PATHWAY PATTERNS + BIT OF FUN

What fun to choose your pathway pattern. This path is obviously professionally done. How can you tell? See the stones cut to fit?

I love that a pattern was chosen but the space

forced it into irregularities within regularity.

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A bit of fun. YOU create the path above. Using only free ingredients. YES, baby dolls you read that correctly. Using only free bricks, rocks & whatever.

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Why?

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That's how most landscapes are created. With found materials. And I want YOU to do the work. No fancy, smancy hired labor. You glorying on your knees in the dirt with hands carefully placing the vision of your heart.
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Oh my, PUPPET BARBUDA is liking this as a flower show display. Wouldn't it be fun seeing all the different paths?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken at Atlanta Botanical Garden last week when I taught a class.

UGLY LANDSCAPES

PUPPET BARBUDA adores trolling obits in NYT. A line James Lord (newly departed) wrote about his thought of Gertrude Stein, "made me think of a burlap bag filled with cement and left to harden." Describes too many frontyards across America, yes? PUPPET BARBUDA knows, WELL MAINTAINED LANDSCAPES DO NOT EQUAL WELL DONE. There is more to the equation.
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Driving around town, PUPPET BARBUDA, continually hears Bette Davis, WHAT A DUMP. (Please, does anyone know, did Bette Davis ever say this in film or interview?)
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Ok, PUPPET BARBUDA will throw a quick, and obvious, bone about the landscape, above. Paint the foundation the same color as the siding.
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Next, PUPPET BARBUDA, wants free labor from the homeowner, free mulch from the county, and $175.00 maximum for plants; taking this ugly frontyard to gorgeous while raising curb appeal, property value and the inner spirit of the homeowner. Bette Davis be gone.
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PUPPET BARBUDA has more thoughts but must meet a client at the Peachtree Battle Smith/Hawkin for its going out of business sale.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Pic from, Extreme Housewife, she bought the house/landscape as shown & is landscaping as I type!

PUPPET BARBUDA : FLOWER SHOW IDEA

Landscape Design companies have carte blanche at Flower Shows. Flower Shows are dying across America, why not change the concept of carte blanche? PUPPET BARBUDA wants to see a new flower show competition division. Six gardens with the same design executed in whatever plant materials & hardscape & focal points & furnishings, a designer fantasizes.
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What? For example, use the design, above.
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1. Instead of lawn, above, a flagstone terrace. The 4 cone shaped evergreens (2 are in shade to the right)? Instead, 4 trees. The low hedge? Becomes a tall evergreen hedge with a low flowering hedge. Entering the hedge, on axis, place a bench. Etc...
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2. Instead of lawn a gravel terrace with harvest table and chairs. Replace evergreen hedge with understory trees. Hang chandeliers from tree branches over the harvest table. Etc...
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3. 4. 5. 6. What's the point?
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One idea, endless permutations.
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PUPPET BARBUDA wants Flower Show gardens to be relevant to those paying entry. Who? YOU. Plant societies & other non-profits seem to be getting it right.
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PUPPET BARBUDA thinks Flower Show gardens have become testimonials to the type of gardens Landscape Design companies wish to SELL.
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Nothing wrong with making a buck. Ha, Flower Shows are dying across America. Remember?
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And PUPPET BARBUDA cares about that.
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Other ideas, please, to save the Flower Shows of America?
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Woof xo T
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Pic from Anson Smart.

THINGS THAT INSPIRE

Landscape design absorbs interior design thru window views from the landscape.
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Lighting inside the home, views into the home & window treatments are landscape design.
What is your interior design tossing into the landscape? A boring, unwelcoming, back of a couch? Backside of a large screen TV? Picture frames on a table, from the backside? Oooooooooh. Nooooooooooooooooo.
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Not in my landscape design realm.
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Tara's Trinity: Vanishing Threshold, Lifestyle-House-Landscape.
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THINGS THAT INSPIRE, interior design, came across my nattering about Vanishing Threshold. And got it. She posted an incredible collection of Vanishing Threshold pics. Ooh-la-la, enjoy.
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PUPPET BARBUDA says, Look closely thru the large window above, a couch back. The room may be beautiful inside but from outside it's not Vanishing Threshold.
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Pic sent from observant friend!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

PUPPET BARBUDA: LANDSCAPE CRITIC...

PUPPET BARBUDA loves the Landscape Critique Game. "...this often ridiculous, awkward, unsatisfying and dour melodramatic adaptation."
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Above quote by, Manohla Dargis, film review for, The Time Traveler's Wife, in NYTimes.
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In what universe are those cheap white plastic (Fiberglass? You really think they would spend that money?) pots acceptable as landscape design at the front of this home? And they didn't know to buy a black hose? (Black hoses disappear at a distance.) And the concrete? At the very least why wasn't it stained before pouring? No, won't mention the expensive door and cheap pendant light.

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Attaching art critiques to landscapes. Cheap amusement. Enjoyed for years.
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PUPPET BARBUDA? Who's she? Oh dearies, she's my inner landscape design critic. Her name? Well. Hmm. Won't go there at the moment.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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photo courtesy, Ugly House Photos.