Big Green Egg & Design

Their home is classic architecture.  Her husband asked for ONE thing.  In my book, 'done'.

Every site with a Big Green Egg is a challenge.

The backside mimics the house siding & color.  The cabinet/counter top are

copies of the outdoor kitchen at the terrace level.
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Magic Man does it again!
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  This space is small & wonky & viewed from interiors, deck, & lower garden.  Had to be gorgeous from every angle & functional for the man who only asked for one thing!
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No, Big Green Egg did not sponsor this post.  And I wasn't about to do one of those rustic river stones, toss in the Big Green Egg & a rustic cabinet at this house with formal architecture.  Lunacy for this site.

Quietly Good

New construction completed earlier this year, below.  House & garden stand sentry as old souls.

Shadows fall on their proscenium as atonement.

As if they think, "Of course we abide here.  This is ours, the rent we pay is grace."
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Pics taken at a jobsite last week.  Asked the client for a walk through with both of them.  Wanting to know, "How are the parts working?"  A lot of challenges with this site & no room for error.  Exactly my type of fun.

Hallmark of Bad Contractors

Studying historic landscapes across Europe should be mandatory for landscape contractors.

Several years now with my dream team I remember too well the dark years of contractors.  "You can't do that."  "No, can't be done."  "That will never work."  "It has to be done this way."  "It won't last."
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Better, my dream team leverages my designs.  "Miss Tara, if we........"  "Miss Tara, there are 3 ways to approach that."  "Great, thank you Miss Tara."  "Miss Tara do you think Miss #$%^@# would like to have...."  "Did you get the pictures I sent about a new idea?"  "Miss Tara that can't be done but if we a-b-c it will be exactly what you want."  "Let me show you something I think you'll like for the Woodland House Miss Tara."  "Those aren't available, I think a-b-c would be good substitutes."  "You know Miss Tara what you want is too expensive but if we do it this way I think you'll get what you're hunting."  "Tara, I think a-b-c will be better."
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Adore my team.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Dry stack stone retaining wall, above right, is a great example of what the Mr. No contractors said could not be done.
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Pic via Old Long Island.

Stone Wall Needs to be Seen

A well maintained century, below, at this home.

 Stone accent wall near the entry, above, is obscured by a gorgeous Japanese maple, below.

Have asked the pruner to create tiny views thru the Japanese maple  to the stone wall.  Yet keep the Japanese maple gorgeous too.
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Garden & Be Well,          X O Tara
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Same house as previous post.  Pics taken with my phone & you see my little work basket.  It holds pencils, circle templates, erasers, keys, phone.....and shouldn't be in the pic.

How To Make These Windows More Fabulous

At her bluestone terrace, below.  Inside is the kitchen.

Soon, French doors will open onto the bluestone terrace.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday at a jobsite.  Notice the gap in the ferns?  Saw the culprit eating them.  Her dog!  Unrepentant.
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When I told her the windows HAD to be French doors she smiled and said it was validation.  Her thoughts exactly.

Deeply Covered Porch

A covered porch for the entire family or quiet solitude to fill your spiritual well, below.  Several rooms flow into this porch.

 Looking out, above, looking in, below.

Perhaps a door to a guest suite, below?

A fireplace.  Simply a fireplace, below.  Be wary of a huge monument fireplace.  Too often they are  life sucking spectres.

I told the owner how I adored her porch & she smiled saying the entire house began with this porch.  The architect working outward from here.

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Love a woman with priorities.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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pics taken 2 weekends ago.  I lectured in her porte cochere.  Wish I hadn't been in such a hurry, needed more pics of this porch. 

How To Increase The Drama

Subtle drama, ego in check.  Pair of stone columns, iron gate, half-round stone steps & on axis a Japanese maple.  Not a gaudy statue or etc.

 Do you see the opportunity to increase the subtle drama, below?

Remove the pinestraw bed & let the turf flow to the stone wall.
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Small tweek HUGE impact.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic taken last weekend at my lecture venue.

