Decadent & Austere

Creating a Garden Design I ask for several layers of narrative.  One, a mission statement, no more than 2-3 sentences of what you want from and for your landscape.  Some clients don't have that type of brain, so I ask for 2-3 sentences describing their finished garden.
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Years ago I began keeping journals.  Not written entries of my day/week kind of journals.  Too simple, beyond boring.  Journals to elevate the days/weeks of my life, no matter its days.  In spite of some of those days.
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Several themes emerged.  Both gardens, below, living large one of those themes, pairs of words.  First pairing of words to emerge, Sacred & Profane.  Remains as delightful as first discovered, excepting now an old friend 'pairing'.


Pic, above, here.
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Both gardens, above/below, intensely restrained prosceniums yet overtly decadent in metaphor, Decadent/Austere. 


Pic, above, here.
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A sacred/profane trip to small town, south Georgia, Americana presented itself this Thanksgiving.  Couldn't pass it by.  A courthouse square, and the night of Thanksgiving, lighting of the Christmas tree and strands of lights from the courthouse to ancillary buildings/streets.
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Sacred & Profane, small town, still using religion and commerce.  A total joy, no one deluded.  Not even Santa, he was total game, ahead of turning the lights on, exactly on time, Santa drove around the Courthouse Square in his sleigh, bottom pic, reindeer included. 
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Before pulling Santa, below, the reindeer were corralled and snacking.



Blurry, below, Santa & his reindeer were moving fast around the square.  Santa had to get that tree and lights lit, signalling the beginning of shopping on the square.  Later, I realized I didn't know who paid for the gorgeous extravaganza.  Chamber of commerce, churches, a mix ?  No worries, the crowd was huge, and the underlying intent, profane, honored the sacred.
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Bought a new journal book, shopping on the square, after Santa lit the lights.  The next morning, up early, cozied in a chair by the Christmas village, with coffee and new journal, hoping for something good to enter.  The hotel coming to life, the ladies cooked a fragrant  breakfast, TV tuned to Macy's parade coming on soon.
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Time flew, the reading was good.  Many pairs of words.
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Mystery/Meaning, Creation/Transcendence, Law/Grace, Righteousness/Corruption, Universalism/Particularism, Pious/Secular, Compassion/Violence, Justice/Judging, Prayer/Listening, Ultimate/Common, Mystery/Reason, Ideas/Realities.  Are you conscious of word pairings too?
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With word pairs came quotes.
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"Vocation is a gift not a goal."  Parker Palmer
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"Design at its core, thrives when a human being cares enough to do work that touches another----it doesn't thrive when it gets more efficient."  Seth Godin.
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Before the internet most clients, in their mission statements included, easy-to-maintain, and not-cost-a-lot.  Efficient, yes?
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After the internet I'm not asked to include little maintenance/money.  Why?  Greater understanding of what a good garden is, from those hiring me.  Good gardens don't have low maintenance/cheap in their mission statement.  That paring flows, more deeply, and is inherent, designing a garden that will change your life.  Seth Godin nailed it, again.
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What pair of words describe the garden you have, or want to create?
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT   

Thinking Like Nicky Haslam & Bunny Mellon

Garden writing.  In the macro.  During the 80's House & Garden, and Horticulture magazine, were electric.  Editors knew who to hire for their garden articles, which gardens were acceptable, for both photography and words.  More importantly they knew how to edit, aka, curate.  Blessed was the era. 
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I see clothing, food, health, interior design writing/photography and still find good hiring and curating.  Getting their message, mission, conveyed.
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All the clothing/lifestyle ideas, below, point toward action, see/do.  An informed attitude, curated.  See it, get it, do it.  No where do I see, below, details about how to wash the clothes, dry the clothes, perhaps iron, buff the shoes, apply the make-up, etc. 
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You've taken my point.  With garden writing, I take you for having intelligence, wit, and nuance.   


Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, is a garden writing pic.  Yet, again, produced outside the garden writing venue, interior design.  Many thanks to interior design writing/photography honoring the garden, as greatly as they do.
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Garden design begins inside your home, from the views looking out.  No surprise the owner of this home, above, is also a famous gardener, Nicky Haslam, who is, in addition, a well known interior designer, bon vivant, singer, writer... 
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Would be good to see a collage, similar to the top pic, next to the pic, above.  More, and have it be a normal part of the processes of garden writing.  Me?  Yes, I want to be that garden writer, but for the filthy lucre, my plate is full, garden designing, contracting, speaking, writing.  No worries, working on this idea, finally beyond the macro, into the micro. 
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As I write about garden-writing and how it comes up short, so, too, Nicky Haslam, “Decoration has become a faintly pejorative word...  There is almost no acknowledgment of the design world and its contribution to the economy by our government but there are endless accolades for fashion.”   
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Several years ago, Georgia was in a dire drought, and the governor turned off the water for all outdoor garden use, all.  Harm to the horticulture industry was extreme.  Two leaders, from agriculture and horticulture, put together their facts/figures about their respective industries, with their combined value to the Georgia economy, in sales & jobs.  They made an appointment with the governor, 48 hours later Georgia's water was turned back on, with restrictions, but water flowed. 
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Perhaps you merely thought I was writing about the state of garden writing, isn't-that-quaint type of foolishness.  Money is on the table.  And, being lost.
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Big money, at least the governor thought so.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT
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Finally arrayed my interiors with evergreen topiaries.  Delivered to the front porch last week.  A box full of thriving plants & a box of books delivered to the doorstep are one of life's delights.  Plant stands, antique ironstone saucers, trays, baskets, terra cotta pots, ironstone cache pots, sourced for years, waiting.  Beyond the garden design conceit, for centuries, having plants on the windowsill, top pic, and elsewhere inside, Bunny Mellon, perfected interior topiary to its own art, almost the raison d'etre of her interior design.  Remember, see it/get it/do it, from above ?  Seeing Bunny's interiors, I knew to trust having evergreen topiaries. 
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Pic, above, Fred Conrad, here. 
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Adore the off hand, seemingly lower than subsidiary focal point, topiary, above, with Bunny. 
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Meeting with a client yesterday, wildly fabulous appointment (we flagged her new drive/parking court/front walk), I mentioned to her what happened, bringing the topiaries into my interiors.  No words for their impact, excepting one, spiritual.  My client immediately said, "Of course they are, that's why flowers are brought to someone in the hospital."  Reminded me of a friend's home, perhaps the best interior decorator I know, yet she's never done it professionally.  Her interiors so incredible, the very air is designed more fabulous.  Again, no good words for describing her work.  And, she always has a live plant as part of her interior design. 
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"I don’t really come by to pray,” Mellon once told the rector of an Episcopalian church in the Norman medieval style that she financed and helped design. “I come in to talk with God because he’s a dear, dear friend of mine."  From,  NYTimes Bunny Mellon obituary, here.
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Also, from her obituary, "...shockingly extravagant and studiously understated: Her aesthetic motto was “nothing should be noticed.”  Recently a client texted me that quote.  It had impacted her too.  I had first read it in the obituary.
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With a long time client last week, delving into a new life layer with house/garden, we sat together vision questing.  Almost the full tapestry of 'life' woven throughout.  I had mentioned Bunny Mellon xyz.  Whatever.  Leaving the appointment, standing in her back hallway toward the door, she hands me a photo torn from a magazine years ago,  something else she wants for her garden.  It was a photo of Bunny Mellon's arbor allee of crabapple trees.  
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Putting topiaries in my home did not provide the expected results.  Instead, far greater has been gained than imagined.  

Garden Design Elements: Without Considering What Plant Goes Where

Several years into my Garden Design career, reading yet another Garden Design book, the author seamlessly mentioned trees sited for their long shadows in fall.  Me like that !  A new toy.  A new domain.  New scope for the imagination.  Another layer to wield amongst the grand scheme of layers.  Who wouldn't like a Garden Design rule demanding of you, Design Shadows.  Shadows are yours to command.  Take shadows, have fun.
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Shadows, below, oh my.


Pic, above, here.
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Bringing interiors alive, below.  When late fall arrives, create the classic indoor mini-greenhouse still life.  A bit of the garden inside, and lovely view from outside.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Have a few worn out garden tools?  Make a bouquet, screw it into the wall, inside.

 
Pic, above, shot in my house. 


Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design begins inside your home, from the views looking outside, above.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Instead, above, of ubiquitous turgid foundation plantings & lawn, benches/gravel at the foundation to your home.


Pic, above, here.
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Choose a color theme for your garden.
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These are merely a few non-plant inputs to the realm of Garden Design.
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I must really put a class together about this topic.  It's my topic, just made it up.  Too fun.
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This topic really lets your inner creative, go-go-go.
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What should be planted here?  Really?  Well, that is a terminally mundane question. 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Charlie Munger: Incentives

Incentives to have a pretty landscape?  Few.  For broad swaths, seemingly, none.  Note, a tidy landscape is fine or perhaps maintaining the status quo, but that's not the hunt here.
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What's the hunt?  Total Dr. Sacks, an awakening, bearing witness to another's self-aware choice to broaden their horizon beyond tidy and the status quo. 
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E.M.Forster circled it well in A Room With a View, Mr. Beebe notes Miss Honeychurch, Lucy, playing piano with wild passion, yet her daily life a dull drama.  When will Lucy match her music?
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When will you?  Have you?  Remember the moment of choice?
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'I want my landscape to be a pretty backdrop to living', seems wildly too much to ask, if you were merely to drive about noticing landscapes.  I want to look out every window of my home and think, 'wow',.
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Who gets this 'landscape as backdrop to life' mostly?  Largest segment hiring me to design their garden as a place fun to be in, and a backdrop, women about to have their first grandchild.  Merely empirical evidence from a 30+ year career in Garden Design.  That is a wow, and you can't make this stuff up. 


