The Proper Direction of Stewardship in a Garden

"We discover G*d's presence inside whenever we override our ego's pride and courageously put aside all that we hide."  Rabbi David Aaron

From the mailbox & gravel drive, above, my best work begins.  

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Getting here was decades.  Learning simplicity & the humility to let the site speak without reference to my 

skills.  Honestly, I wonder how Providence has time for anyone else, attention lavished upon my character defects never wains.
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Nor must I 'own' this site.  My pride/ego is rooted in the work.  A walled orchard is built, a gravel drive spread, potager planted and more, and with each, they are taken by the owner's hands before my feet leave the site.
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I'm in love with this site, and so is the owner.  It is very much the 3 of us.  That is how strongly we relate to these acres.  She is a good steward of her acres and in return I get to watch her acres in stewardship of her.
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Gifts of loving these acres arrive in many forms & layers.  Telling us we are doing the right thing/s.
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Tasha Tudor's favorite line of poetry, 'take joy', in action.  Joy is always there, but it must be taken.
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What does any of this have to do with you?  Stewardship.  Not your stewardship of the garden.  But the stewardship your garden has for you.  Do you have that in your life?  Are you in relationship with your garden?  Does it fill you with joy, enrich your spirit, give you energy just seeing it from the windows of your home?  Good news, it's not about acres & money.  It's putting the garden into relationship with your home & life with historic templates.
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This reads a bit like an altar call.  Ironic, she says her deep feeling with her garden is 'abiding', I feel 'atonement' in mine.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic at jobsite this month.  Silent Partner, I can see your face reading this and know you understand the metaphorical use of filthy lucre.
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My garden is one of my best friends, unconditionally loving, rich in narrative.  A language I can understand.  People?  No, easier to understand my garden.  
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1.  If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
   

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   Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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   Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

 

Using Color Restraint with Intensity

Intense restraint and another example of the color trinity green-brown-white.

Restraint so intense the terrace has become a proscenium for guests.
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Subtlety so rich the bluestone & granite become focal points.
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Humbling execution.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic Wendy Posard and Associates.  Definite teamwork between architect & owners.
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2 Tara Dillard questions a patio must answer, 'Is this patio so fabulous I must see inside the house?', 'Is this patio so incredible I must see the garden?'.  Yes & yes.

Refreshing: Interior Plants Do Not Look Store Bought

Notice something extraordinarily different about the plants styling the dining room, below?

They look as if they came from the conservatory on site.
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Quite rare to see this attention to detail, though saucers should be included with the coleus & orchid for a complete narrative.  (I have clients on tours, in magazines, TV, so, yes, I'm paid to be this particular!)
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And that doesn't begin to mention the delicious focal point on axis with the vanishing threshold.
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Nice, indeed.  Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Architectural Digest.  Cote de Texas had the pic on a post about wall paper recently.
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  If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

A Man in the Garden

Decades without one, this new thing of having a man in my garden is......

We agree to disagree.  And when we do agree, much time passes before action.

In the house, he's..........superb.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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pics Hollywood.

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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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         Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Phoebe Howard: Bedroom Views

Birdhouse view, below.

Thru the years about 30% of my clients have had views into the tree tops.
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Good fortune, indeed.  Hardly possible to 'fake' a tree top view from level ground & zero trees.
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If the chair, above, is the only seating in the room I would have Howard back to fix its direction !
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Phoebe Howard.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .
                                                          Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Hindsight Wisdom: 3 Things

With irony, and infertility, I bear witness, thanks to my career, to many successful mothers.  However, never an Oprah show topic, I bear witness to parent/child relationships displaying the blessings of infertility too. 

Successfully retired from a career/business she owned, involved now with volunteer work making a difference on the national stage, her 2 children are in their 30's.  I've always put her in my successful mom category.

Invited to dinner last nite she surprised me with 3 things she wish she'd known at the front end of her motherhood.

Talk to her children sooner about drugs.  For birthdays/Christmas do not give so many nice gifts.  When their father wants to discipline the children, let him, don't over ride his input on most occasions.

Clear-eyed candor.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Have lost count of the moms, when discovering my unwanted infertility, said they would walk thru fire for their children yet if they could do it all again they would not have them.  It's an odd thing to be on the sideline & bear witness.  My unborn children are perfect, don't you know !!  Alas, it's grandchildren I miss, not children.
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Pics taken at a jobsite.  Last pic, one of  my favorite designs.  Understatement, I'm incredibly proud of creating this view.  Simple & historic yet it's new and took me 3 decades of experience to get here.    Plus the skill of my team.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Hotel Perfect Bedroom + Pretty Privacy

Aside from 'Hotel Perfect' design, below, the garden view drew my eye for its ubiquity in Atlanta.

