Showing posts with label Tara Turf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tara Turf. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Orchard Wall & Gate

Credentials.  Every element designed.  My general contractor had the audacity to ask if I sited the daffodils.
Receiving my gimlet eye, no words, he quickly backed away a couple of feet.  Literally.


I was at the jobsite this month siting the newest layer of plantings.  The guys loaded them from the grower, above, early in the morning.  My contractor spent over a week sourcing them.


Caterpillar had to be used to move each plant.  Planting holes had to be dug by hand due to electric/gas/water.
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I staked location flags for the load of plants then zipped the acreage shooting the pics you've seen the past several days.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Some of 'the guys'.  Hardworking, pleasant, humble.  Without them, no gardens.
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Considering the top pic for a logo.  Still amazed every element is designed, newly built/installed, yet Jane Austen rustic.  Everyone got it right.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Poverty Cycle Into the Music Room


The library across the hall, previous post, is moody with northeastern light.  The music room, below, hums in southeastern light.


Eastern light, below, in the mirror, southern light, window above.


The garden view, below, is one of my proudest achievements.


I took the garden, a century old, to its Southern roots in time & place.  Using the Poverty Cycle.  Looking in the window, below, seen, above.


Tara Turf to the foundation, granite curbstone step instead of green-meatball-foundation-plantings, drifts of daffodils as-if-they-were-always-there.
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Plenty of areas to play & show off in this garden, and I have, but without using the Poverty Cycle the garden would lack soul, character, integrity, & have too-much-uneducated-ego.  Of course you've deduced, this is my ego, above.  This is a portion of the front porch, hence, double ego!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at jobsite.  Same garden as previous several posts.
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Ego for doing-the-right-thing makes me unemployable to the largest design/install companies across USA.  Why?  It's all about sales.  Are you beginning to understand the prevalence of green meatballs & foundation plantings and, and, and?
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Oh my, a little Puppet Barbuda this morning.  Uneducated ego?  Testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch-get in fast-get out fast-sign my contract-pay me every month.  Sad, you'll pay later in lower house value, higher HVAC, increase maintenance expenses, poison  ground water with fertilizer, destroy pollinator habitat, and worse, harm your spirit with ugliness.  

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Practically Perfect

This would never happen 'new' in Atlanta, GA.  

And isn't that sad.
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Why does everything have to be so perfect?  Mary Poppins knew 'practically perfect' was better.
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This feels like a one sided conversation with Jane Austen.  Of course we know what type of character she would let live here!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Pigtown Design.  Can't you smell the Tara Turf?

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Garden Designers Round Table: Lawns

