garden view in the top pic?  Decades of experience, studies in historic gardens across Europe, college, seminars, knowing  simplicity is the 'skill'. .

Detail: Furniture on Gravel

Furniture on gravel.

A common scenario, below.

Furniture will sink unevenly.  Soil was dug to place a brick under each table leg, gravel lapping to each.  Voila, no bricks showing.
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This is not a job for mere mortals, the slab of marble weighs more than my truck.  After using the bubble level the guys are making sure the marble is also set equidistant.  These 'small' tasks always blow my estimates of, "Oh that should only take a few minutes."
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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top pic John Saladino's garden, bottom pic a client garden.

Hiding Necessities

Hiding necessities.

Inside & outside.
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Quite a nice topic for a book.  Anyone?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Mod Vintage Life.  Looks like the patio was extended with 18" square concrete pavers.  Easy, affordable, unskilled labor.  The climbing hydrangea?  Amazing.

Beware: These Pillows Need Worthy Backdrop

Few gardens could backdrop these pillows.  

Not the focus, yet complete dominance, this garden looks 'not done'.
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Heads-up, by the time a garden is this simple it is 'totally done'.
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Joseph W. Tyree did the landscaping.
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Perhaps the slipper shoes demand the pillows & garden as backdrop.  This man exudes something quite rare amongst his age group, happy self-confidence.
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More about man & house,  Architectural Digest.  Enjoy.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Beware, even, the cushion/pillow shelves at discount stores.  They may be cheap but they will steal your entire garden/deck/views.

Garden Design & French Doors

All about conversation, comfort, nature, beauty, connection.

Though not enough lamps for someone who reads.
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You must do this with beautiful rooms.  Deconstruct them for your uses.
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French doors are a secret weapon in my arsenal of Garden Design.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Room by Billy Baldwin.

2 Questions for Patios, Decks, Porches

Graduating with another degree, horticulture, I was fully aware creating the gardens of my soul had yet to be discovered.  

Luckily Penny McHenry came into my life.  She invited me to lunch the first evening we met.  A lecture meeting with packed audience we were in the 3rd row.  I plopped next to her & knew she wasn't amused.  We began talking, garnered a stern glance from the speaker then talked so long the security guard asked us to leave, the building was closing.

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In her garden, the next day, one of the biggest theatrical curtains of Garden Design opened when I saw her back deck.  From the first glance I knew.

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When looking at a patio there are 2 questions.  Is this space so wonderful I must see inside the house?  Is this space so wonderful I must see the garden?

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Ironic.  Patios, porches, decks, & their styling, were not mentioned during my degree program.  Nor any symposium I had ever attended.

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Penny did it from innate talent.

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Innately I knew, copy good ideas.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic Susanne Hudson's front porch last month.

Outdoor Kitchen

A friend gave Susanne Hudson this Hoosier cabinet a couple of years ago.

Until recently it sat gaining more rust behind her carriage house.
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She realized it fit perfectly with her color theme: green, brown, white.  Into the garden it arrived.
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Garden & Be Well, XO   Tara
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Perhap this should be done in aluminum for gardens.....  Metal Outdoor Hoosier Cabinet with gas grill, the sales slip should read.  Perfect for those not wanting the huge stone aka "I've tumbled from Mars out of the last surviving Apollo Soyuz rocket payload" outdoor kitchen.
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I was hired as the 2nd garden designer for a project because things weren't 'quite right'.  Their outdoor kitchen had been placed on perfect axis with the family room.  What a view,  stove-fridge-counter-cabinets.  Not!  It was moved to the side, which was much more convenient, and the garden became the focal point.
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Remember well when the Russians arrived for Apollo Soyuz, they clogged up the grocery store lines when  they did not want to pay USA taxes on their purchases.  Trinkety things, lots of lipstick etc....  Of course they used USA roads, police protection, & more provided with USA tax dollars.  Even as a young teen I knew something was 'wrong'.  Their clothes could have been in a period drama from the poverty 1930's.  They moved as a pod, or school of fish,  fearful of their surroundings.  Their skin was pasty white, their hair was flat, and all eyes were huge, darting quickly, never settling, no smiles.    Many of the engineers at NASA were against this mission.  Why hand over engineering know-how?  This is obviously a Cold War memory.  The worst part was their own security detail.  Wanting to prevent defections during their stay.    

Front Porch: Long & Narrow

Placing table + chairs at the 'L' of a porch must be in the helix of our DNA.

The web has enough pictures to fill a seductive hardcover coffee table book.

 At the opposite end of the porch, above, more seduction, below.

Places to read, serve a meal, have conversation a basic trinity for your porch.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics shot last month on Susanne Hudson's porch.  A field gathered collection of furniture with a tight trinity of color: green, brown, white.  Comfort oozes in her still life's.

Desk in the Garden

Don't you adore hearing a new strange fact, and know it's true immediately?

Every garden needs a desk.

First shared with me by Susanne Hudson.
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Have adored sharing it for years.  Zero dissent.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics in Susanne Hudson's garden last month.

Contorted & Twisted

Take advantage of contorted & twisted.  Honor them.

No lawn, no mulch, above.
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Yet elegance reigns.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Susanne Hudson's garden this month.  Had the good fortune to spend the nite when the crabapple was blooming.  In the morning we had coffee in the library with the crabapple blossoms filling the horizon, backlit by the morning sun.  An unexpected 'life' moment.

New Use for Erosion Control Fabric

Hanging from a large oak tree, below, chandy stays on 24/7.

Recognize the tablecloth?  Erosion control fabric.  Bought in huge rolls.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic this month from Susanne Hudson's garden.