Foundation Planting

Starter home to million plus, Americans love their foundation plantings.  Why?  Rows of green meatballs planted by the builder, pruned ad nauseam for decades showing off the enabling co-dependent relationship serving neither party. 

And the confidence of this driveway.  More than function, a feature.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic My French Country Home.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
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Details about online design services.
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Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
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Details about lecture titles here.
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I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Conservatory Dreamtime

You must have a Conservatory in your garden.  Direct connection to an experience of Australia's Dreamtime.  

Too many busy days had passed without being in my Conservatory.  I feel its loss in my spirit.  Yesterday's 14 minute lunch had-to-be in the Conservatory.  Short & out of proportion to what is gained.  Spiritual well is filled.  No words to describe this direct line to Dreamtime.  

Moments in the Conservatory are atonement.  And abiding.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Lost Garden

Client recently decided to rent The Cottage this plan was designed for.
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Inspiration for another day!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Still pouting since I received the call a few weeks ago.  Pic, lost provenance.  If you know I'll credit.

Pot Planting

A bit of clipping, drip irrigation, enjoy.

                               Oh my, the dappled light.
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I haven't put an annual in my pots for decades.  Magazines & nurseries push-push-push annuals.  And I listen to what I'm asked for EVERY design, 'my landscape must be low maintenance & not expensive.'
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Gravel to the house, bushes in pots, necessity furnishings for meals, entertaining, relaxing.  Why are so many Americans afraid, above, of this?  "Let's build a deck, make it too small, add built-in seating with the rail which won't ever see use......"  "We'll pour a cement patio barely big enough for a mop, Weber grill, round table + 4 chairs."
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Pic via Desde My Ventana

What Is A Status Symbol?

Can you spot the status symbol?

In the land of freeways, subdivisions, strip malls, too many people?

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A meadow is status symbol.  A gravel/dirt drive with wildflowers & trees is status symbol.

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This is a CHOICE, above.  It is Landscape Design.  

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It's not a 'less than' drive because they couldn't afford to pave.  It's the intellect of knowing what's important in life.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pic via Habitually Chic. 

How To Create A Timeless Landscape

Landscape Design question, "Can you take black/white pics of your garden & it's TIMELESS ?

Was this pic taken 2012 or 1972 or.......?  And WHERE?  USA, Brazil, Italy........

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pic via Habitually Chic.  Can you imagine having those beautiful dogs !!!  And driving on that gravel.....

Princess Sturdza & Making Shade

Princess Sturdza's home, Le Vasterival, and garden in France were a hilarious welcome.  She was waiting for us standing on a tree stump holding a long sharp stick.  Describing the treasures awaiting we were also told 'never' to set foot in one of her beds.  Within the hour a silly German man leaned forward to ask her a question.  As quickly as his evil-offending-foot tapped her bed she whacked it with the stick.  Hard.

 We arrived, above, I still see her & hear the crunch of gravel.
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Last nite was my SHADE lecture.  Instead of the ubiquitous pics & ridiculous focus on shade plants blah-blah-ad nauseum bore.  I focused on making shade where desired, and the pruning away of shade where it's too thick.  

Like the Princess my home leads with a bay window, above.  

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It's tiny, faces full sun, a street & several neighbors.  A trinity of unpleasantness easily landscape designed into a charming Bay Terrace garden with gravel, shade, focal point, seating & privacy from the neighborhood view.    

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Who's the Princess?

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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara

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Top pic from internet, my Le Vasterival pics are still slides.  Bottom pic my bay window yesterday.  A great place to read, use wireless, lunch/dinner, journal, enjoy the birds-blooms-filtered lite.

Gravel To The Foundation

 

What is the incessant USA love affair with foundation plantings about? 

