SMALL CONTENTMENTS

Wallpaper, 24 years old & still adored.The urge, energy & creativity to bring flowers inside, below, was absent for years. Blooms outside these windows every day, all year, no effort. Of course I must tolerate birds, butterflies or honeybees everyday too. Camellias, blooming outside, below. The brown? Dormant hydrangeas. The green? Azaleas. (Tara's Trinity of the Southern Garden: Azaleas, Camellias & Hydrangeas.)

Old wicker from an estate sale around the corner 3 years ago.

The cloche had been in the garden over 5 years, until hellebores were cut last week.

After 20 years, my house was painted. A decorator, Susanne Hudson, hired to help with colors & interior design.

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I'm basking in the joy, serenity & energy my new spaces are giving me.

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Above, When stamens drop, I'm taken out of time. (Lucky me, I think some people need cocaine to feel like this. As the Sea Witch in Little Mermaid says, "...Poor unfortunate souls........")

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What mentors have shared with me the most? Small contentments.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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That fabulous cloche? TJMaxx, $9.99!

PURE ROMANCE

Deepest winter, camellias in bloom, a pierced brick wall, a boxwood sentinal,

perennials peeking through, the dormant vine enticing me to come back.

This bit of garden, last week in Charlotte, NC, displays many desires.

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I want to know how to make cast stone urns, a pierced brick wall, forge an iron gate, paint a watercolor of this scene, write a poem about nature's delight & of course garden here.

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Perhaps this is why my contractor told me, "You are a gay man in a womans body." Ha, most of my girlfriends want to do these things too.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken last month at Wing Haven.

SINKING INTO CAMELLIAS

A bouquet. These are camellia sasanqua in late fall. Behind is the Summer House.
Alexandra Stoddard wrote about the golden ratio in Living A Beautiful Life. I used it to design the summer house. My lot is less than 8500 sqft in suburbia. MY LANDSCAPE IS IN DENIAL OF SUBURBIA BECAUSE I AM.

With a landscape design client in Michigan I dreadfully missed camellia.

Mother Nature, please let me SHOW OFF with sasanqua. JUST ONE. Next to the conifers.

Use white blossoms for plantings further away from your home. They show up better from a distance than pink or dark pink.

Honeybees come on cold fall days to the sasanqua. Follow them home? Fantasies about tasting sasanqua honey.