Lawn should have sections, arriving at, and touching, your home.
 Lawn around your home should be cut lower-tidier, above, than lawn further away, below.
 The best lawns are not monoculture, perhaps they are great for sports, they are Tara Turf.  A mix of grasses, bulbs, herbs, and what the wind  blows in.
 Tara Turf, above, in the cracks of a formal flagstone terrace.  Well, formal when the Tara Turf is 'dormant'.
 Low Tara Turf, above, enhancing the view and a place to play, sit, picnic.
 Spotty Tara Turf, above, a century old home with owners over 70 years old.  Easy to take care of, no fertilizer, no chemicals.
 What began as a design statement, above, enhances pollinator habitat.  And greater change thru the seasons.
 Lawn, above, a harbinger of spring.  And the owners.
 Lawn, above, until I realized the maintenance required.  Now, flowering shrubs.
 Lawn to the house, and it feels good.  Zero foundation plantings.  Lush planting in pots.
 Charming vignette, above?  Yes, AND, helping to pollinate fruit trees, vegetables.  Did you know 80% of pollination is from wild sources?
 At Sissinghurst, above, formal lines are mown into Tara Turf.  Tall lawn under fruit trees?  Increases yields 80%.
Tara Turf doesn't need watering, it enhances landscape design.  A detail within simplicity.
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One of my clients has a large potager, flowers/herbs/vegetables, her potager caretaker tried to talk her out of hiring my services.  She didn't need ornamental flowering plants coming into bloom every 2 weeks all year, she needed only plants feeding wildlife or people.
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We all learned something, BIG.  Her potager is outproducing any that he has created in his career.  Instead of getting 1-2 bloom cycles on her vegetables she's getting 3-4 bloom cycles.  Her yields are 100% higher, in many instances, than what he is familiar with.
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Why?  She created a landscape with something new coming into bloom every 2 weeks.  Birds, insects are in great activity everyday.  She has a mix of hi-density plantings with shrubberies/flowering trees and low-density areas with Tara Turf.
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Tara Turf is part of the equation for maximum pollinator habitat.  Beauty, low-maintenance, no expense for water, chemicals, fertilizer.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
.This month on Garden Designers Roundtable, We’re talking ‘Lawn Alternatives’, and we’re very excited to have the Lawn Reform Coalition joining us for a blogging extravaganza! The Lawn Reform Coalition is Thirteen gardening and environmental advocates from across the U.S. promoting change in the American lawn, a loose coalition of writers and activists (including lawn-haters and lawn-improvers) pooling knowledge of up-to-date solutions to the many problems caused by a lawn culture that demands perfection, conformity, and the overuse of water, fertilizer and pesticides. To learn more about the Coalition, and to join in the revolution, visit www.LawnReform.org.
We’ll be joined this month by the following Lawn Reform Coalition members:
Susan Harris
Susan Harris – Coalition instigator and head wrangler, Susan is a garden writer and blogger who promotes lawn alternatives and organic lawn care.  Online she blogs for independent garden centers, publishes a website about Sustainable-Gardening, and co-founded the national team blog GardenRant.com. Susan also co-founded the DC Urban Gardeners and Green the Grounds.org, a campaign encouraging First Families to landscape their official residences sustainably. Her individual blog Gardener Susan’s Boomer Blog, goes radically off-topic to answer the question: What Turns Boomers On?  Susan gardens and teaches gardening in the Washington, D.C. area.
Billy Goodnick
Billy Goodnick – Billy is a landscape architect based in Santa Barbara, CA, specializing in designing public and residential landscapes. His freelance writing and his Cool Green Gardens blog at Fine Gardening Magazine instruct and encourage readers to adopt a more sustainable approach in their landscapes. Billy also co-hosts an educational and humorous regional television show,Garden Wise Guys, that emphasizes water conservation and lawn alternatives.
Evelyn Hadden
Evelyn Hadden – Evelyn has been writing about nature-friendly, chemical-free, do-it-yourself, low-maintenance landscaping since 2001, when she founded the informational website LessLawn.com.  She gardens in Minnesota and travels across the country speaking to other gardeners about ecological gardening, lawn alternatives, and ideas for shrinking your lawn.  Her most recent book, Shrink Your Lawn: Design ideas for any landscape, won a silver medal in the Independent Publisher’s 2009 Living Now Book Awards for promoting a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Evelyn works with the Permaculture Research Institute Cold Climate to find and share ways to build a restorative human culture.
Saxon Holt
Saxon Holt – Saxon is a professional garden photographer whose images are well recognized in hundreds of magazine and book credits. In his work he seeks to change the aesthetic of what we expect to see in a garden photograph so that the media portrays authentic and sustainable gardens. ”The American Meadow Garden” and his two most previous books, Hardy Succulents, and Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates, were all awarded prizes by the Garden Writers of America as “outstanding books”. He owns the stock photography library PhotoBotanic and blogs regularly atGardening Gone Wild.
Ginny Stibolt
Ginny Stibolt - Ginny is the “Transplanted Gardener” from Maryland, where she received her MS degree in botany, to NE Florida.  Her column for Jacksonville’s Florida Times Union is posted on her website and onFloridata.com, Many of her columns have been republished in Master Gardener newsletters and elsewhere, and she also writes for Vero Beach Magazine.  She’s the author of Sustainable Gardening for Florida, published by the University Press of Florida.
Of note, two of our own members here at Garden Designers Roundtable are also Lawn Reform Coalition Members. Susan Morrison and Shirley Bovshow will also be posting today.
Garden Designers Roundtable is also very excited to announce in conjunction with this month’s topic, that one of our own, Pam Penick, has a new book coming out in February of 2013 entitled “The Alternative Lawn”, to be published by Ten Speed Press. Look for more information here and on Pam’s blog Diggingas we get closer to the publishing date. Congratulations Pam!
Now without further ado, may we present to you our readers, ‘Lawn Alternatives’! Just click on the links below and Enjoy!
(and no, you’re not seeing double, Susan Harris has contributed two posts!)
Several pics I took, some I've lost the resource, some are from Paul Gervais.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Early Naturalist

