Floral Arranging: Soiree in the Barn

Pair of flower arrangements look 'as if' they've just been gathered from the acres of meadow just outside the barn.

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Hardly.

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I look at My French Country Home for many reasons, mainly, oddly, the floral arrangements.  Sharon Santoni, author of MFCH, is one of the best.  Me do floral arrangement?  Garden design talent only.
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Christine Shockely, artist & floral designer, arranged the garden bouquets for the soiree in the barn last night.
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Christine, above.
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Flowers & greenery from the garden are imperative for the interior of your home.  Vanishing threshold.
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With this client, in addition to the garden gaining new layers, I've had the good fortune to evolve into a posse with her and 2 other compadres.   Yes, we do have an agenda.  And delight in fulfilling it.
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Past a certain age there are important things to do on this Earth.  Regardless of what others may think. We do those things.
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If you're curious about what we do, you aren't old enough yet to know.  If you do know you're a compadre too.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken last night at a client soiree.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design: Built In Seating Rarely a Good Idea

Harvest Table for 12, arbor, pendant lights, vines & hedges.  Done.

Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.
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Fact, if a garden design was beautiful centuries ago.  It WILL be beautiful in your garden.
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Al fresco dining.  Across continents, cultures, eras, humans are hardwired for Al Fresco dining.
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Yesterday's Garden Design I completed includes 3 square teak tables.  They can be used individually or together as a harvest table.
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Fixed seating, as some decks have, remind me of George S. Patton speaking of war, "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man."
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Give yourself choices.
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Another good one from Georgie,  "If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results."                    .
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic lost provenance.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design: Intentions more Powerful than Money

Where you put your attentions you will create your life.

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Yesterday, below, in my bower.

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With no money in a blue-collar working class neighborhood squarely within the prototypical demographics of today's suburbia near a major USA city.

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AKA my starter home, 3 decades later, with the alcoholic spouse during those decades gone.

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Where I put my attentions I created my life.

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Beautiful garden, beautiful life.  A thought, now my truth.

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Gratitude for that long marriage.  Forced into creating a life that was dream, until the plodding-plodding-plodding made it real.

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No regrets about any of my choices. 

Flowers falling on flowers yesterday, below.  Foetid & exhilarating.

My brain is repulsed by the foetidness of these composting flowers, yet the DNA thrives on its highest plain in the foetidness of my garden.  Life itself.
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Bower- Mirriam-Webster:     1:  an attractive dwelling or retreat

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:  a lady's private apartment in a medieval hall or castle

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:  a shelter (as in a garden) made with tree boughs or vines twined together

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Odd, but the foetidness of yesterday's flowers made me want to take off my clothes and roll-baby-roll !  Laughing & shouting of course.

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Now, tell me about street/prescription happy drugs?  Poor unfortunate souls needing those.  

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design: Making Clients Cry

After a soiree we discuss how guests have experienced her garden of acreage from arrival/departure.

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How the sexes, ages, income levels interact with the garden.

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Some cross the threshold of the garden, others look say a few words, some say/see nothing. 

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What branch of psychology is this?

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Me?  I must know how people experience my gardens, not just how my clients perceive their garden.

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Stay with me, it's going somewhere. 

Tears.  What makes someone cry in a garden?  Unbidden.  How does a garden guest arrive with their cocoon-of-life yet leave knowing their decades long construct is rendered too little?  In fact, gone.
  

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I've had crying guests in my garden for decades.  At my garden lectures across the country, crying attendees, for decades, too.

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Have been in my friend Susanne Hudson's garden when someone burst into tears.

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Stories follow all the tears.  Words, incoherent, powerful.  And understood.

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So.  At the garden, above, we were talking about her last soiree.  A guest, a man, financially successful, no longer young, in tears.  

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He awakened to how a garden is woven into DNA, and home.  One of the few who could verbalize, during epiphany, 'I will have this.'
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Vintage: Keeping a 1945 Landscape

  Yellow Belle, ca. 1945, 1 acre wooded/open, potting shed, carriage house.

