Showing posts with label Stone step. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stone step. Show all posts

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Steps

The change in elevation was deceptively 'not there' without my new Conservatory.
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Alas, My Dear Ladies both use canes. You know they will be in my Conservatory sharing wine/canapes before dinner.
Stone steps are dry stack, above. And, ta da, rescued from jobsites.
Serendipitously, I put in a side door to my conservatory. That door has a meandering woodland path, no steps. SAFE, for My Dear Ladies.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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No pics yet of the meandering woodland path leading to the side door. My guys put the steps in, wish I could say I did !!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Create Magic At Each FRISSON

FRISSON's are potent. Do you see this one?FRISSON's, done well, create magic.
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Transitioning mortared steps to a step set in dirt is a FRISSON. Sure, I could have designed all the steps with mortar but I wanted a more exciting FRISSON (and this path is not a high traffic area).
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Consider each FRISSON in your landscape. Where: potager meets woodland, turf meets flowering shrub border, house meets garden, terrace meets Tara Turf, path meets pond & etc........
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken during construction in a client's backyard last month. Client is DIY with some of the plantings, dwarf mondo will be planted between the stones set in dirt.
Andre Breton, photographer-poet-writer-surrealist theorist-expert on Soviet Modernist architecture was the one drawing my mind, via his photography, to the importance of FRISSON. Gertrude Jekyll was big on the FRISSON.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Working With The Earth

An allee of trees with triple axis, below, do you see? The Wild Wood remains, but with several paths entering. (Alert Poppets: This is perfect pollinator habitat with low density-high density & canopy-understory-groundcover, plus multiple seasons of bloom/berry/seed.)But first, below, an oval of turf. What's left, red clay, will become meadow (clover, fescue, bulbs, English daisy, ageratum, rudbeckia fulgida x fulgida, what the wind blows in & etc.)
Broad dry stone steps, below, taming the slope. Meadow, mown at 3 heights
will carpet these steps.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Will keep you posted on this garden, it's phasing in over the next year. I adore each process of creating a beautiful landscape. Wish you could smell what it's like. Churning up the soil, laying sod, placing stone & etc. Love how the earth releases it's myriad aromas during this phase, exotic-musky-ancient-clean, accepts what we do then calms itself. Leaving only memories of its exciting scent.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Subtle Focal Points

Walking into the garden room, below, (from yesterday's post) is the tennis player (have I mentioned winning the district tennis 4-A womens singles tennis championship 2 years in a row?). Opposite the tennis player, below, is St. Fiacre. Circa 1930's he is an inherited piece.

The tennis player & St. Fiacre book end the garden room, originally a tennis court.

Another doorway, above, in this garden room (apologies poppets, didn't ask its name).
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Dry stack stone wall & drystone steps. (Paying attention guys at the stone supply? Yes, you, who told my client last week it was 'impossible' to dry stack wall & steps as I drew in the plan. Please skip Scotland, Italy, my past clients in the states & etc.... you'll discover centuries worth of dry stack. By-the-way, I sent those clients to you, paying customers in a bad economy. They bought no stone from you & called me afterward confused. No worries, I got them going again & sent them to a different stone store!! 7 tons of fieldstone is your lost sale.)
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Tennis player & St. Fiacre are subtle focal points. Not subsidiary focal points & not main focal points. A delicious garden.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Create Seductive Doorways

Invite people thru your garden with doorways. Use a pair of pots, pair of vertical stones, pair of plinths, pair evergreen shrubs, arbor & etc. Drama of a step, narrowing to the path, above, less than 3' wide, lines of boxwood creating a hallway. Focal point on axis, creating a foyer and
beyond is another fabulous living room.
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Doorway, top pic, leads from the terrace in yesterday's post.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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It is this simple. Doorway, landing, hallway, foyer, living room. Gorgeous & low maintenance too.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Pot Display

When the setting is right a pot display is de rigueur.

Choice morsels to delight the eye and

invite perusal.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Have seen Pot Displays from Italy to Ireland & points between. Here, a delight in the same Italianate garden in Athens, GA as previous posts. This garden is about 1 acre.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Increase Your Welcome

See, below, the front door? I didn't think so. 'Landscape Design Trick: Increase Your Welcome' should be in your quiver of tools. Boulder steps, above, seen from the parking court. A few days ago there were no boulder steps.
Same steps, above, seen from the home.
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If you can extend the welcome of your front door, into the garden. DO IT.
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Increasing your welcome, & function, creates enfilades too.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from the woodland hilltop of Rooster Cogburn, Katharine Hepburn & Handy Man. I created a landscape design for them early last month. Landscape Design Trick: Increase Your Welcome, ha, should be a new lecture title. It's a trick I use a lot.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

4SOME: CLUB, WING & ADIRONDACK

Adirondacks were the 1st 4some I saw outside. And LOVED. A client had a 4some of club chairs w/ottoman at their center, inside their home. Gorgeous.
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Now, wingchairs in 4some, above, outside. Yes!!!
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What works here?
* No foundation planting.
* Vines on the house.
* Color: bricks, chairs, pots, foliage, flowers, sky.
* Pots: size, plantings, placement.
* Scale.
* Flow.
* Axis.
* Contrasting textures. Dark leaves by chartreuse leaves. Big leaves by small leaves.
* Canopy & understory trees.
* Walls: plants & house.
* 4SOME of Chairs. Comfort.
* Invitation. Steps leading you further, if only in imagination. Doors, beckoning the great indoors.
* Mystery. Yes, I want to see this garden. Yes, I want to go inside this house.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Maison Sud-Ouest, via, Garden Rooms. Had to show it to you. This garden has stuck in my head as pure pleasure.