Retaining Wall Lust

Have your eyes & brain accepted this, below? 

 Aside from lust pure astonishment.  This retaining wall is hidden away in the family parking court.  That murdering Roman thing with stone building slaves ca. 1 BCE, then the poverty cycle with the bricks.  Later, much later.  But here it all is, in narrative.  Mine.

 Another chapter to the story, below, at the end of the retaining wall.  Tuscan hillside, fieldstone steps are Jane Austen rusticities.

Framing my lust, below,  relative to the house.  Steps & hillside look as if they were there, leftover from some ancient Roman volcano.  Vesuvius, 79 ad?

 She, the owner, waylayed me.  Oh no, ick.   Grabbing my right arm in both her hands saying, "I'm taking you to the Bellsouth room."  I had no time for this, so deeply involved in my lust for the retaining wall, fieldstone steps, & garden.  Outwardly nice, inwardly thinking how to get away.  Get back to her garden. 

 She marched straight here, above, my arm still in her hands.  "Isn't this the greatest spot?  I love looking at it and go to the bench often, have you ever seen steps like this,  &....."

 My attitude went 180.  Couldn't get enough of her.  That bench?  Of course I hadn't seen it from terrace level.  The bench overlooks the 18th hole of a PGA yearly stop.  

Portion of the Bellsouth room, above.  We paid it 'no mind' as Neil Diamond would sing.  I was in girl-crush as we walked the rest of her house & grounds spilling life stories, work, men, spirit. 
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken at my lecture venue last weekend.  Love how conversations flow with women amongst my tribe.  How did EM Forster know us so well?

Wickedly Neo-Unprepossessing

Across Europe the best gardens, with attenuated home of course, invite you thru a neo-unprepopressing entry.

 Arriving, above, I knew it was a carriage house or guest cottage.  How?  They told me I would lecture in the porte-cochere.  Executed to perfection, below right. 

 Whoever owned the estate HAD ME at the curb. 

 In the porte-cochere, above.

The bench is a metaphor for the house and garden.  Detailed, quality, elegant, enduring, comfortable, welcoming.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Did my 4 lectures in 2 days last weekend in the porte-cochere, at Sugarloaf Country Club Garden Tour & Boat Show.  This house & garden donated proceeds to Mothers & Daughters Against Cancer.  Of course I have more pics for you.

Somethings Gotta Give A Secret Garden Path

Can you see the flagstone path below?

 This type of path is also good at making small lawns appear larger

 This house is perfectly the movie house, Somethings Gotta Give, except, below.

Front entry step is too narrow & out of scale with the home.

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This is what I've been hired for.  Their house is perfection in all other details.

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Did you observe this house was a 1950's ranch?  IT WAS.  Architect blew it up & out.  Will ask permission to get interior pics next time I'm on site. 

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last month.  Will change a few of the foundation plantings.  They were installed to help sell the house.  Over planted and need constant pruning otherwise they will mature bigger than the house.  Not a novel issue.   

Stone Step At The Frontdoor

We only needed a bit of a step, below.

 With great joy we found the perfect stone

on site.
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It speaks of rivers, dinosaurs, time.
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Landscape Jewelry for sure.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic taken at a jobsite last week.

Placing Cobblestone Edging

No matter how many times, below,

 my guys create a new gravel parking court with

 cobblestone edging it feels like

a new book has begun.
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I feel something tangible with gravel & cobblestones, laid with love, appreciated in form, used for function.  As if a spirit were created to nurture those in its new, yet, ancient realm.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last month.  This incredible man, pulls a line, uses a level, does it right each time.  No matter he's done it for decades.

Door Statement

Over a decade ago I designed a garden for a town home in Ansley Park.

Doors, almost exactly as above, led into a tiny bricked back garden.
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All of the town homes had the same back doors into their garden.
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Most owners removed their gorgeous doors to renovate & 'update'.
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My client had her fabulous doors.  Yes, we commiserated over the loss of the other doors.  How the 'updated' doors ruined the entire look of the small, but choice, town home community.  How we really didn't like 'those' people.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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A delight to be be reminded of the Ansley Park doors with this image via pinterest.

