Showing posts with label vanishing threshold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vanishing threshold. Show all posts

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Design Deeply: Connecting Dots


Some of my best work, below.  
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See the connected dots in the garden, below?
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Those who understand hire me to design their acreage or townhome.
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Or, hire me to lecture across the USA.
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Some offer book contracts or ask for magazine content.
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 The best?  People who share appreciation of their epiphanies with my work, tell their stories, enriching my knowledge.


View, above, from client's Music Room.
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What type of Garden Design is this?
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Why do Garden Centers abhor this type of garden?
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What are the tough choices made?
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What type of ecosystem are you looking at?
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What is the relationship, and why, between the ground layer & tree layer?
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How does this ecosystem keep other layers on this property thriving?
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How many other layers would that be?
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Why would a PhD professor at UGA Ag school want his students to intern here?
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Why did Historic Williamsburg, after my lecture there last year, pick up many of the layers shown, above, for their topics in this year's symposium?
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What is the relationship between government laws & this type of garden?
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Took me decades to connect the dots, including myriad trips across the globe studying historic landscapes.
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What else is in this garden?
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Answers in previous posts.
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Did you realize my stories connect these dots?
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The teacher appears when the student is ready.
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Ironically, with this client,  land-plants-livestock-wildlife-weather-buildings-roads taught us.
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We listened.
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And we share.
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Don't live on acreage?  No worries, many layers are HOA approved & adaptable.
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What does this type of Gardening have to do with property value & HVAC bills?
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Yes, have taught at the local college for years.  Atlanta Botanical Garden too!
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I don't believe in spoon feeding knowledge, passionately sharing yes.
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Tasha Tudor believed in, "Take joy."  Here, it's "Take Knowledge."
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Both are there, always.  All you have to do is 'take'.
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Life conspired, teaching me, take both, everyday.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara


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






Thursday, May 29, 2014

Design: Know Where Important Views Begin


The most important views of your garden are from inside.
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Kitchen views into the garden are imperative. 
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Make a choice, it's that simple.
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Continue with your life accepting garden views harmful to your spirit or make the choice to create garden views joyful to your heart.
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Too busy?  No Money?  Life issues?
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Then, those views are essential.
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I know from whence I speak.  With zero need to relay any of it here.
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No matter where you start, your garden can take you (if needed) from victim to survivor to thriver.
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Each of us is all of the above, excepting, too often, thriver.
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When you make a choice for your garden, you indeed make a choice to thrive.



Standing at the kitchen sink this morning eating yogurt I see, above, to my left, Torte de Shelle, resting on the table Beloved commissioned for me as a birthday gift.
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The mophead hydrangeas starting to color, above, a gift from my bosom friend Penny McHenry, who died several years ago.
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Without moving my feet, and looking right, above, another hydrangea from Penny causing a great stir in my heart as it approaches peak.
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The teak bench was a 40th birthday present to myself.  It arrived with a surprise, it needed assembly.  I adore that type of chore !
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The variegated Boxwood was bought on a whim, not knowing if it would do well in this zone.  It does well.
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Is it any wonder I stand at the kitchen sink & eat breakfast?  Literally, the energy & joy filling into my spirit is felt.  Pure atonement.
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2+ decades ago I named my business, A Garden View, Inc.  Obvious, now, where I was headed though zero clue at the time.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pics taken this morning.  Pic, below, though fuzzy is my favorite.

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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.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Designing a Garden to Interact in your Life

A celebration this month in one of my gardens.
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3 decades of photographing gardens.
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Gardens.
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This garden, that evening, a wild 'need' to shoot people.
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Friends, below.  Their story brings sweet tears to the cheeks.


Happy daughter, below, waiting for her dad to bring back petits fours in a take-home box.


Every note, below, a lament to life's abiding.


Sisters, below.  And a peak at those petifores.


Beyond grace, atonement & joy, this garden has crossed an unknown threshold & gardens me in return.
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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.
.
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.
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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.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Screened Porch: Furniture Texture


Furniture textures are important.  In addition to color.



A new covered screened porch, above/below, with warmth & welcome.



Patio/deck/porch/garden furniture is too often in 'sets' with matchy-watchy pieces too.
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What is this hold garden furniture ads have over popular imagination?
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Of course they want you to buy sets.
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Most often, why would you do that?
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However, there are lovely exceptions.  
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Be sure you are one before embarking upon sets of matchy-watchy garden furniture.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pics this week in a client garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
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.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Howard's End & Hydrangeas

"Howards End is permeated by a feeling of revulsion towards the unpleasant, gritty realities of urban life, the unsightly decay and squalor of the city. Forster establishes strong contrasts between 'City' and 'Country' early in the novel when he draws the distinction between 'England' and 'Suburbia' as different countries, and when he comments of Margaret Schlegel:..,."
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"Like many others who have long lived in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various [London] railway termini. They are out gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return. (Howards End, p. 12)"



"By the time of Howards End's publication in 1910, the progression of urbanisation and industrialisation across Britain had brought huge social change. Between 1870 and 1911 some 250,000 acres in Great Britain went out of cereal production, and during these years of agricultural depression many labourers moved into the cities or emigrated from the country altogether. Helen Schlegel remarks, 'London's creeping', with reference to the gradual encroachment of the suburbs upon the country estates, farm land and green pastures of England. Margaret 'knew that her sister spoke truly', and reflects that 'the melting-pot was being prepared for them' (Howards End, p. 355). Forster faces the problem of urbanisation head-on in his essay 'The Challenge of Our Time', published in Two Cheers for Democracy in 1951. He acknowledges the necessity of tearing down the slums and re-housing their inhabitants, but he also expresses a deeply felt concern with regards to the destruction of his 'England' caused by the encroaching developments. 'I cannot,' he concludes, 'equate the problem. It is a collision of loyalties.'..."


"This idea of flux, of change and of shapelessness, is inextricably linked with the historical fact of the shifting masses. The working classes live in those 'modern dwelling-place[s] that strike a shallow makeshift note', since they have been 'too easily gained, and could be relinquished too easily' (Howards End, p. 50). Their movements - for example, those of the Basts, who 'had just been evicted for not paying their rent, and had wandered no one knew whither' - contribute largely to the 'nomadic civilisation' of which Forster despairs (Howards End, pp. 272-73)...."


"Then Margaret spoke rather seriously. 'I think,' she said, that our race is degenerating. We cannot even settle this little thing; what will it be like when we have to settle a big one?' (Howards End, p. 165)..."


Not city, not suburbia, my little garden, designed Pastoralism, saves my soul.
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Walking my garden yesterday morning, pics above, I hear conversation between Leonard Bast & Helen Schlegel from Howard's end.  E.M. Forster is smiling.
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Why garden?  This is my answer.
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Intuitively, all of the above, & more, is deeply felt.  Yet, a choice for joy is made, new, each day.
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When I am told, "Not every one can be happy like you.", I smile and think, "You haven't got a clue."
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Quotes from, here.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
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.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

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.
.
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.

Friday, May 9, 2014

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.
.
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.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

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



2
:  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.
.
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.

Monday, April 21, 2014

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.
.
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.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

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.
.
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.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

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.
.
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.