Garden paths are homemade concrete with risers of miscellaneous concrete block & stone, aluminum awnings ca. 40's too.
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Can't get enough of this view, living/breathing/growing/watershed/pollinator habitat/fragrant history.
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The human condition hunts for unconditional love.  Oddly, at this point in the galaxy, I feel wrapped/bathed/infused with that unconditional love.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday at Yellow Belle, my satellite office/guest cottage.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

How to Copy your Interior into the Landscape

 Tables, mantels, buffets, chests, demilunes, with toppers, aim my Garden Designs.

Scale, proportion, flow, color, texture, and balance.

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What?

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I copy your table top arrangements, in plants.

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Look around you.  There is a thread of continuity with your table toppers throughout your home.

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Laughter is included with my job.  Every time, every & each time, I finish a garden design the client says, "I love that!"  Well, of course.  I copied YOU.

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Which I think is hilarious.

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Then I get a check.

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You must admit this deepens the humor.

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Of course, too,  I use the right plants for entries, foyers, halls, parlours, double axis, focal points, staging of blooms throughout the year, fall color, berries, fragrance, ease of care, shading the house......then I want to exchange some of your windows for French doors, change the paint colors, & etc.

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All while the 'husband' was worried you hired a garden designer and he was going to have to pay for flowers.

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Flowers?  My stealth is far more wicked than 'husbands' comprehend.  Until it's too late, which means they've come on board as full team members.

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That satisfaction is my favorite bit of humor to savor.  

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Husbands call me 'that woman' to their wives, at first.  Within a month, generally, the wife will email or phone and say, "My husband said, 'ask Tara'....."

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At that point the poor dear man is within the clutches of 2 Cheshire cats!  

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And likes it.

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Yes, my job is quite humorous.

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Garden  & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic found on net, lost provenance.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

E.M.Forster: Walking the Garden at Dusk with Mrs. Wilcox

Dusk yesterday, below.  I had been inside reading but the Chinese snowball blossoms beckoned.  

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E.M.Forster,  Howard's End,  "...Continually contrasting the "seen" with the "unseen"--the physical, material world of the Wilcoxes with the imaginative, spiritual world of the Schlegels--Forster posits the possibility..." 

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Decades before reading Forster peering in has been a delight.

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Is your garden pretty from inside?  Is your interior pretty from the garden?  Vanishing Threshold = 'yes' to both questions.

My dear friends (aka Viburnum macrocephalum - Chinese snowball), above/below, pulled me away from reading, Diana Vreeland, Memos - The Vogue Years.

This is a garden.  

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Best friend.  Nurturer.

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House & garden, armor harbor strength metaphor atonement listener humorist joy independence spirit music life love.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics yesterday at dusk in my garden.

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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

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Tara Dillard Garden Designs installed by 

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Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home builder, from renovations to neighborhoods. Heard's Landscaping, commercial/residential construction, hardscape-irrigation-lawns-grading-pools-lighting-stone-decks.  Three decades of service.

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Shaefer Heard

Get Your Layers of Design Right

Every home needs a desk, every barn needs a desk, every garden needs a desk.

Every design project has its layers.  Completed layers, above.  Beginning layers, below.

I will always have a job.  Always.  Why?  It's DNA to put the wrong layers in first, in a garden.
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What are the wrong first layers of a garden design?  Pretty flowers.  All roses.  Mostly perennials.  Tons of hosta.  Yes, that list will keep me in a job, forever (forevah).  So, Tara, what's wrong with roses, perennials...., easy, no evergreen structure, zero relationship with the house & you've begun with high maintenance.
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Desk, above, is already years in the making.  Why?  We've been creating paths, drives, focal points on axis with the interiors, planting evergreen hedges, then flowering shrubs......
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Ironically, nurseries conspire to keep me working hard.  How?  They push annuals, lawns with needy chemicals-watering-mowing, blah blah blah & blah (are we even in the same industry?  Passed a nursery sign last week, "Kill your weeds now."  Yes, I will always have a job.)
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What is the first layer of a Garden Design to consider?  Views, main axis, from inside your home into the garden.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Top pic Susanne Hudson's garden, bottom pic at a client garden last weekend.
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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

Oscar de la Renta: Simple Garden Trinity

Backdrop + bench + meadow = Fabulous Garden.  A trinity working hard long before Christ's era.