Bushes are either leggy hags or green meatballs.
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Ugly, requires maintenance, depreciates the value of a home.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Adore the gravel solution, above.  Pic from Deborah Silver who owns Detroit Garden Works.
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I left USA for Europe to study gardens once horticulture degree was firmly in hand.  Was taught how to be a guy with a truck mow-blow-go.  Worse, they taught  how to landscape design from the street looking at the house.  Europe was a grand teacher.  Will never forget the first time I saw gravel to the house foundation.  GOT IT.  Love moments of epiphany.

Lush & Sparse: Design Tool

Welcome.

A front door with spare elegance, above.  Near the front door, below, billowing lushness.

 Off to the other side of the front door, below, more lushness. 

 And a path, below, leading

 to a door

 not far from the front door

yet light years away in language.
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Landscape Design is about contrasts.  This home has a gardener with a sure vision.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken 2 weekends ago while lecturing.  No other time than full blazing afternoon sun to get the pictures.  So few gardens use the potency of spare with lush.   

Simplicity

Dare you?  This simple?
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Yes.
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Gravel to the walls, color theme, mix of stone-wood-iron, vine-on-house, evergreen cones in pots, round downspouts, beautiful views into the home, finials on the roof, custom shutters, 3-d lite over door.
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If you like it, break down the reasons.  Beauty in one spot can be translated into yours.
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House is the focal point.  House is the backdrop to the landscape.  Specifically, the front door.
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It's brutal to be this simple.  But POTENT.
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And low maintenance.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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pic via Things That Inspire .  Even a disastrous brick ranch ca. 1963 can be turned into a historic caretakers cottage.  This house , above, tells you how.  Have fun.  If you, indeed, live in the disaster.  Of course I can be this blunt.  Living in a brick 1986 box.

Gravel Drive

 Oconee Pea gravel dumped, below, spread, above.  A tiny gravel from the Oconee River outside of Watkinsville, GA.  Amongst the pea is sand.  This gravel compacts, almost, in a day.  Cobblestone edging arrives next week.

Strings were initially laid, then cars & trucks driven, lines adjusted & flags placed. 
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My degree in horticulture prepared me for none of this type of Landscape Design.  Instead, I was trained to design landscapes in subdivisions where everything touched is commodified.  Lawns mowed, bushes power trimmed, mulch instead of groundcover, annuals replaced every 6 months, fertilizer applications, insecticides/fungicides. 
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What I call, Mow-Blow-Go-Testosterone-On-Wheels-Commodify-All-I-Touch.
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For 2 decades I was off to Europe studying Landscape Design.  For 3 decades I've had 4 mentors & several friendships with peers in the Landscape Design industry.
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Everything I know, have seen & done has been required of me to place this gravel drive. 
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Simple.  Tis a gift to be simple.
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Elegance is refusal....
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken this week at a jobsite.

This Landscape Never Has Chores

Under the Chinese snowball Saturday.

I don't have to do any garden chores.  Ever.  Have you noticed?
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Sure, the petals will have to be blown when they brown.  How can that be a chore?
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It's an act of grace.  And thanks.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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When you have good garden accidents you know you've done it right. 

5th & State On Mary Bairstow

 5th & State came to Atlanta recently to visit her friend Mary Bairstow, interior decorator. 

 You'll like Mary's interiors but I fixate on her exterior.  The woman has Vanishing Threshold.

 I swoon, above, at the diminutiveness of these steps & matched in scale boxwood and asymmetry.

 A taste of Mary's interior, above. 

Is there any doubt, above, you are about to enter a fabulous home/garden?  None.  When every element of simplicity/function are achieved you know you are looking at the work of a master.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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5th & State took the pics.  Still pouting I didn't know she was in Atlanta, I would have invited myself along on this visit to Mary's magical home/garden.
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Did you notice the layers of green Mary uses in her garden?  Layers of green give you serenity & calm.

