Details of a Garden Room

Rescued sink, "champagne is on ice in the conservatory", & stand made from leftover structural pieces, century old rescued pine. Rescued culvert, above, has a new life, & the rescued chest, windows, shutter.

How calm the shutter looks, above, hiding the sink. Carpet, #89 granite gravel.

Nap, above, on the daybed in the Garden Room? Notice its pot feet? Having a chandelier & lamps is of utter importance.

Chandelier, for sale, alas borrowed from Le Jardin Blanc, hanging from the tin roof. Ugh, we had to buy the roof. Curtains? Jute erosion control fabric. Bedding borrowed from Susanne Hudson's home, & mine.

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Hydrangea welcome, above. After all it's the garden Susanne Hudson & I created for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival on the grounds of Le Jardin Blanc.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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You will not believe what this Garden Room looks like. Can't wait to show you the money shot, soon poppets ! Alert, this garden room built solely with the labor of 1 man & 2 women. None labeled 'young' in contemporary culture. Ha, young in what we create. Please, let us create a Garden Room for YOU. It's all we wanna do. Oh dear, this snippet is turning into the lines of a country song......... ta-ta before it gets worse.

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

Double Axis

A view of the house, below, from the historic cabin. View of the historic cabin, below, from the house.

Views, above, across potager & into her acreage beyond. Soon there will be a FOLLY upon that acreage.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken late last month at Hedgerow Farm. Local gravel & field gathered stones used in the potager. Landscape Design is quite amazing. Before the potager was installed the historic cabin & home had no relationship to each other. Now? It's as if home-cabin-potager have simply always 'been'.

Surprises Tucked In

Adirondack chairs as focal points. Easy. Unless, perhaps, you've put too much junk in your garden?

Oakleaf Hydrangea blossom stealing the spotlight.

Tucked in, above, I adore old watering cans.

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A little surprise, tucked in, seen when you sit in my adirondack chair. Placement matters, poppets. Sometimes 2" matters.

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Don't create the gravest of garden cliches; all your baubles fighting to be seen AT ONCE. Ugh.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken this month in my garden. Again, you realize I do not like styled pics? When a design is good no need to style your pictures. Bottom pic: shot pea gravel, gray Cherokee flagstone edging & oakleaf hydrangea spilling over. Aaaaaah, love it. Calms me. Ha, whatever works, right?

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cliche: trite, hackneyed, desperate...............

Small Space Gardening

Small space gardening has it all. Seasons, evergreens, deciduous, focal points, ceilings, walls, floors, doors, details. Aaah, details. Details are intensified in small spaces.
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Under 150 square feet, below, this little frontyard lives big. In the garden & from inside the house. A backdrop hedge creates walls of the room & blocks views of the street. A gate, door to the room, opens the space and extends the architecture of the house. Urn/plinth are focal point & create an enfilade (view thru to a view) in 2 directions, double axis.

Holding up thru the seasons is imperative in small space gardening. No down time allowed.

Potted herbs during summer are gilding. The house & a pair of boxwoods are another wall in this tiny garden room, above. Gravel is the flooring.

Variegated boxwood, above, echoes, those planted in the ground. Raking the gravel is detailing of the carpet. Adding the interest of an oriental rug.

Cat tucked into a boxwood, above, is a hint of what you'll find inside. The urn/plinth were clues or was it the iron gate painted robin's egg blue? Subsidiary pots are all terra cotta. Repetition creates impact in any size landscape.

No big surprise, the classic ginger jar inside, below, when everything outside is classic. Vanishing Threshold, bring your inside out and your outside in.

How do you want to use your small space? A lovely view, a place to lunch, read or invite girlfriends for wine/canapes?

A season's detail. Chinese snowball blossoms coat furnishings & carpeting in this tiny garden room.

Use height in small spaces to reach for the sky. Vines, espaliered shrubs, understory trees. Pull the eye up. The sky creates limitless space in small gardens.

After the Chinese snowball blooms, above, an espalier oakleaf hydrangea blooms, below. Both are draperies when viewed from inside. Outside they add lushness to the wall of the house, draw the eyes up, harbor birds/butterflies, provide 4 seasons of interest.

Small space gardens, abutting your house, include the views into your house. No backsides of pictures, tv & etc.

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I adore the challenge of creating small gardens. Especially those abutting the house. They harbor our gaze. And they gaze back, with grace.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from my front yard the past several months.

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Garden Designer's Roundtable: Small Space Gardening, more articles by the experts.