The Lloyd's house was already old when they purchased it a century ago.  It had to be shored up & gardens created. Their good fortune was hiring Sir Edwin Lutyens.  And Mrs. Lloyd wanted her landscape to be 'natural'.  After all, landscapes were then the Edwardian conceit.

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This is the path I first came upon at Great Dixter.  Had never seen a garden like this, yet it imprinted on my DNA as the way to garden.
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Hedges, meadows, topiaries, flowering shrubs, trees, paths, vines, stone, brick, water, axis, benches, focal points, rain butts, potting sheds, subtleties, compost.  Yes.
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But I don't do the herbaceous borders, too much maintenance.
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If this garden room is informal, above, what do you think the next garden room is?
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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Assignment: Go To Great Dixter.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Checkerboard In Tara Turf

Pair of conifers at the entry, a pencil shaped evergreen on axis, and a checkerboard path in Tara Turf leveraging the drama.

 Pink Crape Myrtle adding seasonal drama.
Mary is the queen, designing this garden room, it's adjacent to her parking court, and acquiring most of the contents FREE.  She did the work herself.
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 Since starting to post about Mary's garden, a few days ago, her age has gone up daily.  I said she was 60's.  Nope, she sent a note, she's 71.  Well, a day after that she sent an email saying she was embarrassed at her math skills, she's happily 73.
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Are you getting my point?
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Garden & Be Well,                  XO Tara

Friday, July 22, 2011

Landscape Design: Proud Of G*d's Dirt

One of the best landscapes, below, I know.
 A landscape NOT to be used in national magazines.  Why?  Tara Turf & G*d's Dirt.
 This is real landscaping.  She's into her 60's, busy & on a tight budget.  Watering, chemicals, fertilizer?  Not needed here.
 Don't look dear viewers lest pics of G*d's Dirt offend.  Tara Turf + G*d's Dirt.  (National magazines, large audience garden radio shows, Mr. Testosterone-On-Wheels-Mow-Blow-Go-Comodify-Everything-I-Touch,  & nurseries would have to change their business model for my type of gardening.  Not much to sell.  Yet my business model supports me.)
 Roundabout with focal point, above/below.
A Landscape Design feature 1,000's of years old.
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Why pimp it for a tidy monoculture lawn needing weekly mowing, edging, water, chemicals, fertilizer, lacking fragrance, change thru the seasons & pollinators?
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How we treat our pollinators is how we treat ourselves.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Do you know the science of Mary's garden vs. the typical national magazine garden?  Cytokines released by myriad plants in nature boost white blood cell counts, fighting cancer.  Monocultures reduce nature's bounty.  Read this study recently.  Had no idea, prior, about our symbiotic relationship to myriad plantings.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Bunny Mellon Style

A garden, below, needing tending or a garden tended to perfection?
Is this garden, below, your idea of heaven or a mess? (Have this garden, below, in any post 1985 deed restricted subdivision & you'll get 'nastygrams' from the HOA demanding it be 'weeded'.)
A fairy tale, below, or needs pruning?
Bunny Mellon likes it SCRUFFY !!
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A woman to love.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Oddly, I've always been repelled by deeply manicured landscapes. Repelled & disgusted by tidy landscapes omitting an intellectual component entirely. Is Puppet Barbuda being too vague in her dislikes? Puppet Barbuda abhors subdivision tidy landscapes installed by the 'builder' and maintained ad nauseum thru the decades; as if tidiness is an excuse for a 'decent' landscape or an intellect.
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Vanity Fair has a lovely article, where the pics came from, about Bunny Mellon here.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Gertrude Jekyll: Munstead Wood