Dark green + Chartreuse green = Fabulous

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Thank you Oscar for playing dress-up in a garden.

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Within simplicity, aside from elegance, you'll discover Albert Einstein's, 

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"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Oscar's book, updated, Here.

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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

Choosing Exterior Paint Colors

Exterior colors begin inside.  Wallpaper, sofa, art are your resources.  Especially for the front door.

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Trim & window colors are often dictated by the brick, stone, or mortar, on your home.

Exterior colors should look old the first day they are applied.  No waiting.  Benjamin Moore Historic Colors are a favorite.

I'm hard on my interior.  Loving faded colors on wood & textiles.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pics in my kitchen yesterday.
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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

Gardens: Flow First, then Plants

"What plant should I put there?", is the common question.

Choosing specific plants is the last thing I put into a Garden Design.
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Flow is the first.
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What is flow?
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What direction do most people approach your home from?  Where do you park?  Which door do you mostly enter your home from?  Where are your garbage cans?  What path do you traverse to the garbage cans?  Where do your guests park?  Where do your children park?  Do you have dogs needing to go outside?  Where are your garden tools & how do you access them?  Where is the compost pile and how often do you walk to it?  Do you gather firewood in winter to carry inside?  After a storm do you have branches to pick up and where do you place them?  Where are your outdoor lights?  Can you walk, without obstruction, around your entire home?  How do you get from your deck/patio to the back yard?  Raining, can you walk your property without getting your feet in puddles?  Do you have young children/grandchildren needing a safe place to play?  Where should you put a swing-set?  How should the swimming pool be placed?  Where should the new barn be sited?  Which door do you use to get the mail?  Which door do guests knock on first?  Do guests come to the door you want them to?  Where is the fire hydrant and is it a clear path in case of fire?  Where is the circuit breaker for the house & can it be turned off quickly by emergency personnel if you are not home?  How often do you need to walk to the Pole Barn?  Where should the Conservatory be placed & how often will you use it for meals?  And, etc.
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Yes, Flow before plants.
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Get the flow right and your property begins at the center of your home to the property lines.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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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

Trinity: Stewardship, Wendell Berry, Chickens

The chickens will bring eggs, I thought.  

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Instead, they've given stewardship.

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8 heirloom chics, 4 breeds.  Some cats others livestock in personality.

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Nothing from the kitchen is wasted, every restaurant meal ends with asking for a left-over container.  Girls go wild for pizza.

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Almost 3 decades in my garden, What would it be now with their poop the entire time?

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More, What would I be like?  Yes, the girls have taught that much.

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Ironically, seeing several clients over a spread of years showed how easy chics are to caretake.

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Sadly, the Stewardship was invisible.

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America was founded upon this Stewardship.  Culture bypassed its tenants.

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  A particular client educates me with every third sentence and every hour starts a sentence, Wendell Berry says.  How can I not pass Wendell Berry along to you?

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Founding Gardeners, is the resource for Stewardship.

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I found what I wasn't looking for, one of life's deepest veins of gold.  From chickens?

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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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

Garage/Atalier: Leverage Life & Garden

 Aside from the ubiquitously expected, your garage must leverage your life.  Beautifully.
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In my garage, below.

 Adore loading my so-ugly-it's-cute van for work, below.

Tools, chandeliers, speaking props & etc all awaiting to make life easier.

Vintage French garden chair made the move to the chicken coop.  And the ca. 1918 door is now a table in the office.

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How well does your garage leverage the caretaking of your garden?  Your life?

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Did you know this is an element of Garden Design?

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I didn't, until I went to Europe to study history's best gardens.  

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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Pics in my atalier, aka garage.  

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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

A Garden View at Work

Have you done this for your office?  The view?

Who is this painter?  Caring so for the outside coming inside?

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Could he paint you at work in your home?

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With your garden as benediction.

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Henrik Nordenberg artist, link to his work.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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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.

.

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

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

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Benediction.  The word wasn't thought up, merely arrived.  "A benediction (Latin: bene, well + dicere, to speak) is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance"

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As a child I assumed gardens spoke to everyone.  As an adult I recognize their grace and heed their guidance.