Showing posts with label Furniture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Furniture. Show all posts

Monday, March 13, 2017

Classic Garden Furniture

Deep narrative.  Over a period of years shrub/tree, below, lovingly pruned into a thing of beauty & function.  How do I know?  Aside from the obvious, had a witch hazel tree in my 30 year cottage garden, I pruned the same.
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Layers of this story, below, timeless.  Stone, furnishings, vanishing threshold, invitation, function, colors, etc.
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With classics, each iteration, unique.  Go deep into classic garden simplicities, results more deeply you.  Another counterintuitivity of Garden Design.
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Pic, above, here.
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Buy the classics, above, new, table/chairs, all from Ikea.   (Not a promotion nor receiving paid endorsement.)

LÄCKÖ Table, outdoor IKEA Easy to keep clean – just wipe with a damp cloth. The materials in this outdoor furniture require no maintenance.

ÄLMSTA Chair IKEA Each piece of furniture is unique as it is handmade. Furniture made of natural fiber is lightweight but also sturdy and durable.

STORSELE Armchair IKEA The furniture is handmade and therefore unique, with rounded shapes and nicely detailed patterns.
This little table, below, perfect in the garage.  Perhaps you need a larger table.  Life in my Cottage, I would place the next day's 'take' for jobs, on a table at the back door in the garage.  No garage at our ca. 1900 farmhouse, the 'take' is set on a buffet in the foyer the nite before.
ASKHOLMEN Table for wall, outdoor IKEA Space saving as the table can be folded down when not in use.
Life throws a curve ball, below.
IKEA PS VÅGÖ Chair, outdoor IKEA
These chairs remind me of a Hercule Poirot episode set during the 30's at a centuries old English estate.  Oddly, they're perfect for the shed at the Potager.
SKARPÖ Armchair, outdoor IKEA The drain hole in the seat lets water drain out. Can be stacked, which helps you save space.
Six pics, above, Ikea
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Image result for hercule poirot
Pic, above, here.

I know !  Liking those chairs reminds me of being a teenager, and knowing beyond a doubt mom had gone round the bend.  Whatever, I still like the chairs, if they pass the sit test, to the farm they come.
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Peculiarity is a layer of Garden Design.  If you love something enough, it will work.  Within parameters, but it will work.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Tara Template: The Well-Placed Chair

Touring historic gardens across Europe for 2+ decades, it took only one trip to 'see', The Well-Placed Chair.
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Most gardens had a chair, simply put, creating a still life.  Never seemingly pre-planned.  Serendipitous.
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Noted.
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Copied.
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Every garden needs a pair of matching chairs, comfortable, interesting, sited as a layer of still life.
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Chair, below, in my garden.  Flower petals appear photo shopped, they aren't.  Better, how many times have I sat in the chair for a phone conversation or lunch, and hummingbirds whiz overhead.  How many more times would I be upstairs, look out a window and see a cardinal or blue jay perched atop the chair?
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More than creating a still life, the Well-Placed Chair creates a well lived garden.  How could I have given to myself the gifts Nature has given, in tandem, with the Well-Placed Chair?
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Don't you want it for yourself ?


TARA DILLARD: August 2009:

Country garden with lollipop hedges and a gravel path:
Pic, above, here.

 ❤️:
Pic, above, here.

 English cottage garden:
Pic, above, here.

Garden diary - Arne Maynard Garden Design:
Pic, above, here.
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Where to find a pair of Well-Placed Chairs?  Garage sale, thrift store, antique shop, estate sale.  If they don't match each other, go you.  Paint them the same color.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Monday, January 9, 2017

