An Exception

Landscape Design Rule: 1 Focal Point per Area Faux bois bench.
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Oversized hanging candle lantern.
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Blooming Hydrangea in a pot.
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Gravel path.
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Breaking Landscape Design Rules creates fabulous landscapes.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken almost 2 weeks ago in Susanne Hudson's garden. I spent 5 nites with her while creating our garden for the annual Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. Oh yes, dahlings, will be posting those pics soon.
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I've taken dozens of pics of this gorgeous faux bois bench. Each awful. Finally. Ah, finally. Got it !!
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Yes, broken landscape design rule, above, but don't overlook the fabulous landscape design: canopy trees, understory trees, walls of shrubs, color theme, sense of mystery, sense of surprise.

Don't Overbuild II

Same slope/drainage issue, different garden, as the last post, below. I created this path, above, over 20 years ago. Stone & gravel were under $150.00 and all the labor was done by ME!
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The day I created this path COLLEGE BOY said, "All the gravel is going to wash across the garden with the first rain."
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Hey COLLEGE BOY, "2 decades & counting, when exactly is the gravel going to wash away?"
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Gravel path with slight slope, drainage issue. Path terraced, shot pea gravel poured, stones dug into slope with 2" buried in soil, stones angled slightly into slope.
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Shot pea gravel loaded at quarry into the back of my pick-up truck. Parked at the curb & shoveled gravel into my double-wheeled wheelbarrow.

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Stepped off the length of this path, counting steps, and bought chunky field stone to match number of steps. Chose only stones I could carry in my arms. Each of the stones you see, above, I carried one-by-one from my truck at the curb to the backyard (easier than the wheelbarrow routine) & dug into the slope.

Don't Overbuild

Solving a slight drainage issue easily, affordably, without pooling water, without breeding mosquitoes & will last over a century, below. Path was terraced, #89 granite gravel poured, slope dug into with stone laid (dug in about 1"-2" at each base) angled into the slope.
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Unskilled labor required at each phase, above. Easily woman powered, or man.
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Water, now, follows the path. As does the eye & foot.
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Too often I am at a new client's landscape and discover French drains already installed. And already NOT WORKING. Excepting mosquito production. And They Are UGLY & Expensive.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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New path, above, in Jeri Farmer's garden. Not all areas, obviously, can be solved with the method above. Some areas, alas, do need a French drain. Dahlings, I don't want you oversold by a contractor wanting your money instead of the right thing for your landscape. Studying gardens in Europe I saw this same method used countless times in many countries. Built one in my garden 2 decades ago. Will find pic and post it soon. It's fabulous!!!

Checkerboard Flooring

Checkerboard flooring, below, in shade. Grass won't grow.

12" X 12" concrete squares.

Gorgeous all year. Affordable, low-maintenance, unskilled labor, rain water only. Add crocus, scilla, blue grape hyacinths.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Yesterday's client's office has a black/white checkerboard floor. Soon the garden outside her windows will have checkerboard flooring too.

Pic taken last week in Susanne Hudson's garden. She installed the checkerboard flooring herself. 18" X 18" concrete squares? Too heavy. Unskilled labor & woman powered.

At The Gate

From the Tea Olive Terrace, below, looking into my backyard. At the same gate, in my backyard, below, looking into the Tea Olive Terrace.

Double Axis: 2 views fabulous. A fabulous view in 1 direction must be fabulous in the opposite direction.

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There are no exits in a garden, only entries.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in my garden. See the template? A Trinity of the Ages: Path, Gate, Boxwood. Ramped up: painted gate, gravel path, blooming hydrangeas.

A Landscape Design

Think this is unkempt? A landscape design, above, an illusion of country. Nature. Not one leaf is unconsidered. The dirt path? Part of the landscape design.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Took pic in England.
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Living with a manicured lawn yet love the garden above? Yes? Life is too short not to have a garden nurturing your spirit.

