Pots, Easy Landscape Edging

Pots, original, as landscape edging? Hardly. A centuries old idea. At my garden, with Susanne Hudson, for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, below. (PMHF is this weekend, June 4-5.)"It's what we do with what we have.", my mentor Mary Kistner said. I first saw pots as edging decades ago in Ryan Gainey's Decatur, GA garden.
Susanne & I have broken pots & fallen limbs.

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Perfect landscape edging. Easy & free.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken a few days ago.

Italian Simplicity: Are You This Brave?

A vine & 4 pots. Voila, lush, done.No foundation plantings, no lawn.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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I took this pic over a decade ago in Italy, outside of Lucca, and haven't wavered in my awe of its simplicity.

Turning A Hedge Into Entries

For decades I've designed gardens. What I know for sure? It's not about the plants. By the time someone contacts me they are in a new chapter of life, sometimes a new book. Are they aware? Mostly, no.

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When the garden is born again, their life is changed.

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My job is to "capture the humanity of what is under way".

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Myriad times I've taken 1-2 plants out of a hedge & put in a path. Creating 2 entries instead of 2 dead-ends. Isn't the vocabulary stunning? Entries vs. dead-ends.

Then, it happened to me. A hedge in front of my home became entries.

Within the new hedge/entry a potager became a gravel terrace with adirondack chairs, a place to have lunch, talk on the phone, eat breakfast, read, sit still waiting for hummingbirds to fly so close I can hear their wings. And the Chinese snowball blossoms drop their petals in benediction of the foxgloves, above, about to bloom next.

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How could I know when the entry was born I would have a new room to LIVE in? And I had entered a new chapter.

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It's easier to see a new chapter in a client's life.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in my garden last week. I've done more than the Bay Terrace the past year. A Conservatory, Tea Olive Terrace, Natchez Terrace. Though I didn't know it while creating these garden rooms they have given me the strength to finish a book in my life.

Chinoiserie & Design

Wisteria 'Amethyst Falls' at my front door today. A tiny area, yet interesting, and welcoming. (Without moving my feet these pics are a scan from left to right.) Peeking beyond the Wisteria, below, urn/plinth on axis with my bay window.
Filtered thru Wisteria foliage, above, the gravel terrace with large flagstones leading to the frontdoor.
The little Pot Cluster, above, and adirondack chair.
Classic Landscape Design, above, and pollinator habitat. (High & low density, canopy/understory, walls, floor, contrasting foliage textures/colors.)
Landscape Design's Pulitzer Prize, above. Beauty, privacy, low maintenance, organic, all season interest, pollinator habitat, fragrance, fantasy within reality, a place to sit, a spot viewed on axis from within the house.

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Take the camera view a bit to the right you'll see neighbor's homes, their cars, their landscaping, the street. Honestly, who wants to live that way? Seeing neighbor's stuff? It's not my realm. The pics above ARE my realm.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Puppet Barbuda apologizes for bluntness in her captions today. Puppet Barbuda is zealous in details of landscape design/pollinator habitat. Puppet Barbuda disdains the ridiculosity of pretty garden pictures focusing on 'a plant', 'how to dig a hole', 'plant them 2.5432" apart'. Information providing you nothing about putting a beautiful garden together. When Puppet Barbuda reads interior design books/blogs/magazines they don't tell her how to produce the fabric on the couch, how to dye it, cut it, sew it, staple it & etc.....they appreciate she has a BRAIN.

How To Place Beautiful Things

My beautiful pot on plinth, below, placed on axis with the middle window pane of my bay window at the drawing room. Thus sited, it's part of my drawing room. Not separate.How to place, below, a beautiful summer house?
On axis with a main pair of windows from the home, of course !

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Oops. No pic of the view seen while in the summerhouse above. Ha, must get back to the Cotswolds for it.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic in my sweet garden, in the Bay Terrace, aka front yard. I took the bottom pic in the Cotswolds at Sir Hardy Amies garden.

Vanishing Threshold: Lunch & Learn

Vanishing Threshold is an original concept, an epiphany while studying historic landscapes in Italy. Landscapes begin inside your home. Place focal points on axis with key views. It's that simple.