Small Spaces, Big Ideas!
June 22, 2010 by Scott

Today we focus on the challenges and opportunities of gardening in a small space. Small space gardening has its limits, but it doesn’t have to be limiting. Regardless of whether you are creating an intimate space within a larger garden or simply utilizing every available inch on your balcony, there is no reason your small space garden can’t be a well-designed masterpiece.

A small space garden lends itself to personal expression in a way a larger garden simply cannot. It’s easy to let your personality shine through in a small space garden. But the limited space means you are going to have to make some tough choices, every plant or design feature will need to do double duty. Of course the principles of garden design still apply, you just might need to tweak them a bit to make them fit your space.

Below you will find links to the Roundtablers who are participating in this month’s topic. Please feel free to join in with a comment here, on our Facebook Page, or on the individual blogs themselves. Your thoughts and experiences are always encouraged and welcomed and really do help us broaden our knowledge of this not-so-small topic.

Carolyn Gail Choi : Sweet Home and Garden Chicago : Chicao IL

Jenny Petersen: J Petersen Garden Design : Austin TX

Laura Livengood Schaub : Interleafings : San Jose, CA

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Shirley Bovshow : Eden Makers : Los Angeles, CA

Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : East Bay, CA

Susan Schlenger : Landscape Design Advice : Hampton, NJ

Transition

Closer to the house the landscaping is more formal. Near the back of the property, below, the landscape transitions into natural woodland.
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Gravel drive & path drift/mingle with leaf litter mulch. No stone or brick edging, 'soldiers'. Not even tree limb edging.
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Landscapes are stories. Work the drama.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in Susanne Hudson's garden last month.

Functional

Furniture on gravel? Easy. Discovered Italian heavy-weight terra cotta pots/saucers at the Ace Hardware in Douglasville, GA. Saw the 'same' pots at Wal-Mart yesterday. Tags said, Made In America. They were sooooooo lightweight.
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Terra Cotta with fine particles is heavier and less prone to freeze damage. Not immune, but lasts much longer.
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Douglasville Ace? Bought dozens of terra cotta pots/saucers at their 1/2 price sale.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in Susanne Hudson's conservatory last month.

That Type

When the actor Jimmy Stewart died in 1997 the obit picture was taken in his garden. Oh, BEAUTY. I, I, me-me-me, I, I, wanted THAT type of garden. Yesterday, Rob Browder, in my garden. Finally met his children. Rob, for almost 2 decades, is the only pruning contractor I refer. Precision Pruning.

Rob's pruning is so natural it looks like G*d pruned. But, dahlings, you must write G*d a check.

Hard to imagine I knew Rob about 10 (ok maybe 4) girlfriends before he met his ex-wife. I was thrilled to finally meet his children.

And I shot them in the exact type of garden Jimmy Stewart had.

It was a tough day with Rob & his men. Deep pruning to all the Daphne. And Rosemary. So deep. I couldn't watch.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Bottom pic is my favorite. If you are in the metro Atlanta area reading this, yes, you want Rob pruning your garden.

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?

An Exception

Landscape Design Rule: 1 Focal Point per Area Faux bois bench.
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Oversized hanging candle lantern.
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Blooming Hydrangea in a pot.
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Gravel path.
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Breaking Landscape Design Rules creates fabulous landscapes.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken almost 2 weeks ago in Susanne Hudson's garden. I spent 5 nites with her while creating our garden for the annual Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. Oh yes, dahlings, will be posting those pics soon.
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I've taken dozens of pics of this gorgeous faux bois bench. Each awful. Finally. Ah, finally. Got it !!
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Yes, broken landscape design rule, above, but don't overlook the fabulous landscape design: canopy trees, understory trees, walls of shrubs, color theme, sense of mystery, sense of surprise.

Don't Overbuild II

Same slope/drainage issue, different garden, as the last post, below. I created this path, above, over 20 years ago. Stone & gravel were under $150.00 and all the labor was done by ME!
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The day I created this path COLLEGE BOY said, "All the gravel is going to wash across the garden with the first rain."
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Hey COLLEGE BOY, "2 decades & counting, when exactly is the gravel going to wash away?"
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Gravel path with slight slope, drainage issue. Path terraced, shot pea gravel poured, stones dug into slope with 2" buried in soil, stones angled slightly into slope.
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Shot pea gravel loaded at quarry into the back of my pick-up truck. Parked at the curb & shoveled gravel into my double-wheeled wheelbarrow.