A Garden View

This is the view, below,

from the library, below. It's upstairs facing the morning sun.

Decadence, below, as azalea blossoms caress both sides of my body. Alas, they're pruned after blooming; opening the path wider. No matter, by then the hydrangeas will be blooming.

Downstairs, below, kitchen views pour into the Woodland Walk too.

A WATTLE, below, runs the length of the Woodland Walk.

Subtle, above. Would you know a WATTLE was there if I didn't tell you? Not quite 3' high it's prunings & fallen limbs from my garden. A natural fence preventing leaves from blowing into the Woodland Walk once it's blown.

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Other parts of my tiny garden are quite formal. It's of utmost importance I overdose this theme of my Woodland Walk.

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The best landscapes are all about contrasts.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Learned about wattles from mentor, Mary Kistner. They were used on the apple orchard in upstate New York where she grew up in the early 20th century. Have been designing WATTLES into gardens ever since. They don't photograph well & verbally/written they seem repulsive, however, I've never had a client see a WATTLE without getting quite excited about creating their own.

TOOLS: Paths, Repetition, Axis & Entries

Your landscape cannot have too many entries. Install paths first, THEN your plants. Flagstone path fading into woodchip path, above, amplifies the effect of moving from one garden room to another.

Repetition of plant materials, color, pots, & paths create architecture of landscapes.

Double axis. Path, below, leads from backyard to frontyard.

Above, look close. It's same path as top pic, taken from opposite direction. DOUBLE AXIS.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Notes: pics taken yesterday in my garden. I prefer SCRUFFY landscape styling for my personal garden. Once blooms, above, fade hand pruning begins. Paths become more prominent. Is this important? Why? Landscapes with the average American paid maintenance crew have a neat but depressing, & property lowering, gas blown & electric pruned look.

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The look of cheap unskilled labor. Time is money hence gas/electric landscape style prevails. Sadly, a look considered the proper American standard. Alexis de Tocqueville, circa 1831, was all too correct about Americans.

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Why sad? The look promotes sales not landscaping. Selling lawns needing chemicals & regular mowing, annuals needing replanting 2X/year, 10' plants designed under 3' windows needing major regular pruning, plants/lawns needing an irrigation system, & the promise of a no care landscape for $25/week. What a deal, $25 bucks for a space many times larger than a home's interior with a $75/week maid.

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Why not choose a landscape design: requiring no chemicals, no irrigation system, no annuals, less pruning, 50%-75% less mowing, and shades your home in summer/blocks winter winds (major hvac savings) while improving property value?

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I feel like Alice Waters must have felt decades ago. Like her, I won't quit.

WHICH DIRECTION?

This crabapple, below, doesn't have a bad direction. Here, above/below, in Susanne Hudson's backyard.

Looking thru the gate, below, is a view from the frontyard.

Blossoms, below, each had honeybees. Wish you could hear this tree.

Classic Design Recipe, below. Path, gate, arbor, light, picket fence, color theme, bench, potted boxwood, leaf litter mulch, Tara Turf, focal point on axis. (Note: treat this as any good recipe. It works everytime & is unique everytime.)

Crabapple viewed, below, from the front porch. She fills the horizon.

Notice winter's bare branches? I adore the frisson.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last Friday. My favorite direction is from the library, early morning. Alas, we were hard at work on our book project.

FORMAL + PSO

Deep winter dormant, I still know what this garden looks like. And why it works.

Formal hardscape: hedges & lines contrasted with chaos of plantings + informal tree trunks.

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Italians have cone shaped shrubs, with scruffy PSO's, behind evergreen hedges. (My favorite!)

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French gardens are quite rigid with evergreen hedging enclosing, oh let's say, tulips.

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Ah, the English. Evergreen hedges exploding with herbaceous borders & flowering shrubs.

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Take this style, evergreen hedge +lines + backfill plantings. Make it your own.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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PSO? Plant Shape Only!! Yes, more pics I took recently at Wing Haven.