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An inner voice impels me to take Vanishing Threshold out of the garden realm. Are you an Interior Decorator? Landscape Designer? Come hear me speak about creating beautiful landscapes in Vanishing Threshold with your home.

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AmericasMart, Lunch & Learn: Looking for inspiration and education between Markets? Join Tara Dillard for a demonstration on successfully incorporating outdoor living spaces into your designs - March 24, noon-1pm, at AmericasMart. RSVP to 404-220-2055 or nlyle@americasmart.com.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pot on plinth, above, on axis from my living room. Centered on window. Interior decorators, are you looking out the windows of your clients home? Interiors are not finished unless the window views are part of a home's interior. My landscape designs are not complete unless views into windows are fabulous.

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Designer? What is original to you? What is your horse/pony show? Willing to get out of your comfort zone & let the world know?

Ireland: Helen Dillon & A Classic Tablescape

Helen Dillon's Irish garden, below.All the potted plants from South Africa, all terra cotta pots, all full sun, landscape design rule of big leaves with small leaves.

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Timeless. Did I take the pic last summer or 1998? (Big concept, taking advantage of it? The best gardens across the globe do.)

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Travel assignment, visit Helen Dillon's garden in Ireland be sure to have tea/scones too.

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You thought this was just a table-in-the-garden-with-a-few-pots? Hardly.

No Date In The Garden

My garden pics tell me the season. They date themselves.
At this angle, below, it doesn't matter the flowers are in plastic pots. They aren't visible.
At terrace level, below, there was a pond. I moved it.
Dwarf mondo will be planted between the stones, matching the rest of the terrace.
Duck Foot ivy will be planted on the riser to the greenhouse, hiding the timber & adding lushness. (Lushosity?)

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Soon, French doors will be painted BM-HC- 77. Didn't realize I was building a space for the pot cluster with the Conservatory. Adore happy surprises.

Not Easy To Find

If you see terra cotta pots: marked-down, at a garage sale or thrift store, BUY.They are harder to find good/cheap/free.
Some Ace Hardware have a line of excellent terra cotta in spring. Once they sell-out it's another year before the shipment arrives again.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken at Susanne Hudson's conservatory. Poppets, the pics are not styled. Why have a landscape be anything less?

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Ugly is easy, fabulous is intellect.

Siting: Urns & Plinths

Not often do you see iron urns significantly past a century old, below.
Last year in Birmingham, AL these urns, already by the front door, went into my landscape design.
Why? Too low. The scale was incorrect for the size of the home, frontdoor, & landing.

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Bought 'on approval', this pair of plinths arrived with a question mark last week. Naturally, my answer was, "yes, buy." And it's time to paint urns/plinths a dirty-dark-lead color. 2 tones will be needed.

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Did you notice where the urn/plinth is sited? NOT centered between frontdoor & column. Placing them a bit closer to the column enlarges the space.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken by a client in Birmingham, AL.

Keep It Simple Sweetie

Simplicity, repetition, color, scale, quality, comfort, timeless, flow, destination, garden room, contrast of shapes-materials-foliage, & more.
Posted on La Maison Fou several days ago, this garden room is proof;

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A lot goes into simplicity.

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Choosing to say "No" to things, isn't easy. What you keep out is as important as what you put in.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Scruffed Up Is A Choice

Months of the year my formal stone terrace is, indeed, formal. But I adore Scruffy Landscapes, & meadows. (Lot's of blather, internationally, about how tough meadows are. Ha, it seems I'm a Meadow Whisperer !)

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Yesterday morning, below, annual blue ageratum gracing my stone terrace & Just Touching the variegated Boxwood-In-A-Pot.
Further along the stone terrace, below, Rudbeckia fulgida fulgida, is gracing the other variegated Boxwood-In-A-Pot.
Early this spring, below, English daisies graced the pots &
Scruffed Up my formal stone terrace. How I adore this !!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Poppets, Scruffed Up landscapes are a choice! Boxwood-In-A-Pot works most anywhere across time, continents, styles, incomes & etc. Each of the above flowers self-seed, require zero watering and came into my life by serendipity. A bird gave me the 1st English daisy. Ageratum came in the soil with peonies I dug up from Aunt Tilly's garden after she died. Working at a nursery, decades ago, a customer gave me the Rudbeckia fulgida fulgida.