Furniture in the Garden

In the garden.  That's my magnet.  If you've read for any time, you've noticed there is no 'working' in the garden, of the macro-world's vernacular entrenched meaning of working-in-the-garden.
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This I know for sure.  If you're working in your garden, and it's easy, you're doing it wrong.  If you're working in your garden, and it's hard, you're doing it wrong.
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So.  Which is more true?  Both are deeply true.
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Truth?  True work in the garden is an intellectual delight.  Best game invented.  Toughest competitor ever, yourself.  Rules change each second, weather is friend and foe, no one will ever have the pocket book for what they want to do in their garden, raising the bar, do it anyway, you are compelled, use cunning and smarts, get the garden you want. along the way realize to your core, G*d almighty first created a garden, and 'men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection', and in the best metaphor, the game of creating your garden is realizing it is truly the gift of washing the servant's feet, Nature, or perhaps you have a notion, still, you're above the pollinating desires of a mere lady bug, or honey bee?
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Here's the deal, bottom line, it's important to be in your garden.  Comfortably.  Must begin somewhere.
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My clients know I'm far more interested in how their garden furniture is used during a soiree, where it's placed the morning after, than being at the soiree.  If it was a large soiree with myriad age groups I want to know how the various groups interacted with the garden.  But this is jumping ahead of the story.  About you.  And being in your garden.
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Furniture In The Garden, is my Pinterest board, over 800 pics.
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Bottom line, below, these folding chairs at a minimum.  Whatever it takes.  Most recent pic saved, below, yet one of the richest.

“Residents of an older home,* built in the 1850’s, take advantage of the summer weather to sit on their front porch off Route #800.” Barnesville, Ohio, July 1974. Below, the back …:
Pic, above, here.

Have written about preferring square/rectangular garden tables over round, on deck/patio.  They are more useful, can be pushed together or against a rail or the house.  Round table, below, is perfect.  Each seat, a lush view.  Great Garden Design too.

 Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick selling Manhattan townhouse:
Pic, above, here.

This story, below, is rich.  Wish I knew what it was.

 Paris est une Fête! — Une terrasse à Paris. Paris terrace.:
Pic, above, here.

Hope this table, below, sails a thousand ships.  Repurposed everything.  And a mix of seating.

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Pic, above, here.
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Very nice, below, go buy it.  If it's not in your budget, easy too.  Do what the French do.  One of the best things I learned while studying historic gardens across France is about furniture in the garden.  If garden chairs are field gathered, paint them all the same color.

#balcony #garden #city:
Pic, above, here.
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Am field gathering garden chairs now for my harvest table.  A crush of hodge-podge-lodge at present.  Some chairs I had, I know will go away, once field gathering anew is successful.
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Once 10 chairs are bagged, I know exactly what color they will be painted.  If you've read for any length of time, you know every garden must have an exterior color trinity.  A centuries old concept.  For our ca. 1900 American farmhouse I chose the classic, green-brown-white.  The white & green have already been specified, still working on the brown.  The chairs will be green.
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Field gathering targeted items is one of my favorite things to do.  Mostly, they are sourced at thrift stores, yard sales, Goodwill, or Habitat Restore.  The hunt is like cocaine, if I knew what that was like, but imagine the garden hunt to be far superior.  Oddly, garden hunts of my pack of garden gals, equally rich to enjoy, as much as my own.
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There is a proper way to share garden hunt finds.  Text a pic or call and describe, then the most wicked part, something to the tune of, It Was Three Dollars.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT
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Something happened with the cheap folding chairs.  I've kept too many.  On purpose.  Beloved wants to toss over half of what we have.  Nope.  When we go to a pool party, picnic, concert, fireworks, etc. I always bring extra chairs.  They always get used.  My personal Garden Chair Ministry.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Historic Layered With Mid-Century Modern

Divine smash-up of mid-century modern AND historic Garden Design.
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My kind of maintenance too.  Rustic, refined.  Sharp mind, sure hand.  
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Ooooh, that color on the furniture.  I'm in.  Had me at hello.
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How little can you have in your garden, and it's useful, and it's beautiful, and it's easy to maintain ?
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Keep it simple sweetie, check.  Pushing all the right buttons.
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Both masculine, feminine.
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Can you label the parts?

creeping-fig-wall-matthew-williams
Pic, above, here.
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Canopy trees, understory trees, wall, floor, focal point, flow, axis.  Exterior architecture, a garden room.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Easy Garden Furniture