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My garden began as mostly English. Now, it's Italian + English.

SPRING IS EASY

This garden, below, gets it right. How do you know?

The bones (evergreen structure, axis, focal point, hardscape) hold together in deepest winter, above.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic from Wing Haven. Bottom pic I took last week at Wing Haven, Charlotte, NC.

CHALLENGE & SOLUTION

When the carriage house, below, was completed Susanne Hudson's builder said, "Don't plant, I've packed solid Georgia red clay so you won't flood."
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What did Susanne do?
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She planted a garden around her carriage house in POTS.
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Last fall's flood, killing several in Douglasville, GA? Roads & bridges are still closed in places. Susanne's carriage house did not flood.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in Susanne Hudson's garden of her carriage house. Susanne prefers green, brown & white in her garden. Above, you see mophead hydrangeas allowed into her tight color scheme. Three years ago Susanne began the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. A weekend of lectures, vendors & garden tours. Go if you can, it's fabulous.

This IS Designed: FRISSON

Old tools, old shed, below, works every time. Totally designed, above. Ha, you thought it was an area 'not done'? Hardly.From the same garden, above.

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Create FRISSON in your landscape.

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Tension between formal/informal. Ying/Yang.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Susanne Hudson's garden.

LUSH WITHOUT SPACE

Want to add lushness without taking up space? Put a vine on your house. Or espalier a woody shrub. Not much, above, but loads of lushness. And little maintenance. Rich, welcoming. Don't you want to know what the inside looks like? And the garden? Already sense you would like the owner?
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Slow down, dahlings. 3 questions, above, are quite serious. And part of designing your landscape.
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Ask those questions of your frontdoor & back patio area.
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Color, empty pots, scale, path, axis, light fixture, bell pull, enfilade each play a role too. But I'm only speaking of the vine today. Isn't it amazing how the simplest of garden pictures is, in reality, a full landscape design course?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Kathryn Ireland

GARDEN DESIGNERS BLOGLINK: TARA'S TRINITY OF THE SOUTHERN GARDEN

With, Tara's Trinity of the Southern Garden: Azaleas, Camellias, Hydrangeas, you'll have blooms everyday in your garden. Oakleaf hydrangea bloom late spring, mophead hydrangea bloom early summer & summer, 'Anna Belle' hydrangea bloom summer, 'Tardiva' & 'Pee Gee' hydrangea bloom late summer to frost. Above, lacecap hydrangea.

Southern Indica Azaleas, 'George Tabor', above, bloom in spring. They stand up to drought, bugs, cold. Use Exbury azaleas too, they bloom before 'George Tabor'.

Camellia sasanqua, above, bloom in fall. Camellia japonica bloom in winter.

Landscapes designed with evergreen hedges & entries, cultivate the eye, songbirds, & increase property value. Chinese snowball, above. Pathways should flow around your entire property, no dead ends. 'Tardiva' hydrangea blooming, above.

Use wit & whimsy in your landscape, above. Beware, CUTE, it's treacherous.

Start your landscape design from inside your home, Vanishing Threshold. Patio, above, viewed from my kitchen sink.

Design your landscape for February. It will be gorgeous all year. View, above, from my living room.

Site deciduous understory trees, crape myrtle, above, to shade your home from summer sun. Window, above, views stone terrace, below. Summer's blanket of rudbeckia gives way to smooth Tennessee gray flagstone the rest of the year.

If you're new to gardening in the South you'll adore, A Southern Garden by Elizabeth Lawrence, and, Hudson's Southern Gardening by Charles Hudson. Use your local Extension Service for specific advice to your county/state. The Garden In Winter, by Rosemary Verey is an incredible garden design book. My 5 books ( 3 on garden design, 2 on plants) are at the right, scroll down.

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Tara's Trinity Of The Southern Garden is gorgeous, low maintenance & a workhorse of your Southern garden design.

