Best Lawn: TARA TURF

Moss & lichens are wornas jewelry upon this bench.

TARA TURF is its carpet.

Discovered over a decade ago during a study tour of Scotland TARA TURF is obvious.

TARA TURF: moss, lichens, mondo, clover, bulbs, dandelion, violets, fragrance, dwarf chamomile, scilla, muscari, dwarf daffodils, honeybees, ladybugs, fescue, what the wind blows in, 50%-75% less mowing, formal or informal depending upon mowing pattern & heights, zero fertilizer, zero chemicals, zero irrigation Mother Nature's rain only, unique to each zone & region world wide.

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TARA TURF, luxurient decadence. Earth poetry.

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Poetry of Man? Weekly mowing, insecticides, fungicides, their fumes passing thru your skin, stench, fertilizers, irrigation systems, poisoned ground water, dead mychorizal fungi, dead earthworms, dead lady bugs, dead honeybees, lawn cats/dogs/children must be protected from walking upon once treated, well, dahlings you get the idea.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in CORPORATE WOMAN's garden. Pics of her POTTING COTTAGE soon.

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Sod manufacturers, heads-up. Many people have inquired where to purchase TARA TURF.

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.

SIMPLICITY

This is my weakness: leaf litter mulch. No edging. Moss & lichens. Evergreen flowering shrubs. Petals on the ground. Patches of bare earth. Bench & bush. Low meadow leading to wildwood. Fragrance. Sound of wind thru leaves. Birds. Beauty.
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Do you know yours?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Castle Renswoude Utrecht, Netherlands via It's About Time.

THE SECRET OF FABULOUS LANDSCAPES

Entering Great Dixter, below, the household drive. Tires crunching along the gravel, scent of meadow.

Passing thru the yew hedge into this, above.

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See the landscape design secret?

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No?

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Back your car down the drive, park it on the road, get out, walk up the gravel drive, slowly, and thru the yew hedge.

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Notice the contrast of meadow to clipped lawn? Formal to informal?

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Ha, the secret tool of the worlds most famous landscapes is

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CONTRASTING FORMAL & INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS.

Did you think this gravel drive & meadow were 'natural'? Ha, not one inch of this drive or meadow were unconsidered. TOTALLY DESIGNED.
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TARA TURF was born in this meadow over a decade ago. And the epiphany of what the best landscapes create, FORMAL GARDEN ROOMS NEXT TO INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS.
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CONTRAST.
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Yes, contrast flower shapes/colors, tree forms, foliage colors/shapes & etc. Knowing, contrasting FORMAL/INFORMAL is the most important.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Lucky me, taking the pics at Great Dixter while Christopher Lloyd was alive. Note: In another area of Great Dixter meadow is designed up to, and touching, the house. Ha, remember the Tara Rule of Just Let It Touch?
Oh, meadows have been sustainable-organic-eco-low maintenance-beautiful since before language was invented.

BIRTHDAY PICNIC IN THE EVENING GARDEN

He said, It's late but please come to LOLA's birthday picnic. Bring something healthy for about 15. I met LOLA last month lecturing for the Extension Service. Instant GIRL CRUSH.LOLA was growing TARA TURF before we met! Historically correct for her older home. A mix of fescue-moss-clover-what the wind blows in. Never needs water, fertilizer or chemicals. Honeybees love it.

LOLA chose the paint for her bricks and created her own interiors. How to get you the fragrance of this magnolia?

Vanishing Threshold, above, dictates views into a window are pretty in both directions. No backsides of pictures, clocks, or TV.

Do you like still life's too?

About here, above, I thought to myself, This is probably rude leaving the party to wander & take pics without asking. Ha, did I stop?

I knew LOLA wouldn't have paper plates. Or paper napkins.

Gazpacho in the pitcher, Mario Bitalli asparagus (sauteed with garlic/parsley/citrus), fruit salad, cucumber salad, field pea salad.... Wine & beer & tea were in the copper farmhouse sink cradled in ice.

Set into a slight hill the house is crowned with a hardwood canopy of oaks. Captured light, above.

Vanishing Threshold, house & garden, each a seduction of comfort.

LOLA added French doors.

The back garden has 3 terraces.

LOLA really nailed her pot clusters, above. She overdosed, with 3!

Standing at the French doors looking into the garden. A designer planned the garden; contractors put in the stone. LOLA and darling TOM are doing the plantings & maintenance. Exactly the hand-heart-eye a paid maintenance crew cannot provide. The word for it? Charm.