Furniture in the garden has intrigued me from childhood.  Thankfully, my parents had a cool iron chair, I adored.  Bought new in the 60's, it had arms, tall back, detachable iron 'bonnet', separate foot rest, it turned 360, rocked, and had nice cushions.  I rocked, whirled, read books, and even napped, with my orange marmalade cat, Tigger, in that chair on the screened porch with deep overhangs, Galveston Bay always hot/humid.  Most memorable moment in the chair, awakened from a nap by a loud chorus of tree frogs.  Looking around, none visible.  Still, the chorus.  Found them, by the 100's, rimming the underside of the chair cushion.  Managed to hop out faster than an Olympian, without harming a single tree frog.  50 years later, I cannot see a tree frog without thinking of that chair.
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Time passed, mom gave the chair away.  I see those chairs occasionally in advertising, or at antique shop.  None, complete with bonnet & foot rest.  A good thing, I would probably buy the chair, if it were complete.
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Dad had the worst end of the deal with that iron chair.  Cleaning the patio, hosing it off, he had to move the chair at least once a month.  Maybe it was him, glad to give the chair away.
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Now, easily moved garden furniture is the hunt.  Aside from lightweight, it must have arms, a back tall enough to rest the head back, and nap.  More than the personal, garden furniture must leverage having friends in the garden.  Create a setting for conversation, laughter, lingering.  Especially after meals.

sigmund freud with chow chows 1933:
Pic, above, here.
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Have the good fortune of sourcing 3 of the wicker chairs, above.  Each for a song.
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Amusing to see Freud in a photo new to me, attracted by the outdoor furniture, round circle of iron in the railing contrasting so well with squares of the French doors, and those chows.  Freud.  Not my cup of tea, more Jungian.  Thankful for both.
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That balcony.  So much narrative, without a word, wisely playing backdrop.  Yet, take away the man/dogs, the backdrop narrative immediately jumps forward, owning the stage.
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These are the things I design in gardens.  Some, too rich, think it's all about a few bushes and a little garden furniture.  Those, are not my tribe.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Small Space or Budget: Best Garden Table Shape

When space or funds are limited there is, indeed, a best table shape for your garden.  Choices.  I believe in creating life choices.  Trickle down theory, you must choose a garden table giving you choices.
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This seems a small point, it's not.  "Try not to THINK so much!", Doctor Rawlins told Jim in, Empire of the Sun.  Lucky me, all things garden, it's my job to think so much.
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When funds or space are tight in your garden, choose, below, a square or rectangular table.  Easily pushed next to your house, deck rail, a fence or wall.  Buy 2+ and place them end/end for a harvest table.  Choices.

my castle in spain: A little haven in Andalucia : Cortijo del Pino in Albuñuelas:
Pic, above, here.

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Pic, above, here.

Often, a client will have a round table when 2 rectangles will be better.  Most often the 'left over' round table, is used next to a garden bench, adding a couple of chairs and coffee table.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Love the round table, above. see lots of CHOICES with it !

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Furniture in the Garden: Choosing to Make it Recede

A trinity of furniture-in-the-garden pics, below, chosen for style, and to recede.  Beyond melding into the backdrop, these choices make each of the garden spaces feel/live larger.

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Pic, above, here.

 Front porch envy:
Pic, above, here.

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Pic, above, here.
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j.k. rowling:
Pic, above, here.

 In Oneness we are all there, we are the very essence of the One Great Mystery of the Universe. ♥ -Mary Long-
Pic, above, here.

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Pic, above, here.

Trust the process quote. goals. dreams. advice. wisdom. life lessons.:
Pic, above, here.

Putting together your garden is not the flippancy of oh-I-like-that, it's waking up, choosing to move forward, turning the page to a new chapter, accepting the historic layers of wiser minds, they're there to work with you, their Muse waiting for your epiphany, it's all for you too, sure, you'll have myriad headwinds, you aren't special in that, everyone does, some things will have to go materially/metaphorically, enjoy the light some bridges are best burned, warning you'll lose some people in your life, but you'll understand, in Truth, the deeper you go inward the more you outwardly connect to the people you've always needed in your life, perhaps deepest of all, if you are brave enough to truly create the garden in your heart the epiphany will arrive, you will understand, why G*d Almighty first created a garden.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Monday, September 5, 2016

Choose the Classics: Add Your Character

This would be a fun Garden Show template, below.  All entrees must use a day bed, 2 wicker chairs, wicker coffee table, wicker end table, the same amount of space, but after that, no rules.  Color, cushions, accessories, free to choose.
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The classics with infinite variety.