Christopher Lloyd said, "The garden dies when the gardener dies." Gertrude Jekyll's beloved home, Munstead Wood, above.
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Technically correct, but dead.
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I see a garden needing its mistress. Missing her. Aching for her.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic above, Charlotte Wehychan.
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I also see maximum pollinator habitat: canopy/understory trees, walls, groundcovers, high density, low density. When Jekyll designed landscapes was she aware of her interface with pollinator habitat?

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.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Garden Room: 101

Before construction, Susanne Hudson & I knew our Garden Room was fabulous. Understatement yes? We designed architecture & landscape, decorated & styled with only items junked, rescued, borrowed. (Well, we did buy tin roofing, gravel & a few pots.)
Tiny, potent. Peek thru, below, see our potting table?


Alone, or with girlfriends, this Garden Room is a life changer. Virginia Woolf territory.


Delightfully different views into each side.


Leftover pavers from edging the gravel. Voila, a table. And a meadow, does it get any better? Yes, hearing the crunch of gravel, smelling the fragrance of meadow & woodland, sound of rain on tin, seeing the chandelier & lamps on at nite. Knowing you have a bolt hole.
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My favorite part? Building the garden & Garden Room with Susanne. And this was work?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Built for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, on site at Le Jardin Blanc in Douglasville, GA. Poppets, I had to spend several nites with Susanne while we created this Garden Room. Attended a Gala 1 evening. Progressive dinner another nite. Behind the scenes for a huge wedding at Le Jardin Blanc another nite. Mexican & margaritas another nite. Garden tour & Thai food 1 nite. Oh my, FUN.
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Want a Garden Room? Susanne & I can create one for you, contact here.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

BUILDING A GARDEN ROOM

Susanne Hudson, a year ago, asked me to build a garden with her for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. I knew then it must be a Garden Room.
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We Field Gathered over 95% of the Garden Room. The roll, below, know what it is? Jute erosian control fabric. Can you guess how we used it? Disgusting 1980's French doors, from the dump, turned into something fabulous, below.
Our wagon, below, filled with a foray behind the barn.


Pine timbers, below, from a factory torn down in Atlanta, about a century old.

A good man for this project was unspoken, below. Notice, we did not think 'crew of men'. Notice, too, more Field Gathering: old wheelbarrow, bed frame, & altar table on its side. But you already saw that yesterday. Oooh-la-la, notice the old bathroom sink in the Tara Turf?

Poppets, pay attention to the galvanized culvert, below.

How would you use it?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Tara Turf & A Big Mouth

Tara Turf, below. Meadow of whatever the wind blows in & bulbs-clover-herbs-whatever you want, mown at different heights. (Discovered during my first garden study tour in Europe almost 2 decades ago.) Sunday, a client's soiree. She invited dozens. Meeting a delightful man & describing to him Tara Turf. Further,
telling him 'some locals' did not want her to have Tara Turf, aka meadow. Too many problems with tall meadows 'they' said. Full sail, go Tara Go, describing Tara Turf's fabulousity.
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Tara Talk personified, fully Tara'izing.
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Dahlings, you KNOW what's coming.
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That man? Quietly said, "I cut these fields for decades."
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Hmm. THE local. Hmm. Exit quickly. Silly girl, into another social pickle. Find Rabbit Hole in the meadow quickly....
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last Sunday at Hedgerow Farm. I adore Tara Turf: pollinator garden, no irrigation, no chemicals, fragrant, little mowing, gorgeous, fabulous. Tara Turf has worked for centuries throughout the globe. I adore history.