Friday, November 6, 2009

THE SECRET OF GARDEN ENTRIES & HALLWAYS

Did you know, the more entries a garden has the better a garden is? Why?
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Garden Entries are focal points drawing the eye, foot, imagination. Leading to foyers, hallways & living rooms. If you can do it inside, dahlings, you can do it outside.
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Above, Garden Entry with tiny landing leading directly into a hallway. See it? Can you label each section? Spread it farther. See the walls? See the ceiling?
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Creating a garden is no more than creating outdoor rooms.
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My favorite garden hallway is above. I took the pic in the Cotswolds. Don't you want to see where the hallway leads?
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How important are Garden Entries & Garden Hallways????????? Today, I'm off to finish a landscape design for a garden full of living rooms. I will add Entries & Hallways connecting them. La-Ti-Da. One of my favorite things to do.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Thursday, October 1, 2009

OPENING A RANCH

"When a culture is self-confident, it can translate what the rest of the world wants." John Hooks, Deputy General Manager of Giorgio Armani. Ranch Burgers wish to be opened. BONO GIRL was remodeling a ranch gettaway in Athens, GA when she asked for landscape help. Designing from Atlanta I knew to open her ranch. HOW? Use a round column + have a path to both sides of the landing + punctuate the stone wall with a low column + low iron urn with curves on column (not sourced yet) + curve the turf.
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The bold curving line between turf + bed is critical. THE CURVES: Column & turf, constrast fabulously with the myriad squares of the house. New plantngs were added, many existing were kept.
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Do you see how the entry of the house is brought forward several feet? Instead of hugging the front facade it begins at the low stone column. Adding depth added drama. Remember, "dinky is stinky."
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Many RANCH BURGERS lend themselves to my French Caretakers Cottage fantasy. Replace front windows with French doors, paint the brick, rip out the foundation plantings & etc. But that is another posting!

Vanishing Threshold, above. Can't wait for the plants to fill-in between the paths.

BONO GIRL invited me to her gettaway. Forget the landscape, her dogs were the focal point.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Sunday, August 16, 2009

CREATING GARDEN SITTING AREA ON A SLOPE

SPO's home & garden are less than 1 year old. Already SPO is adding to her landscape. A sitting area for the frontyard where shade pools in late afternoon.
I designed SPO's landscape before she moved in. Summer & drought pushing shrubs & trees to fall planting.

Slight slope, below, 4 stone steps to a small stone terrace dug into the slope + 2 Adirondack chairs.


Playing, above, with exact scale: chairs, flags, string. Most plans drawn to scale say +/- 5'. Not good enough. (Note: string is superior to garden hose or spray paint; easily moved and laying exactly as placed.)


SPO served lunch.

SPO & her husband CAPE COD shared photos, she's from Croatia.


Yes, you do want to know how delicious this trifle was!!
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SPO shares something quite special with me beyond her garden, books, movies, home, cooking & laughter. Her dear ZARKO.
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I will tell you of ZARKO tomorrow.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara






Wednesday, July 22, 2009

LANDSCAPE DESIGN: CONTRAST

Levens Hall, England, is where I learned to contrast formal with informal in landscape design. It's one of the most potent tools you'll use.
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Formality, below, whimsical, not cute, overdosing on its theme.
Not far away, below, Susanne Hudson kept her dead tree, called a snag, romanticising it with a rescued ladder. Monet did something similar at Giverny.
Melted candles, below, and wishing I had been there for whatever the event was.

Nearby, below, the Wild Wood. OMG. Candles in a formal garden room overlooking fireflies in a Wild Wood. Really wishing I had been there.

Inches, below, separate formal from informal. Outside the garden cottage, stone. Inside the garden cottage, cinder block. So practical.

Who says steps in a garden are expensive?
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Cinder blocks were rescued from a neighbor's garbage last Monday. They'll be used near my potting table, with a board, to hold new cuttings. The board was rescued too. Will stain it my famous faded Monet green.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

EDWARDIAN IDEA TO COPY...SIMPLICITY

I've seen these steps across Europe. If they're good in someone else's landscape they'll be good in yours. Lutyens did them many times. A bit art deco?
Simple, a 5 bar gate. The Edwardian house understated but grand. Choosing simple wasn't due to low funds but good landscape design. Contrasting formal elements with the informal adds drama. A formal gate, easily afforded, would have ruined the effect of venturing into the Wild Wood. A pleasure garden. Their name before tv, internet, phone........

A stone step without mortar. Flagstone pavers and stone risers. They won't move dug into a gentle slope. The stone wall is drystack, no mortar. Contractors easily oversell this situation with mortar.

Garden & Be Well XXOO T