Pic, above, here.
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Next to, above, I would like to see the entry belonging to modern cutting edge techno masculine.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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No budget for , above?  Hunt/gather furniture basics, paint all the same color, you're on your way.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Furniture in the Garden

First seeing Agatha Christie murder mysteries on tv, ca. 1980, I was captivated with scenes of furniture on the lawn.  What motive could possibly force any sane person without a staff to move furniture to the lawn, whence it must be removed, to mow?  I wanted that life, the life not worried about later mowing.
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Fine tuning the desire for furniture in the garden, further, I adore furniture in the garden, after a soiree.  Even if it's merely for 2.
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Furniture, in the garden, after a soiree, cannot lie.  I like the stories furniture in a garden tell.
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Story, below, is a bit boring.  Staged for the photo.  Details extravagantly interesting, below, glad to be learning from the shot, but more interested in the 'after' story.  Hope there really were 4 people about to enjoy the cake and conversation.  If so, that's the picture I want to see, when they are done, when they are gone, and before anything has been cleared and all the furniture a tableau of their time.
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Why does this matter?  More than a beautiful garden, I want to live beautifully in & with my garden.  Beautiful gardens must be form and function.

The Grey Manoir:

Pic, above, here.
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Still awaiting the arrival of my harvest table for the garden.  Its first afternoon will probably see 2 cats atop it, leisurely bathing.  Bought a set of 6 vintage tumblers last week, not thinking of this pic.  Indeed, they will look good on my new harvest table.  6 for $10 and the antique booth was having a 40% off sale.  Would have paid $10 each they are so perfect for our ca. 1900 farmhouse.
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What does your garden furniture say?
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Design Solution: Deer & No time

Last week I completed a Garden Design for a local family.  Their home is new construction on 35 acres of beautiful farm land, open, wooded, pastures, broad slight slopes.
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The pool is near completion, the pole barn completed, the house has its exterior, now awaiting wall board and layers that follow.
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The home is huge.  They have young children.  Deer thrive on their acreage.
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Plantings, aside from deer proof, must be no care, they have no time for landscape maintenance.  None.
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What to do?  Farmesque is the theme I chose.  With pool at the back, the front yard is open, mostly flat, short meadow.  I sense the front yard will be THE play yard.  Still, what to do with the Garden Design?
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At the far side of their front yard meadow, I designed a small pecan orchard, 8 trees, 2 rows of 4, with harvest table and strands of lights, for trunks and canopy.  Trunks to be lit nightly.
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More than meals, a gathering spot for projects, or lounging with a book.
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Dinner in the backyard ...:

Pic, above, here.
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Whew, saved by an orchard.
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And, simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Impromptu Garden Table

Christian Dior's chateau, Château de la Colle Noire , below.  My brain fizzing with questions about purpose originally, and use now.  Was this originally a plinth for a statue or urn?
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On the right day/s, what a spot for an impromptu picnic !
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Of course, it's a rabbit hole for the brain, merely seeing this picture, not the entire garden.
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Immediately thinking of Martha Washington and her impromptu tables at Mount Vernon.  Their home a hotel of sorts, never knowing how many would be arriving for the nite, and meals.  At times they would set up long planks atop saw-horses, covered with a tablecloth, usually white, in the garden, or perhaps the piazza at front. Truly, a provincial version, of Dior's, below.
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Which would be your favorite use, below, plinth or table?

Christian-Dior-Château-de-la-Colle-Noire-habituallychic-018:

Another plinth, below, at Dior's chateau.

Christian-Dior-Château-de-la-Colle-Noire-habituallychic-011

Pics, above, here.

Front piazza at Mount Vernon, below, overlooking the river & catching a breeze.



Pic, above, here.