Neighbors houses, tiny lot lines.  Yet wanting privacy.  Pretty privacy !
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Fence, understory trees, tall espalier shrubs.  Amazing the privacy, softness, warmth & beauty a few plantings provide.  And, keep it few.  Who wants to look at views full of garden chores to be done !
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In addition, from these doors, fragrances of akebia, tea olive, gardenia, daphne.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pic BHG.  What is this style of decorating called?  Have done it in my own bedroom after le divorce, calm-serene-pretty.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

When a Garden Crosses the Line

Gardens begin inside your house.

Your garden is art on the wall.

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Gardens must be a backdrop to lives lived inside.  Beauty to enrich spirit, increase joy, diminish sadness.

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If you don't have this now, with your garden, you have a surprise awaiting.  This is what happens when your garden crosses the line, one of the best & most enduring friendships of your life.  Once you do have it, and see another with the same type of relationship, voila, a new friend.  

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic Hen House.  

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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Ricky Lauren: The Hamptons: Food, Family, and History

   

Ricky Lauren the Hamptons Food, Family and History, is a good read for recipes, voyeurism into a sweet lifestyle & history of place.  

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A job in Alabama this year had me at Auburn University taking a government regulated landscape certification exam to legally put plants in the ground.  I took Lauren's book to mark recipes for any waiting room slowing my pace.  

More than recipes Ricky maps the decades of her marriage, raising children and stays at their various Hamptons homes.  She pulled me in.  You see my list from Alabama, below.  Ricky gives breakfast, picnic, lunch & dinner recipes.  Of course she had me at the picnics.  Redolent of the life changing picnics Jenny, my mother-in-law, created.

Fresh vegetables with angel pasta was the first recipe I cooked.  If you like Julia Child/James Beard you can taste their influence.  Ricky put her mark on it, in fewer steps + greater simplicity while leaving all the flavor.
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You know I passed the exam.  Alas, had to study for it, drive several hours, pay the exam fee, pay the licensing fee, pay the police ticket parking fee for parking where I was told to park, then discovered the license was only good for a few weeks.  Not even a year.  And that parking ticket?  Auburn was in the newspaper not long afterward for a parking ticket scam !
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Yet, I did get my Ricky Lauren list.  Go me.
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Chandelier, top pic, proves you cannot have Too-Much-Chandelier in the garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic Harpers Bazaar.  Bottom pic my harvest table.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Double Axis: Consider Both Directions

Outside, at the tiered fountain looking into the window, I wonder if the wreath is double sided.

Double Axis, if a view is pretty in 1 direction it must be pretty in the opposite direction.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic Habitually Chic.

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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

How to Arrange Furniture 101: Outside

Interior furniture arrangements tell me exactly how to arrange exterior furniture.

And the colors to choose, style range, flow, forms, ambiance.
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Aside from liking this room, above, it takes my mind into overdrive thinking of resources available to recreate it outside.
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Not a problem if budget isn't a problem.
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If time is not an issue even a tight budget can get this room, outside.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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A few years ago a client with an amoeba shaped sofa LOVED how I designed her front lawn.  Yes, it was exactly her sofa shape.  And she thought I was brilliant.  Now, go be brilliant for yourself !
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Pic Cote de Texas.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

How to Design a Grill so it's not an Eyesore

Movable grills are awkward, not aesthetic, & do not 'fade away' into the backdrop.  Mostly, movable grills are an eyesore.  

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If a movable grill is on your buy-list study the exterior design, above.

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This is an expertly executed exterior design.  

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Obviously a styled photo I can still smell what's cooking.  And we 'know' there was no cooking going-on for the shoot !

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Why does this movable grill look good?  Props: comfort chairs-pillows-table-umbrella-mood, a color trinity was chosen/green-gray-stainless, simplicity, focal point (if you have an eyesore place a focal point nearby), contrast of many square shapes vs. round armillary sundial, formal landscape choices contrasted with informal plantings, repetition of flooring from dining area to garden area, an easy to maintain garden lets you focus on LIVING in the garden.  Simply.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pic via 5th and State.  No excuses about the house, above.  If it's beautiful at a historic estate, it will be beautiful in your landscape.

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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Garden Design: Bedroom Axis

Try this for your interior tabletop design.  The largest piece...outside.

If there is another window in the room, I swoon.
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You do know about rooms with windows on 2 walls?  We are hardwired for them in our DNA.  Christopher Alexander,    A Pattern Language, describes the architecture our souls desire & thrive best with.  
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Ginger Barber, above, decorating.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic Ginger Barber found at Cote de Texas.

Where to Site a Garden Focal Point

In the garden, your house is the main focal point.

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For centuries, this, below, has worked.

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If something has worked for centuries, there is a reason.

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And, it will work for you.

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Urn on plinth.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Never had a college instructor or seminar speaker say, In the garden your home is the focal point.

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Why?

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What did those 'experts' miss?  Paint colors on the home, lighting, hardware, views into windows, style choices, where to correctly site exterior focal points.  For starters.

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Most common question I receive, Where should I put this plant?

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If only that were the question.

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Garden design is about where to put a plant?

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Hardly.

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Pic via Jennings & Gates: Notes from a Virginia Country House.  

Art on the Walls in Interior Design

Have you had this epiphany, Your garden views are art on the wall.