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Stepped off the length of this path, counting steps, and bought chunky field stone to match number of steps. Chose only stones I could carry in my arms. Each of the stones you see, above, I carried one-by-one from my truck at the curb to the backyard (easier than the wheelbarrow routine) & dug into the slope.

Don't Overbuild

Solving a slight drainage issue easily, affordably, without pooling water, without breeding mosquitoes & will last over a century, below. Path was terraced, #89 granite gravel poured, slope dug into with stone laid (dug in about 1"-2" at each base) angled into the slope.
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Unskilled labor required at each phase, above. Easily woman powered, or man.
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Water, now, follows the path. As does the eye & foot.
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Too often I am at a new client's landscape and discover French drains already installed. And already NOT WORKING. Excepting mosquito production. And They Are UGLY & Expensive.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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New path, above, in Jeri Farmer's garden. Not all areas, obviously, can be solved with the method above. Some areas, alas, do need a French drain. Dahlings, I don't want you oversold by a contractor wanting your money instead of the right thing for your landscape. Studying gardens in Europe I saw this same method used countless times in many countries. Built one in my garden 2 decades ago. Will find pic and post it soon. It's fabulous!!!

Getting It, Fast

Enter Rose Terrace thru a pair of gardenias. Get comfortable in an adirondack chair.

Hear the crunch of Shot Pea Gravel under foot.

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Overhead, a cathedral of mature Crape Myrtle. Espaliered against the wall: tea olive, camellia, hydrangea, climbing rose. Edging for shot pea gravel, cherokee gray flagstone & rescued brick. View, embracing arms of hydrangeas & the Tea Olive Terrace with its pond-hedges-groundcovers.
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Last December the Rose Terrace was a bed of hydrangea under the crape myrtles. Yawn. I wanted to ENJOY my garden. You know, wine/canapes with girlfriends.

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Why is this new garden room FABULOUS FAST? Dahlings, I followed the rules.

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Garden Design has a history of templates that work EVERY TIME.

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Of course I had to get over myself to know this.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in my garden. AND this new garden room was CHEAP.

At The Gate

From the Tea Olive Terrace, below, looking into my backyard. At the same gate, in my backyard, below, looking into the Tea Olive Terrace.

Double Axis: 2 views fabulous. A fabulous view in 1 direction must be fabulous in the opposite direction.

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There are no exits in a garden, only entries.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in my garden. See the template? A Trinity of the Ages: Path, Gate, Boxwood. Ramped up: painted gate, gravel path, blooming hydrangeas.

The Sacred & Profane of the Best Landscapes

The best landscapes have elements, below, of the Sacred

and elements, below, of the Profane.

Landscape design is about contrasts.

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The Sacred & the Profane. Got both?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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(Big leaves with small leaves, blue foliage next to burgundy foliage, pyramid forms next to horizontal forms, blowsy hydrangeas bursting over neat green hedging, spikey flowers by round flowers, & etc.)

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Top pic taken last week at Stone Mountain Park, bottom pic England.

Decorating Your Conservatory

Susanne Hudson used windows from the dump, 2" X 4" 's, opaque corrugated roofing panels, old doors, & #89 granite gravel, below, to create her conservatory. Inside, plenty of seating, lighting, & art.

Tables, cushions,

fabrics & collections.

A color palet. A few plants too.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Can't wait to begin building my conservatory. Hunting/gathering now. Dahlings, there's zero budget for this. Adore the challenge. Getting what I want at MY price point. Soon I'll be: hammering, shoveling gravel, painting, then, ta-da, decorating my conservatory.

CHOOSING A WHITE LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Last Friday I was in Douglasville, GA, below, at Le Jardin Blanc.Completed by a doctor, as his private home, just after the Civil War it's close to town & the railroad tracks.

Friends Susanne Hudson & Jeri Farmer bought & operate this manse as a wedding, events &

tea house. Suzanne designed a white themed landscape. Their budget of nothing but creativity & resourcefulness produced a white garden beautiful & easy to maintain. (NOTE: Jeri & Suzanne are women-of-a certain age with only pennies to put into this landscape yet its fabulousity helps sell their venue. Indeed, their landscape is woven into their business plan. Moral? YOU CAN DO IT TOO.)

Doublefile Viburnum, above.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Other pics of the Doublefile Viburnum include dogwood & #89 granite gravel. Don't you love their white picket fence?

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Suzanne & Jeri also created the annual Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. It's June 4-6 this year. A garden tour, vendors: plants-fine arts-antiques-jewelry-food-more, a standard flower show, shuttles available. Flower show & Main Street Market are Free, Garden Tours $25/person.