A recent meal, below, at Mount Vernon.  I would rather attend a private event at Mount Vernon, in the style of Martha.  Though, would happily attend, below !

..vernon1

Pic, above, here.
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What about dining in your garden?  Does the spot make you happy?  It should.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Monday, June 13, 2016

Garden Design: How Little Can You Have?

How little can you have in your garden, and it still holds together?
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Garden Design, below, would hold together at a mid-century Ranchburger.  (Perhaps a new title, Garden Design for Bad Architecture, split-levels need extra thought too.  Of course I spent 30 years in my cluster home, I named a Guppy House because garage/drive predominate at front of house.)   In addition to how little you can have in your garden, how to  have a Garden Design, raising property value while raising pleasure/use.  Never to leave a penny on the table, Garden Design to reduce HVAC & maintenance expense.  Ironic, I find the more demanding you are from a Garden Design, it's easier to create, and a better Garden Design.
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Pic, above, here.
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Just back from a week working in mom's garden on Galveston Bay, TX .  Dad had asked for a hedge planting at the back fence over 2 decades ago.  Fence is straggly naked with 2 remaining misshapen hideous RED TIPS.  What was my suggestion he brazenly ignored?  Camellia sasanqua.  Yes, I still look at that fence imagining sasanquas.  Plant choices matter, in addition to Garden Design choices.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Thursday, May 26, 2016

A Touch of Black

Every garden needs an exterior color trinity.  Subsidiary colors allowed.  Green-brown-white the classic for centuries.  Black, below, boldly, tossed in instead of green.  Yet the green is there, in plantings hung on the black, and in the garden.  Blue/white, below, subsidiary to the main color trinity.
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Tell me you noticed, below, the enfilade !

outdoor dining at its best:

Pic, above, here.
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Quick glance, appreciate the porch enfilade, with closer attention, garden enfilade travels much deeper.  Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Monday, May 23, 2016

3 Layer Garden Design

An excursion, below, that should be a destination in Garden Design.

Tuinontwerp - tuinontwerpen door tuinarchitect tuinontwerper Zuid-Limburg Brabant:

Pic, above, here.
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Using the 3 elements, above, of garden design, plan your garden.  A serious landscape, in vanishing threshold with interiors of your home, expanding lifestyle, all with ease, beauty, joy while amplifying your personal aesthetic.
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Don't know the 3 elements, above?
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Ceilings, walls, floors.  Put another way, trees, shrubs, groundcovers.  Another description, foyer, dining room, living room.  Yes, now you are seeing the trinity of elements in the design, above.
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Two types of ceiling, above.  Can you label both?  Sky & trees.  Three types of flooring, above, low meadow, gravel, a chevron pattern.  Three types of walls, tall shrubs, medium shrubs, contrasting texture shrubs.
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Pond is a nice focal point viewed from the foyer, yet equal in use to both living room & dining room.  .
Focal point on plinth, on axis with don't-know-from-this-pic.
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Never thought about a garden like this for your home?  This garden will take your further, faster, lasting longer, than most other types of gardens.
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Starting and ending points for this garden remain 180 from a garden beginning, "I want hydrangeas, peonies and..."
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Just Let It Touch

From the 80's, I've noticed, this focal point conceit, below, used in magazines & books.
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Just let it touch.

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Pic, above, Here.
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If you can't just-let-it-touch, perhaps add a small leafed ivy to clamber your focal point a bit.  Though it could easily be a clematis too.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Monday, May 16, 2016

Mix Matched Outdoor Furnishings?

Layers of narrative, below.  Color echoes a home run, for starters.  White to silvers, very nice.
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Curiosity too.  Hydrangeas, below, at left in foreground, then further back, to the right.  A photographer's styling?  Perhaps a stylist guiding a photographer?
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Did your mind go there at all?  The white hydrangeas merely props?
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Hardly the 1st thing I saw in this delightful pic.
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First thing?  Field gathered furniture, all painted same color.  Voila !
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Studying historic gardens across Europe for decades it was France teaching me that trick.  No worries about field gathering garden furnishings.  Paint them all the same color.
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Huge arrow in your quiver.