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Today is GARDEN DESIGNERS BLOGLINK across America. 12 garden designers sharing what's unique to their region. ENJOY !!!!!

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Jocelyn Chilvers (The Art Garden) – Wheat Ridge, CO
Susan Cohan (Miss Rumphius’ Rules) - Chatham, NJ
Michelle Derviss (Garden Porn) – Novato, CA
Dan Eskelson (Clearwater Landscapes Garden Journal) – Priest River, ID
Laura Livengood Schaub (Interleafings) – San Jose CA
Susan Morrison (Blue Planet Garden Blog) – East Bay, CA
Pam Penick (Digging) – Austin, TX
Susan Schlenger (Landscape Design Viewpoint) – Charlottesville, VA
Genevieve Schmidt (North Coast Gardening) – Arcata, CA
Ivette Soler (The Germinatrix) – Los Angeles, CA
Rebecca Sweet (Gossip in the Garden) – Los Altos, CA
Become a Fan of Blue Heron Landscape Design on Face book – http://bit.ly/yq1XT
Read the Blue Heron Landscapes Blog: http://www.bhld.wordpress.com/
Become a Fan of Blue Heron Landscape Design on Face book - www.bit.ly/yq1XT
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ScottHokunson
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/scotthokunson

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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All pics my garden except hedge with window. Took that pic while writing one of my books.

NECESSITY: LANDSCAPE FANTASIES

A Woodland Walk in my tiny garden, below, aka, air-conditioning side of my house. Chair rotted long ago. Red bud tree died slowly, rotted slowly. Great fun watching songbirds gather insects & make homes in its wood.
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LANDSCAPE FANTASIES abound, "What do I want to do here? Hmmmm!"
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A beautiful garden is fabulous but having a portion of your garden in the realm of fantasy is rich indeed.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

KNOW WHO TO ASK

Ask a landscape contractor specializing in brick/stone/concrete/mortar for ideas about a path or terrace? It's fairly certain you'll end up with ideas like this, below. Instead of something like this, below.

Gravel ranges $20-$48/ton & doesn't require skilled labor.

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At a girlfriend's for dinner I broke a personal rule, "No Landscape Designing, Unless Asked. " She told me the story of several contractor bids to repair her old, broken concrete patio. Each bid into the thousands of dollars. I asked her, "What do you think of gravel?"

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Yes, dahlings, less than $300 later she had a gravel terrace. She asked me, "Why didn't any of the contractors tell me about gravel?" She loves the terrace & so do I. We've had many dinners, brunches & glasses of wine on her gravel terrace.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic from Smithsonian Horticulture Archive, Bottom pic from the movie, It's Complicated. No time to poke around for my girlfriend's gravel terrace at the moment. Another post!

ROUNDABOUTS HERE & THERE

Roundabouts, below, get you around a garden.

Roundabouts are a fabulous landscape design tool. Use where 2, or more, paths intersect.

This woman, above, was beyond ready to take her frontyard in hand. Corner lot, too big, unattractive, way too much mowing, little property value, and most importantly, it did not make her happy. (Ha, beware the woman not happy with something.)

Grass was reduced, paths with roundabout designed, groundcovers, evergreen shrubs, & understory trees to survive drought/flood & aging in place. Aging in place? Want to be 88 with weekly garden chores? Ha, didn't think so. It's designing for unskilled labor, tough plants, and timeless beauty on axis from window views.

From the house, above, a stone roundabout anchors the view. Evergreen hollies anchor the entry path, variegated sweetflag (groundcover) surround the roundabout.

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Designed in the grand tradition with a low maintenance theme. Not completed, above, and already showing promise. And her? She's HAPPY.

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Small roundabout, above. Notice something important about the pot, above? It doesn't HAVE to be planted.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics of completed roundabouts I took last January in the botanical garden in Birmingham, England. My client sent the pics of her roundabout.