Create Seductive Doorways

Invite people thru your garden with doorways. Use a pair of pots, pair of vertical stones, pair of plinths, pair evergreen shrubs, arbor & etc. Drama of a step, narrowing to the path, above, less than 3' wide, lines of boxwood creating a hallway. Focal point on axis, creating a foyer and

beyond is another fabulous living room.

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Doorway, top pic, leads from the terrace in yesterday's post.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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It is this simple. Doorway, landing, hallway, foyer, living room. Gorgeous & low maintenance too.

Pot Display

When the setting is right a pot display is de rigueur.

Choice morsels to delight the eye and

invite perusal.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Have seen Pot Displays from Italy to Ireland & points between. Here, a delight in the same Italianate garden in Athens, GA as previous posts. This garden is about 1 acre.

Protecting Lemons

In Italy, centuries ago, when a late freeze threatened the lemon crop,

smudge pots were lit.

saving the lemons.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken last week in Athens, GA, same garden as the previous post. The gardener purchased these smudge pots in Italy.

Details in Simplicity

Simplicities: trim color is not a bright white, no window screens, interior window treatments are elegant, lights on inside, contrasting foliage textures, contrasting foliage colors, espaliered lushness upon home, well maintained, easy to maintain, urn is fabulous enough to be empty, urn is not hugging wall of home or frontdoor, classic template of centuries copied, design is elegant in winter, makes me want to see the interior, makes me want to see the rest of the garden, the landscape describes the owners. Front of home, above, and its backyard, below.

Shown in yesterday's post too.

A retired couple lives here. They maintain the garden.

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Two important questions to ask yourself about a pic of your home.

1. Is it so wonderful I must see inside?
2. Is it so wonderful I must see the entire landscape?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in Athens, GA

Mark Worthington, TV Decorator

"If you have 5 period styles in one room, you're going to have a problem." Mark Worthington says.
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One focal point per area in your landscape. "Colors should match exactly or they should provide enough contrast that the contrasts feels like a conscious decision." Mark Worthington says.
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Drifts of green foliage next to drifts of burgundy foliage next to drifts of variegated foliage & etc.
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"It was one little change, but all of a sudden the whole volume of the space was different." Mark Worthington says.
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When I painted the white trim, of my red brick home, a faded Monet green my house grew taller & sat further back from the street. White jumps forward, darker colors recede in the garden.
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"show the history of how you've developed the space, with individual pieces from different moments of your life." Mark Worthington says.
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Do not buy all your patio furniture & focal points & pots in one afternoon from 1 store.
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You don't want, "a train-wreck look." Mark Worthington says.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken at Atlanta Botanical Garden last week. I'm teaching a 4 week class there this month.
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Mark Worthington is a TV production designer. He was interviewed by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

Beauty Allowed

Beauty trumps. This gardener knows.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I think this gardener slowly took over the courtyard. A pot here, a pot there, then bodaciously pot/palm plopped center stage. Voila, gorgeous, and really good sun. Do you do this too, create backstories to gardens without trying?
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Did you notice the pot theme?
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Pic by Shipman taken in Italy last week. He's on a multi-week blow-out cruise.

Ranchburger: Beauty Without Stress

Lining the foundation of this ranch, below, were the obligatory-neatly-in-a-row, evergreen meatballs. Between the house & frontdoor sidewalk I removed the line of meatballs,

put in a flagstone terrace with teak bench/coffee table, low evergreen shrubs, groundcover, understory tree, & pots. Voila, ta-da, but of course.

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My Dear Lady has been slowed by multiple health issues for over a year. Yet her garden has never been a worry for maintenance, even during this 5 weeks without rain.

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This is the point of good Landscape Design: can you work a million hours, travel, caretake a loved one, or have health issues & still maintain a beautiful landscape?

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A beautiul landscape not allowing for real-life is not a beautiful landscape, it's stress.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken earlier this week in the same garden as previous blog post. Poppets, "I" did not literally perform labor in this sweet garden my contractor did. Wish I could rip out mature shrubs, install flagstone terraces & etc.... !

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.