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Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Almost a complete garden design course in this pic.  Canopy/understory trees, high/low density, scale, flow, focal point, simplicity, color, contrasts, repetition, ceiling/walls/floors, seasonal interest, winter structure, invitation, comfort, myriad uses, no chemicals, low maintenance.

Friday, May 13, 2016

Porch Furniture

Met with a client yesterday, we did their backyard 2 years ago, and she needed a quick hour.  Several topics.
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Last topic, her small front porch.  Garden catalog in hand, tape measure pulled to dimension, blue tape marking chairs/sofa feet.  Where exactly should the sofa/2 chairs be placed?  About to answer, she quickly said where her 11 year old daughter told her, "Mom, they have to go like this."  Great moment, exactly what I was about to answer.  Not the 1st time this child has said intuitive things about the garden.  We've got our eyes on her !
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Perhaps the most surprising & delightful outdoor seating, below.  Those scallop topped barrels, the folding screen, the hard-packed dirt flooring.  Is it a private home?  A small hotel?  What kind of trees are in the barrels?  Why is the screen there?  Is there anything behind the screen?
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Woman, front left, seems to be texting.

Portrait of a family on a terrace, 1901, Library of Toulouse:flickr:

Pic, above, here.
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When I worked at a garden center in the 80's we would get an order of 1/2 whiskey barrels 1/year, sold for $11.99 ea.  Unloading them from the truck, fumes so strong, we felt like we could get drunk by osmosis.
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I was a total snob about those whiskey 1/2 barrels until I saw George Washington had used them at Mt. Vernon, and a pic of Rudyard Kipling in India standing on a gorgeous porch, several 1/2 whiskey barrels planted.  Now, these full whiskey barrels.  Yep, suitable for our ca. 1900 farmhouse.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Nitty Gritty of Patio Chairs

Good chairs at the round central table, below, for overflow/extra seating.  Easily stored, easily carried.  However, I know they do not meet your full requirements.  These are not chairs conducive to lingering conversation after a good meal, especially in the evening.  Nor are they acceptable for 'him they call fat boy, clocking in at 400 lbs. with a passion for food and film magazines, who'd been a great critic downtown, he'd politely decline dinner happy to dance down the street drinking vodka in the moonlight, with his aging film queen at 58 odd years of age.' Face it, you'd rather keep this couple at your table.    

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Pic, above, here.

Much better to keep Fat Boy, 'in his gray overalls, and the aging film queen, master raconteurs both, for dinner in the comfortable chairs', below.  Perhaps she'd share her story of 'the fountain of youth, somewhere west of Fort Worth, where she met Errol Flynn in the Crazy Water Hotel.'

Outdoor Living and Patio Ideas Photos | Architectural Digest: 

Pic, above, here.

Who doesn't love good stories after a good meal?  No worries the pastiche is a bit embellished, it's the truth told as it should be when there are fireflies, stars and the moon filtered thru branches of century old pecan trees.
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My girlfriend, Miss Gulf Coast, had a Thanksgiving dinner several years ago, she called me ahead letting me know she'd invited a 'character'.  Bless her.  Older, crooked health, and from the margins of society, he'd created his own world, overcoming a few obvious, yet unknown, poor life choices, with dignity, character, delight.  It was my honor to be seated next to him.  He passed before the next Thanksgiving.  We still talk about him.  Yes, I like a good character at table.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Quotes from, Tom Russell's song, Mineral Wells,
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Almost a decade ago a friend burned me a cd, an unexpected gift.  Written in fat Sharpie, on the cd, Texas Boogie.  Mineral Wells is one of my favorites.
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Honestly, how many times, across decades, can I write/lecture about patio chairs?  And, keep myself amused.  Perhaps you'll tell me a good dinner story that's happened to you.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