What is a house & garden without a Queen? CHESSIE was in control. She also sweetly gave away a personal tidbit. She's a Daddy's Girl.

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LOLA & TOM live from the center of their home to the property line. And that darlings is Vanishing Threshold.

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Stop here if you don't partake of good gossip.

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LOLA & TOM were married last year in Italy. LOLA invited her 2 best friends. And that is how darling TOM honeymooned with 3 women at a villa in Italy.

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You bet I'll keep up with this interesting crew.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

1790's HOME & GARDEN: Albany, New York

Lecturing in Albany, New York last week I had the option of hotel or private home. Please. Observing how others live & garden inform my Muse (more about Muse in another post).
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All of a Tuesday NAUGHTY GIRL hosted me about Albany: Shaker gardens (more in another post), her friends homes & gardens, restaurants, Master Gardener public gardens, historical sites, and evading police twice on downtown bridges during the filming of Angelina Jolie's newest movie. NAUGHTY GIRL was good, indeed, for my Muse.
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APPLE SAUCE QUEEN, below, lives in this circa 1790 home. My 1st time inside a real 5-4&door.
APPLE SAUCE QUEEN had 4 minutes notice of our arrival. She & her husband were in the backyard gardening & caretaking a grandson. Spring, calm, beauty, love, laughter emanated from this trio as we pulled into their drive.

Have you designed shadows, above, into your landscape? Wish you could have walked upon this venerable stone path to APPLE SAUCE QUEEN's front door with me.

Immediately at the front door, above, original stairs, rail, floor, foyer.

APPLE SAUCE QUEEN & her husband stripped the flooring of layers of paint, above.

Each side of the foyer, above, with these doors. Were they to help caretake children, control pets?

The dining room, above & below, was a later addition. In the china cabinet, above, APPLE SAUCE QUEEN has a jar full of pottery, china, pipes, marbles & other misc. things found while digging in the garden. Some of the china is from China. Slow-witted me did not think to get a picture for you. Oops.

APPLE SAUCE QUEEN not only makes applesauce from her own apples but jams from her own blackberries, raspberries, strawberries & blueberries. Her grown children live close and she's able to caretake her grandchildren. Her love & joy with life is a delightful cloud to be enveloped within.

Why is this a fabulous landscape picture, above? Trust me, it is. APPLE SAUCE QUEEN was in the process of removing iris and planting vinca minor when NAUGHTY GIRL & I arrived.

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Many talk about low-maintenance few follow thru.

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Thank you NAUGHTY GIRL for this tiny slice of Tuesday.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

DESIGNING A B&B LANDSCAPE: COPYING KEW

Ric the Inn Keeper from Highlands, NC is ready to landscape his B&B. I'll drive up in March.

He has grassy areas and wooded.
I see Kew gardens at his B&B. Timeless, inviting, low maintenance, sustainable, serene.

Canopy & understory trees, shrubs, focal point bench, TaraTurf.

Contrasting: oval trees, weeping, conical, crooked, evergreen, deciduous, green foliage, yellow....

Ric, I want these pictures from Kew in your head before I arrive. I know you want more color. We'll place viburnum, rhododendron, mountain laurel, peony, antique roses, hydrangea, lenten rose, iris, on axis with views from the B&B.

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TaraTurf is fescue, moss, clover, crocus, dwarf daffodils, whatever the wind blows in. Are you that brave?

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I took the pics last month at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew.

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Garden & Be Well, XO T

EVERGREEN HEDGES & GARDEN ROOMS

Evergreen hedges are the bones of a landscape. No down time. Behind the hedge is a secret garden room.

FORMULA: TREES (ceiling), SHRUBS (walls), MEADOW (rug), FOCAL POINT (art)
*Big leaves next to small leaves.
*Green leaves next to yellow leaves.
*Oval shapes next to flat shapes.
*Tara Turf, meadow, mix of what's there and keep what blows in.
*Focal point, think, Is it so wonderful it will be fought over at my estate sale?

Landscapes are about contrasting everything for greater impact. Use as little as possible for the biggest impact. "Elegance is refusal" anon.
Behind the winged statue, above, is this charming garden room, below.

The same garden, below, contrasting purple foliage with green foliage.

Garden room, below, behind the hedge, above. Photo, below, framed with the purple foliage, above.

Sustainability isn't boring or new & needs little maintenance.