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No?
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Once you do your garden, and life, will change.
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Beautiful garden, beautiful life.  Vanishing threshold.
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More, the beautiful life awaiting is beyond the limitations of filthy lucre.
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These are the gardens I design.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Cote de Texas.  Why waste a moment on this earth designing green meatballs, a lawn, and annual beds for testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch?  The post-WWII-industrial landscape Monsanto & Ortho & Scotts sell to?  My landscapes are agrarian, historically based to enrich the soil, watershed, pollinator habitat & soul.    

Garden Design + Interior Design

Garden Design begins inside your home.  Ginger Barber interior design, below.

If the lane is indeed a dirt drive to this home I, seriously,  swoon.
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A trinity for Barber's work, " Designing beach houses, farm house and ruralist." 
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In a single picture, above, a several week class on garden design & interior design can be taught.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic Ginger Barber.   First seen at Cote de Texas.  Pure vanishing threshold.

Garden Design: Designed to Handle the Toughest Thoughts

Almost 2 decades ago, working in my garden, I spent much time praying for 3 quite ill friends.  By the end of the year my lesson was clear, Pray for G*d's will.  They were all dead.

Late this spring a text arrived in the early morning hours.  An extended family member, age 50, was dead, suicide.
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Something new to take into my garden.
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I did not like her yet knew where those odious parts of her personality arose.  In her teens I witnessed the train wreck passed off as 'parenting'.  An entire family melodrama, for decades, her parents ensorceled their clan into tacit approval yet the ridiculous cliche was true, The king wore no clothes.
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We were the only 2 at Lake Rabun, she had her 3 dogs, I had my 2.  Slept late, swam, played with the dogs, boated most of the afternoon, a picnic for lunch on the concrete dock, sunburned, it was dark when we sat in the kitchen, champagne + canapes, for dinner.  Is there any better chaos than 5 dogs in a small kitchen and cold champagne?   Casement windows & French doors wide open, it rates, still, as one of my favorite all time good dinners.  Total laughter
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Before calling her brother I made a list of all the validation points he would need to hear from me.  A good person he suffered the most, after her, in collateral damage from her raising.  And he tried many times in many ways thru the years to help her.  Only to be treated shabbily by her in return.  A long call, he meandered of his own volition thru each of the validation points I had written.
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A text last weekend, he had received the coroners report.  Conclusively, suicide.  Is her headstone at the cemetery yet?  With no more than that he knows what I'm asking,  Will you meet me at the cemetery when it's there?
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Married 30 years, I couldn't live with his alcoholism anymore.  Divorced almost 2 years, we will meet at the cemetery whenever.  No one can blame another for their drinking yet I know his family dynamics contributed greatly.  Sham parenting which bullied all those around into silence, Emotional Blackmail, Be complicit she is fine our parenting is fine.
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In my garden I realized she was one of the best at rescuing cats/dogs, I wish she had known that.  Our champagne dinner and all the pets she rescued, it's enough to remember someone with a smile.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Sham parenting?  They did everything John Rosemond says not to do, aka, give a man a fish dinner or teach him how to fish.  Her parents merely fed her fish.
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Pic via Gervais de Bedee.

Michele Bonan: Architecture + Interior + Garden

Much to delight, below.  

Garden design with only 2 elements.  Meadow & vine.  A combination from agrarian ideals.
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A duo screaming, This is not in USA !  At the minimum, not a USA garden designer.
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How do I know?  There is no monoculture lawn, green meatballs + concrete sidewalk from the French doors.  'That' type of garden design is pure post industrial.
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I 'see' gardens before architecture + interiors.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic Michele Bonan.   Liked Bonan for his garden, above, then discover he does architecture and yacht design too.  Of course, he is not American.  Italian.  Alas, an American 'designer' working for a typical design-build-maintain landscape company would be fired for the garden design, above.  Why?  Not much money in meadow + vine.  Agrarian derivatives are human factored, sustainable, Nature.  Post industrial derivative landscapes are consumer, $$$, driven.
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Yes, been reading Wendell Berry in the tub again !  When you have time, click the link, it's a fabulous interview with Berry by Bill Moyers.

Wendy Posard: Kitchen + Garden

When the garden is a feature of the kitchen I know the architect has gone beyond their education.  And delved into the realm of intuitive.

Flooring flows inside/outside and the scale is charming vs. large.  Other comparisons: happy vs. large, nurturing vs. large.......
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Necessity vs. luxury.
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"I can live without the necessities but I must have the luxuries.", a quote I first heard age 8, repeated by Miss Katherine Scott, a grand influence.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic is a Wendy Posard project.

Garden Design's Unexpected Element

More windows should be doors.  

More doors equal magic circles.  More doors improve the garden, and the house.
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Perhaps Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, knows 'exactly' why humans respond so well to multiple doors.
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Did you look closely, above?  5 doors.  Another thing I did not learn in college about creating gardens, doors & magic circles.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic Wendy Posard.