A Civilized Garden

Lilly is my tax accountant.  We met yesterday morning, last of everything done, filed.  Go us.  Her office is a sweet little house, ca. 1930, renovated for her work.  Believing in a spoon-full-of-sugar I made an appointment afterward to finally peruse the huge antique shop on the main street, a former dry goods business built prior to the Civil War.  Yes, I bought a couple of things.
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A farm stand with homemade soups/sandwiches/teas/cookies, around the corner, was part of that appointment.  Wanted to stop there since moving in almost a year ago, 1st time was the charm.  Eating on their front terrace filled with plants & willow furniture I was able to check email and return calls.  Then a text from a client, her garden on the way to my afternoon appointment.  How amazing, I could answer her text in person.  Leaving the farm stand I bought a frozen quart of homemade chicken/sausage gumbo for dinner and stopped by home to put in fridge.
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The afternoon appointment was graciously easy, the client lives in NYCity, and was not at her farm, the timing flexible.  Since moving to the country all of my pedicures have been well past their sell-by-date.  The salon is near the copy shop where I had to pick up construction drawings for another client.  At the print shop I discovered the lady who most often helps me is from California, and her father, now in his 80's, was a gardener for movie stars.  Designing, installing, maintaining.  Cannot wait to learn more about his work as time passes.  Pedicure acquired, construction drawings secured.
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Stopping at the client who texted, we had time to walk/talk her garden, with her young daughters & dog Lilac too.  Then we all walked a few houses away to her neighbor who had offered her his custom tree house that his children had outgrown.  Beyond perfect.  Of course it is up in the trees.  Cannot wait to see how this is figured out, without destroying the tree house.  Once moved, it will be renovated into a chicken coop.  Another, go us !
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Her daughters were whittling sticks at a patio table on the gravel terrace off the kitchen when I arrived.  Youngest daughter had a pocket knife just like the one I carry.  Dad gave it to me over a decade ago.  She asked to investigate my knife.  Quickly she pulled a small pair of tweezers from it.  Quite rich, 1st time it was ever removed, had zero clue it was there.  Dad would have enjoyed this, he's been gone 4 years.
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After finishing homemade rhubarb tea it was time to check construction at Miss New York's farm.  I was sent packing with fresh asparagus from the garden, and a slice of cake.  Perfect for dinner with the gumbo.  
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Beloved phoned, he was near.  We could meet at the old cemetery and then start Miss New York's 2 mile driveway thru the woods.  There had been a bit of a 'panic' call, last Friday, from the ASID working inside the house about how her steps were landing into the garden.  Beloved shot the level, I told him my vision for the stone steps coming up to the ASID steps from the new side porch.  All is good.  No 'panic' necessary.
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Guess who was not thrilled with gumbo for dinner?  Beloved.  He felt guilty about it too.  Both of us garden dirty, him more than me, he suggested eating out.  We did.  Girasoles, in Watkinsville.  Glad it's in Watkinsville, not our little farm town.  It's too good.
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This wasn't all of my day, but enough to share.  Amazingly, this is the first day since we moved, about 10 months ago, life feels 'civilized', again.  Work schedule & our farm have been in charge of everything.  Their demands rigid.  Knocked off my feet.  Yesterday, I stood up.
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Before leaving Lilly I asked what she had blooming in her garden.  Her answer, exactly expected.  Left her with a hand written list of flowering shrubs, a succession throughout the year.  Today, will email her nurseries where she can find them.  I make gardens wherever I go.  It's my job.
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MdR 8806-025 Robert Broekema, Fam. Nuytinck
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Pic, above, garden by Robert Broekema.
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Close to what we've started to construct/plant at our farm, above.  Quite civilized, yes?  Finally, getting a garden back in my life.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara  

Monday, July 27, 2015

Choosing Chairs

Choosing chairs for your garden, a couple of things to include.  A chair back tall enough to lean the head back to rest or fall asleep.  And, arms.

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Lovely chairs, below, but after-dinner-conversation will flow longer, enrich & be funnier, sitting in the chairs, above.  Wine will taste better too.

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Table/chairs, top pic, large enough, perhaps conversation splits into 2 groups, and a pair of chairs are pulled away and closer to each other.
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When clients have a party I always have the same request, Please take pics of your furniture afterward.  I learn most, and adore learning daily, from gardens living/leveraging lives.
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Cote de Texas recently wrote about John Saladino, here,  and his various homes thru the years.  A rich article.  Almost a design course.  And, where both pictures were found.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara