GARDEN TOOLS**GARDEN ART

Nationally acclaimed landscape architect, Norman Kent Johnson's tool bouquet had me rethink mine. What to use, how to get it on the wall, and knowing it's floral design not landscape design. My late friend/mentor/client/artist/rancher Mary Kistner instilled her mantra well, It's what we do with what we have.

Junk, glorious garden junk. Can you believe I do get rid of things...occasionally?

Unexpectedly, delightfully, the garden bells clap in the wind. Do you think this looks like a pile of junk on the wall? That's fine. Each piece of junk has a backstory making me smile. One piece involves a police chopper, ooh-la-la. Another was found in England at Great Dixter.

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An odd thing about this assemblage? I read it like a story book of my gardening life.

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Creeping fig on the wall, above, Hydrangea 'Penny Mac' in top pic.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

LANDSCAPE ECONOMY: ARBOR, GRILL, SINK

Landscape ideas with charm aren't always expensive. Copied from a 1920's garden book, the arbor. At least I've seen similar arbors in old garden books. Not part of the 'landscaped' garden this outdoor kitchen has loads of character for little cost.

Repeating the arbor, below. Repetition is as important as simplicity in a landscape.

Vines on a house, or espaliered shrubs, are easy. Adding lushness with little effort.

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In a perfect world my slides from Italy would be digitized by now. I've got pics of a villa, which should be posted here, using the same idea above but the style is centuries old Italian. Great style transcends genre.

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What's happening in my garden today? Pulling akebia vine from hydrangeas, camellias, azaleas, viburnum, & more. Ugh. Then a bath and off to design a backyard.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

COPYING & MAKING IT NEW IN THE LANDSCAPE

A century old, at least, I copied it in my landscape. Outside. (Thank you Pigtown*Design, it was your idea.) And I don't like to collect things nor stray from simplicity. So why am I enjoying this blue/white Chaos Display?
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Maybe I'll keep it for a month or years. Doesn't matter, I'm enjoying it now. 3 RULES FOR LANDSCAPES:

COPY + SIMPLICITY + REPETITION
No matter how many times it's been done before, if it's beautiful elsewhere it will be beautiful & unique in your landscape.

What is the saying? Non-fiction is a true story, myths are stories that happen over & over & over.... Landscapes are myths, at least mine is to me. How else to explain the grace my garden exudes? Using the 3 rules: copy, simplicity, repetition will give you mythical grace in your landscape.

Setting up the blue/white CHAOS DISPLAY, below.

Intentionally design your landscape to create impromptu Still Life, above.

Went to my favorite junk shop to complete the blue/white collection last Friday. I would tell you where but the friend who shared the shop with me did so with a demand, Do not tell anyone about this shop.

Pic, above, is not styled. The box was awkwardly heavy & I set it on my patio table to begin arranging the Chaos Display. Magazine shoots are fine but I delight, especially, in good pics not styled. The impromptu of life creating still life.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

TEA PARTY IN THE LANDSCAPE

Mr. Rabbit came from Tuesday Morning about a decade ago and has been in my landscape ever since. Who wants to maintain potted flowers or replenish them twice/year? A couple of days ago Mr. Rabbit invited me to a tea party. Thru the years his arms have held fresh flowers cut from the garden or a dried hydrangea.

Not many men carry a tail as well as Mr. Rabbit. I adore subtle details.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

PROPHET WITHOUT HONOR: The Old Garden

HIPPIE CHICK said, Yes, to the open garden before the cottage & landscape were complete, below. Lawn, plants, stones, mulch, focal points, above, are hours old. HIPPIE CHICK wanted a landscape from the 1910's-1920's-1930's-1940's-1950's.

Knowing to use rocks as jewelry, urr, low columns. HIPPIE CHICK loves rocks.

Clothesline is new, custom made, based on memories. Rust color by choice. Tucked behind the new cottage.

Using what HIPPIE CHICK had on site. Her bench placed with the Tara Rule for focal points, Just Let It Touch.

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Pots on the stone wall, about 5. Lined up & planted with geraniums. A style derivative of Italian landscapes.

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I'm incredibly happy with this landscape. It doesn't look designed. It's eco, organic, sustainable, classic, low maintenance, no watering once established. And looks old immediately. Exactly what HIPPIE CHICK asked for.

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But, oh dear, my contractors. Wonderful men. Not wanting their work to look like some 'old' landscape. Me, turning into DOMINATRIX WITH A WHIP, demanding specific placement of rocks & plants. Making it look as if HIPPIE CHICK, past age 70, did everything herself decades ago.

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Why is this incredibly wonderful style of landscaping DERIDED?

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I didn't create the style, it's decades old. Why did it fall out of favor?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

TUB: A PREDILECTION

Found online this pic has seared itself into my brain. Seared with further design. In my mind's eye there are 5 claw foot tubs under the tree. A small table, with dinner-wine, at each tub. I'm in one of the tubs & girlfriends are in the rest.