Placing Cobblestone Edging

No matter how many times, below,

 my guys create a new gravel parking court with

 cobblestone edging it feels like

a new book has begun.
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I feel something tangible with gravel & cobblestones, laid with love, appreciated in form, used for function.  As if a spirit were created to nurture those in its new, yet, ancient realm.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last month.  This incredible man, pulls a line, uses a level, does it right each time.  No matter he's done it for decades.

Lunch In The Conservatory

Friends for over a decade, we've kept up for too many years via ambient community, aka mutual friends & social media.

 We had lunch in my Conservatory yesterday.  Each of us brought to tears several times during meandering conversation.  Happy tears.  Tears of knowing.  Tears of bearing witness.

 Mostly laughter.  And buzzing with energy.
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Grace comes unbidden, and by nurture.  Yes, you want a Conservatory in your landscape.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Smallest Conservatory footprint, if you have a choice, is 12' x 18'.

How To Open A Front Porch

Gravel to the walls, evergreens (few), no rails on the porch, & a fabulous light, below.

 Exactly how I described The Cottage project, below, to my contractor.  Before I ever saw the pic, above, via Greige Design.

 Porch rails will be removed, below, and stone steps added to all sides.  Foundation meatballs removed,

gravel spread, light fixture installed.  Bricks painted, shutters added to all sides (new color chosen) storm door removed and a potager nearby, it was requested and there is very little good light elsewhere.
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Love this type of work.  Tight budget, big impact, little input.  Ironically, the biggest improvement will be removing the foundation meatballs.  The gravel?  Huge impact, and laughably one of the cheapest ingredients.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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No use at present for the iron rail.  Cannot wait to discover which project NEEDS it !

Choose A Trinity Of Colors

A new project with a small landscape, 1200 square foot cottage, & tight budget is exciting my muse.  Already know it must be Green, Brown & White in the landscape.

(Pic via Compulsively Compiled, above.)

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 Green, Brown & White, the trinity of Providence, is serene, elegant, and oddly, low maintenance by default.  

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More odd, choosing Green, Brown & White in a landscape never looks like a project on a budget.  

Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Took the 2nd pic last year, abandoned home near Athens, GA.

How To Make A Garden Room

From a patch of open space, below, a garden room is created beautifully & affordably.  

Why the drama of always doing a lawn, hedging, stone terrace, poured concrete, blah-blah & blah?  (Well, that's obvious Boo Boo, it's more highly commodified. )
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A few pots, shot-pea gravel, furniture, poof, your new garden room.
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Of course it does help having canopy/understory trees nearby.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic taken last week at Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Leather Hinges

Have your eyes locked on the Leather Hinges?

Mary Kistner, a mentor, said, "It's what we do with what we have."  No, I wouldn't have thought, EVER, of leather hinges.

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Of course I contacted Penelope Bianchi, this is her garden, about her leather hinges.

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Her man, adore that phrase & adore women gardeners who say it, has done many years of volunteer work in other countries.  He learned from them to use everything.

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Thank you 'Her Man' & Penelope for widening my horizon, to see Leather Hinges.  Of course I can't wait to see these with more age on them.  

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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There should be a special sainthood for that class labeled 'Her Man'.  By the time 'SHE' calls he KNOWS whatever it is is impossible but he will do it, because he's 'Her Man'.

How To Use High Density vs. Low Density

CONTRAST is Landscape Design's potent tool. 

 

 Penelope Bianchi is the QUEEN OF CONTRAST.  Above, a high density garden room.  Lots of 'things'.  Do you know how wicked hard it is to stage a lot of 'things'?

Because Penelope is, indeed, QUEEN OF CONTRAST, another garden room, above, is low density.
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Each picture a masters class in Landscape Design.
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How to use high density vs. low density? Contrast them.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pics via Velvet & Linen of Penelope's garden.  The garden is only 15 years old, yes, you may want to look again.  And, it's for sale.  Can you imagine the excitement & ideas swirling in Penelope's mind about her new garden.
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High density vs. low density isn't only a Landscape Design tool.  Landscapes with high & low density have the greatest pollinator habitat.