Showing posts with label driveway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driveway. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Doormat

I first saw this type of doormat, below, in a centuries old French garden (cobblestones set in gravel). As perfect as this entry, below, is I want to take it back
further. Do you know what I mean?
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Do you know how?
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The container. Fabulous, but too new for this landscape.
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We have already sourced a new container, almost a century old, in Birmingham, AL.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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When the new container arrives the current era will be blended across the past.
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Timelessness, a grace in every landscape fortunate enough to wear it.


Thursday, June 17, 2010

Simple

A few weeks ago when the roses began blooming, below. #89 granite gravel drive, picket fence copied from historic template, carport (at right) with "columns" made from 2" x 6" boards, green-brown-white color theme. Pure Simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Can you hear the gravel as you drive into Susanne Hudson's garden?

Friday, March 19, 2010

JULIA CHILD & RACHEL RAY

Cookbooks. None by Rachel Ray. Not surprising PECAN ORCHARD isn't hesitant to begin her landscape with its bones. Evergreen hedges near the house, working outward. Ah, yes, Julia Child. Truck & outbuildings, below, viewed from the kitchen, above. Soon, hedges. Poof Gone!
PECAN ORCHARD returned from 2 decades of expat living recently. Determined to live a gardening lifestyle with chickens, honeybees, potager, fruitery, nuttery, & more.

Around the corner from her kitchen, above, a guest alcove. PECAN ORCHARD is already hosting events for honeybee & chicken groups.
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A few Garden Ingredients: Hollies, camellias, Pee Gee hydrangea, red bud, crape myrtles, abelia, forsythia, viburnum, boxwood, meadows, bulbs, branch wattles, urns, plinths, paths, gravel, flagstones.
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When PECAN ORCHARD is over 90, decades away, she wants a landscape grown more beautiful AND easier to maintain.
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Combining Rachel Ray ease & Julia Child delectability.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Took pics yesterday at PECAN ORCHARD'S home.

Friday, January 15, 2010

MAKING IT LESS MAINTENANCE

Know how to create less maintenance, below? Replace turf with groundcover.
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Notice what is not in this landscape? NO FOUNDATION PLANTING !!!!
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Notice what is in this landscape? A French theme. OVERDOSE YOUR THEME.
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Notice how simple this landscape is? KEEP IT SIMPLE SWEETIE.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Things That Inspire. A favorite blog, named to perfection.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

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.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

LANDSCAPE DESIGN: MISSION STATEMENT

For each landscape design I ask for a mission statement. Often a single mission statement is enough, sometimes one for the front yard & another for the backyard. Ha, some of you need several. Don't think you're hiding from me.
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TRACTOR CHICK's mission statement: "Create an outdoor living space that will not be an extension of my home but where my home will be an extension of my garden!" TRACTOR CHICK chose her home for its lot. For the landscape. The backyard is incredible.
A few challenges in the front yard. Driveways & garages drawing attention away from the focal point of the front door.
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I haven't drawn this plan yet but I already know round downspouts are needed, an arbor over the double garage wrapping around the corner and Bahama shutters, below, on the bare wall between the double garage & single garage.
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Why have the arbor and Bahama shutters? Softness, depth, asymmetry and creating the illusion that living space is balanced on each side of the home.

Bahama shutter pic, above, from The Window Shutter Site, other pics taken last week.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Friday, June 19, 2009

LANDSCAPE DESIGN: DRIVEWAY

This charming driveway greeted me earlier in the week. A 1-car garage enlarged into a 2-car garage. A gravel drive edged with stones.
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Picture removed at request of contractor.
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CHARM. CHARM. CHARM.
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Picture removed at request of contractor.
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Then I discovered the driveway is where the money ran out. Notice the apron of cement leading into the drive. It's still the original single car garage apron. Then it curves gently wider.
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Instead of several thousand dollars for a new driveway, it was several hundred dollars. Yes. that much of a difference. Did you know gravel runs about $70/ton?
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And I like the gravel drive better. CHARM.
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Often, the 'more money' choice is not the right choice.
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As the saying goes, Poverty is a great preserver.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Note 6-21-09: Though the pics were removed today the idea is still worth keeping this post up.