We are talking-sharing-savoring: the tree, the art, night, fireflies, fragrance, sound of bats, each other, floating, comfort, nurturing, laughter, ideas, joys, lessening of sorrows, epiphanies, being silly, gathering strength, being tender, knowing we will leave the evening enriched-changed-more completely ourselves.

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Top pic anonymous at the moment. Anyone know? Send it to me.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

MENTORING: LUNCH

Mentors & lunch have been a pair in my life for decades. Lunches at their homes, inside and in the garden. Paying it forward is so rich it feels selfish. Last Friday I invited CLOWN to lunch. A stressful career explains her hobby donning a clown outfit and visiting local children's hospitals. She asked for a circus theme.

CLOWN has a swimming pool she uses in her backyard but she's not interacting with her landscape. CLOWN plays drums & clarinet too. Yet her personality and lifestyle aren't stamped into her landscape.

CLOWN commented about the 'drama' I bring to the smallest details. Laughing because she said it came out wrong. Meaning it is happy drama I've touched things with.

Tara Landscape Design Rule: Overdose on a Theme.

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Each of my mentors had overdosed on a theme. I'm shameless about taking ideas where I can get them.

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What's your passion. Is it strange, weird? That's what your theme is. Don't hide your passions.

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That's what mentors gave me, PERMISSION, to be me.

Cooking for CLOWN, a pleasure. Lemons, above, in the antique pitcher before heading outside to the compost pile. Wanting my compost pitcher to be as pretty as the Spode dishes on my table, the camellias blooming outside and more.

CLOWN did laugh at my happy little dramas. She got it. I can't wait to be invited to lunch in her circus themed landscape. When that invitation comes, and it will, I know CLOWN will be interacting with her landscape. Her home-garden-life, finally, together.

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What are your passions? Would I know it by looking at your landscape?

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How are you using your passions and landscape to nurture yourself?

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Why is this stuff important? A vanishing threshold of life-home-landscape will diminish sorrow & increase joy.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

A LANDSCAPE TO MAKE HER CRY

"The Renaissance had a word for it: sprezzatura, the quality of apparent ease that the perfect courtier brought to all his high-wire acts: swordplay, flute-playing, poetry-writing, singing, love-making." Willard Spiegelman

SHE called me to design her landscape. Her sprezzatura lost momentarily with a previous designer.
At the frontdoor natural light and her books. SHE, "When the Barefoot Contessa sashays into her garden I swoon."

SHE called me to fix what others created.

SHE & my contractors, don't you love the body language? In her hand is my plan, fixing those walls.

String & flags to make the plan come alive. Below, SHE has a potager to sashay into.

Yellow string, above, being measured for the stone to create raised beds for her potager. Paths of small gray granite gravel to match her bluestone terrace.

SHE had boots ready to walk in the mud. SHE recently rescued Sam, below. Can you tell he already has her heart?

Talk went to wine & scotch.

SHE was dubious about the Giardino Segretto garden room. Until I said, It's where you'll drink scotch & wine with your girlfriends. Sold!

Colors, furnishings, books, lighting. SHE chose them all.

One of my landscape design secrets is to see which cookbooks are in the house. Why? They are a window into the soul. How you eat is how you live, and how you garden.

Interesting. SHE has 2 glass/metal tables. I copied the idea for enclosing a portion of her bluestone terrace. Using a mid-century modern greenhouse glass roof & folding door idea used at Callaway Gardens, Sibley Center.

An entire closet is devoted to dishes.

When I made the 2nd appointment, to draw en plein aire, I requested lunch.

Another landscape design secret, talking life. Knowing there will be a defining thought.

SHE went back to the Barefoot Contessa. "Every recipe of hers is foolproof. No matter how I forget to do something, don't quite beat the egg whites correctly, anything. Nothing I've cooked of hers, through the years, has failed."

Can there possibly be a better description for the type of landscape SHE wants? SHE's not afraid of wit. SHE's never cute.

Beautiful, foolproof, light & shadows, traditional spiced with mid-century modern, flavored with the Barefoot Contessa & the great works of literature. That was the landscape I had to design.

LANDSCAPES BEGIN IN THE IMAGINATION

A plain chair with a pop of fringe tells me more about designing her landscape.

SHE's not afraid of sunlight on her floor & furnishings. Telling me SHE's sensual.

And another landscape design secret, the guest bathroom.

SHE has drama with color, textiles, art from her travels and junking. A directive for any landscape.

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SHE's ready for her landscape to be DONE. Troubles with her 1st designer weigh heavily in time & money.

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Wish I could have an 18-wheeler show up today with everything in my plan. I know I've created a landscape to make her cry.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

MRS. POWERS GARDEN GATE

Mrs. Powers garden gate at Mackenzie-Childs has charmed me. No fence? Don't worry, set it into a hedge or hang it.I've always said, CHOOSE A THEME & OVERDOSE ON IT. Mrs. Powers door knocker, below, matching the gate. Ship Men already gave me a charming door knocker from Malta but this is tempting.

MacKenzie-Childs is a kindred spirit. Mrs. Powers door bell.

I have Mrs. Powers Door Bell and am still deciding where to place it. Until then it's in my office where I can see it.

pics above via MacKenzie-Childs