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

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Transitioning Style: Garden Rooms Different than Interior Rooms

Beyond the house, in their garden, is the rose garden with cottage.
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Formal.
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Quite obvious what type of garden room is next.


Rustic, and wild, below.


Truly, one of the best waterfalls, any continent, residential/commercial, I've ever seen.
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Garden rooms are easy to style.  They contrast formal to rustic and back again.  For many centuries now.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in the Paul/Lisa Brown garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning:
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Friday, May 2, 2014

Design: How to Decorate a Big Blank Wall

Copy, is a rule of Garden Design I did not agree with for years.
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Now?  How could I have been so ridiculous?
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Facts.  If it's pretty in another garden it will be pretty in yours AND unique.
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That crazy 'terminally unique' illness.  We all have it & life is blessed once that disease is eradicated.

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A lot of houses have the grand blank wall, somewhere.
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Place 3 pair of closed door shutters, with mirrored transoms, add door knobs, hang lanterns, plant a vine, put in a few tons of #89 granite gravel, add furnishings.
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Done.
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Unique.
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Would love this at a flower show.  5 entries, each given the same size wall, copy the inspiration, above.
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Would love to see this in Italian rustic, French provincial, desert southwest.
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Whatever !
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Easy.
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COPY
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday in a local garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning:
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Enlarging Corners

Hired for the Garden Design I could not ignore the pool decking.
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Pool is Olympic in scale yet the decking was Liliputian.


The mortar isn't even dry, above.
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Will go back this spring for full photo shoot with more enlarged corners, rims and furnishings styled.
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Have enlarged corners for driveways too.  Perfecto!
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic in client garden.  Love pics full of narrative or, like this one, a 'see it & do it', no explanation needed.  
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Monday, January 20, 2014

Simple Manipulations: How Many Do You See?

Do you see the manipulations, below?


Seating to create a gathering spot, figs for summer shade/winter sun over the benches, drystack stone wall cut into a slight slope forcing foot traffic into defined directions, formal boxwood framing pastoral views, tapering stone wall allowing only small machinery into the pasture from this direction, gravel terrace ready for men-trucks-heavy equipment, horses, or a catered soiree for 100.
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And, of course, it must all look a century old, be easy to maintain, and provide interest 24/7.
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When something appears simple, it rarely is.  Same is true of people.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic at a jobsite last week.
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Do you know the maximum pollinator habitat, above?  Seriously, can you verbalize what creates the best pollinator habitat above?  Answer at bottom.
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Being simple requires each of the decades I've been learning about gardens.  Better, being simple in a garden, takes me where Joseph Campbell says our eternity is.  Ironic, in this American life/era, to have found my bliss in work.
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  1. Joseph Campbell - Wikiquote

    en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
    Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own .... And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
  2. More, being simple connects me to the message/life work of Wendell Berry & E.M. Forster.  
  3. Wendell Berry Earns Highest Humanities Award, Lectures on ...

    sojo.net/.../wendell-berry-earns-highest-humanities-award-lectures-econo...
    Apr 24, 2012 - On Monday evening, Wendell Berry delivered the 41st annual ... The title hinges on E.M. Forster's 1910 novel Howards End, which Berry said, ...
  4. .
  5.  If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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    Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                     .
    Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.
  6. Answer to question, above,  High density/low density, open meadow/dense woodland.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Creating Lush

Vertical lawn, below.


Don't have a stone villa?  Espalier a woody shrub.  No wires or trellis needed.
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Oddly, the perfection above is undone without the  rattan chair.  Then it becomes an ad for patio furniture.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Those white cushions?  Not in my garden, crape myrtle tree debris would win in a day!
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How lush can a garden be and have very little?  That is the best gardening question.  This garden, above, wins.

Pic Veranda magazine.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Friday, October 11, 2013

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?


Remember Gertrude Jekyll's "....the first thing I consider, when planning a garden, is what to put on the house."
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For ease of maintenance I prefer espaliered woody shrubs.  No wires, no trellis.
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House & terrace, above, are vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Half Pudding Half Sauce.