How Tiny Landscape Rooms Live BIG

Paley Park, New York City, NY, below, via.

A tiny landscape living BIG.
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I've pondered why some little landscapes, including  mine, live HUGE.
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Yes, seriously, I've pondered & mulled & considered & strained to figure it out.
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It's the sky.
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With little space you still have infinite ownership of the sky.
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Use it.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Have seen Paley Park, in pics, several times thru the years.  Takes my heart each time.  Perhaps I'll get there some day!  Thank you Janelle McCulloch Library Of Design for posting this garden haven.

How To Place Stones

A pair of stones is the minimum, below.

 One stone reaching for the sky, one representing earth.

When these ridges were made, above, continents hadn't split.  The Atlantic Ocean was in the future.
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Seeing the lichens knowing they have no vascular system.
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These stones were sited before my friend moved into her Hayesville, NC home.  The builder obviously a Stone Whisperer.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Sir Roy Strong & Mirabel Osler

Sir Roy Strong & Mirabel Osler will be in conversation

October 19, 2011, Castle House Hotel.
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Both Strong & Osler are authors of  "life, gardens and travel."
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Please, go, if you can & put it all on YouTube for me/me/me.
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Look closely at the path, above.   Melts my heart.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic & more information via Hereford Times.  A garden nerd I have Sir Roy Strong on google alerts.  Monty Don too.

Stone In Your Landscape

Rose Tarlow, below, interior decorator, furniture designer & a master with stone in the garden. It's a rare landscape that cannot benefit from a tree trunk base & stone top. Tom Wilhite's book, below. Amazing how many of my clients already have this book at our first appointment. If you're thinking of DIY with stone, or not, this book is for you. Buy it here.
Sir Hardy Amies garden in England, below. With stone this good it would be difficult to get the plantings wrong.
Stone Mountain, GA, below. Nature's stone. Teaching stone. The wildflower, front of pic, growing on the stone, Mother Nature's patience adapting a root system/foliage/flower to growing in shade with trace amounts of soil & less water.
Then there is Michael Eckerman. His ideas in stone
changed mine.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic via Rose Tarlow, bottom pic via Michael Eckerman.

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All about STONE today with Garden Designers Roundtable.

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Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI

Sunny Wieler : Stone Art Blog : West Cork, Ireland

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

Ivette Soler : The Germinatrix : Los Angeles, CA

Jenny Petersen : J Petersen Garden Design : Austin TX

Rochelle Greayer : Studio G : Boston, MA

Susan Cohan : Miss Rumphius’ Rules : Chatham, NJ

A Slope In Italy: Drystack Stone

Olive trees sold long ago. These stones have retained this slope for centuries. No mortar.A new Drystack Stone wall begun by a recent DIY client.
Copy brilliance, I do.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Cannot wait for my client to finish their wall & send a pic.

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A previous contractor told me (with attitude), at a jobsite, this type of wall could not be built, "It has to be mortared." Should have quit using him with that job. But he was young & I thought I was mentoring. Alas. Months later 2 women clients (they don't know each other) called me in the same week, using the same word, misogynist, about this contractor. I'm sure he's missing my referrals.

Landscape Design: Copy

Tea Olive Terrace, below, yesterday morning, pic taken from my upstairs office window.
Why shouldn't I copy what I loved while studying landscapes in Italy? Copy, it's a rule of Landscape Design.
No money & no time are no match for DESIRE. (Tea Olive Terrace, aka side-yard, abuts the street. Private, gorgeous, emotionally enthralling EVERYDAY.)
English Daisy's blooming, annual blue ageratum will bloom late summer, rudbeckia fulgida x fulgida, yellow, bloom now till Christmas.
In Italy, above, this week. Nothing I don't have in a 'working class' cluster home subdivision in USA.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Bottom pic from Paul Gervais in Italy. Enjoy his blog, I do !.