Friday, September 13, 2013

How to Tame Trouble

Met a new client last nite with a no-mans-land of trees/ivy/invasives/drainage ditch/weeds.  Its ownership 'looks' like it could be their property or their neighbors.
What to do is quite easy.


An entry & path will instantly take ownership and tame the trouble.
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Clearing invasives, controlling ivy/weeds, planting desirable understory trees & etc... will take a bit more time.  Happily, now there is a road map.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
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Exciting times, their brown brick home with brown shutters will soon be WHITE !
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Pic Litchfield Hills, lost provenance of photographer.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Stupid Does Have a Price

Beware the landscape contractor, with one of my Garden Designs, "No, can't be done."


Stupid does have a price tag.
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Fieldstone retaining wall, above, in dirt.  No concrete + mortar.  Italy has quite a few olive orchards, older than Christ, still holding proud their fieldstone in dirt terracing.
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Stupid-does-have-a-price-tag, said fieldstone in dirt did not work, he wanted to make more money with concrete, mortar, chipped stone.  I don't use him anymore.  My jobs have grossed millions since then.  Do the math.
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When I mention my Team it's from the heart & head.  They make my designs better.  Why did I fall for SDHAPT?  I met the author of Never Be Lied to Again, when I was the garden expert on NBC-TV morning show.  Zero awareness of those lying to me at that time.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Old Long Island.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Japanese

Invitation.  




 "...eternals as applicable in the smallest of spaces as in the vast acres of a country house garden." Sir Roy Strong.  Above, vast as a mountain range.


Water Mirror, miroir d'eau, above.




Water breaks the footprint of the Tea House, above.  Small touch, huge impact.


Looking outward, above, from the bamboo window seen coming in the entry, top pic.


Framing the view, above, for centuries this has been done.  Is a brick ca. 1960 ranch less worthy?


Hidden, then meandering, above, then spilling into the pond, below.


Why, above, do we like walking on water?

 At the minimum, 2 stones.  Male & female.  Earth & sky.  Ying & yang.  Even the shadows are benevolent.


Leaving the Japanese garden from its other side, above, into a pecan orchard.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken Massee Lane Garden last weekend.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Massee Lane: Millstone Collection in the Garden

Millstones collected for a lifetime & sited in David Strother's garden, now a public garden.





  Many were slave made.


Today, 1 millstone in a garden is special.  Hard to find, expensive, and getting it home & setting it in the garden, for most, requires men & equipment.





Concrete piers support these in the pond.


Doormat.


Only a handful are setting on the ground.  Showing off.


As time passed this pair, above, could have been sited where the evergreens are.  Their value, literally & historically, of incredible value.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken at Massee Lane Gardens, Fort Valley, GA, last weekend.  From their site, "The formal camellia garden at Massee Lane had its beginnings as the private garden of David C. Strother in the 1930's. He surrounded his farmhouse with camellias. Year by year, he moved out the garden borders to accommodate the camellias he wanted to plant. It is said he never included a camellia he didn't like, even if it were given to him! Mr. Strother donated this land to the American Camellia Society for its headquarters in 1966. 

Mr. Dave collected millstones and road markers - the millstones he brought into the garden have become a trademark. The old wire road mile markers, some with the mile number still visible, add another dimension to the garden. 

More than a thousand varieties of camellias are here, plus sasanquas, fragrant tea olives, Lady Banksia roses, and delightfully scented daphnes.

Enjoy a walk down Dave's Ville Walk - lined with his favorite camellia, 'Ville de Nantes', and admire his handiwork and smell the delicate aromas of tea olives. Always feel free to leave the pathways and walk among the camellias to find your own personal favorite."
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The daphnes & tea olives were blooming, and almost overwhelming.


Saturday, November 24, 2012

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.



Tuesday, November 13, 2012

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.

Monday, October 29, 2012

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.

Friday, October 5, 2012

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.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

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.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

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. 

Friday, May 25, 2012

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.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

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?