Pic, above, here.
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Ironically, science has been proving we 'need' Nature as a backdrop to our lives for optimum health, since we've moved away from agrarian/pastoral to industrialized culture.  Microbiomes, and etc, the good health incentive. 
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More, a good landscape improves property values.  A landscape as beautiful backdrop to your life inherently includes placements of plants, lowering HVAC bills.  There you have it, the money motive incentive.
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There you have it, incentives to a beautiful landscape as a backdrop to your life.  Whooooooppppppiiiii, my dear friend, and WWII veteran, Johnny Colbert would say.
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No matter your era or persuasion, we are all placed on this Earth after Providence first made it a beautiful garden.  It didn't have to be beautiful, merely functional, yet it's beautiful too.  Why?   
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Charlie Munger, "Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives." 
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We live in a culture of show me, don't tell me.  Until the 19th century, agrarian/pastoral, individual lives were about developing character, afterward the macro culture, now industrialized, became a culture of personality.  We're less than 2 hundreds years, after a prologue of thousands of years, navigating our lives not planted in Earth, but air layered to the construct of our own making, not Nature's. 
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Landscape, above, is humorous, evoking both charismatic personality, and pastoral beauty.  No surprise the photographer knew this made great art.
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Something odd and wildly unexpected arrived, creating my own beautiful landscape as a backdrop to my life.  My garden is my friend.  Literally, my friend.  Time passed from this epiphany, and realized more, my garden is my Friend.  Crazy statement I know.  Remember well, in my 20's someone said to me, "No one can live without art."  With my beautiful landscape's teaching I know her statement is more correctly, "No one can live without Art."
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More crazy, getting to this layer of Life, I've found my tribe.  Going so deeply inward, connections are made outwardly.
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Want a beautiful backdrop landscape to your life?  Heads-up, having the epiphany, then making it happen, will take time, but sprinkle great joys along the timeline. 
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There is a large portion of women at my speaking engagements with an entirely different reason for wanting to create a beautiful landscape as backdrop to their lives.  Misery.  Life events have conspired, taking joy away.  They've come to the lecture, knowing this is how they are getting their joy back.  Oh my the tears I've been honored to bear witness to, in those moments.  Almost always in a hallway outside the auditorium.  Words tumbling out with tears, stories, told disjointed, freedom to finally let the misery go.  Nancy Sinatra, "These boots are made for walking.", and I know where those boots are walking to, and from.  Yes, I get the juicy bits of their stories too, but won't go there.  Their tears begin falling from the misery, and end falling in joy.  Perfect art film moment.  Changing misery to joy, great incentive. 
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T           

Zone of Magic: Work = Love

When did 'work' become a bad word?  Certainly, the entirety of my lifetime.  Now, 'work'  has a floating zone of meaning.  Quite a few epiphanies getting here, the work of a lifetime, zero pun intended.
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Within vocation, I know work to be, Work = Love.  Discovering work in the landscape is pure washing-of-the-servants-feet.  A privilege.  Finally, 5 years ago, having chickens for the first time.  Guess what chickens taught me about gardening?  Not something to be told, instead, experienced, gaining full depth of this particular lesson, perhaps the most important lesson, beyond Work = Love.  Do you already know what chickens taught me about gardening? 
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Stewardship.
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This epiphany in breadth/depth/width/height beyond measure.  Once arrived, stewardship in the landscape metaphor, gave way to the doors opening to all parts of my life.  I am here for stewardship.  We all are.  Fun to put it out there, remembering well, many decades of others putting their 'idea' out there, knowing they were crazy.  Ok, I'm crazy for this, guilty as charged, proud of it.
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Here's the thing, have found my tribe at this layer.  More, get to see stewardship and work = love, in action, in others.  Humbling, and educational.
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In the realm of gardening, Garden Design, my mission, for decades, create, promote, educate.  Create a beautiful garden, promote the right plant in the right spot, and educate about plants-maintenance-design. 
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"Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives."  Charlie Munger.
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Bigger picture, in the landscape, macro/micro, how to get a neighborhood to realize improving their landscapes improves property values for all, decreases HVAC expense for all?  Money, as incentive.
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Certainly, money, is an incentive.  What are the myriad incentives to garden, landscape, garden design, for the majority of people?  How to get, in the garden realm, from work equals dreadful to Work = Love ?
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"I think I've been the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it.  And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther."  Charlie Munger.
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"A lot of success....in business comes from knowing what you really want to avoid."  Charlie Munger.
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Humorously, at the front end of gardening, moth to a flame, every garden cliche to avoid, that-be-me.  How was I to know, gardening/landscaping/garden-design is counterintuitive?  There was no resource listing what to avoid in landscaping, gardening, Garden Design.  Now, that-be-me.  More than a 180 about what it takes to have a beautiful garden, the collateral narrative of a life, 180 too.  Did not see that coming. 



Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Centuries of wisdom, above.  Garden Design course in a single picture.  At the front end of Garden Design, I did not see, aka understand, all this garden wields, nor did I like this type of Garden Design.  Remember, well, that girl.
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Now?  I can teach a 3 day class on this Garden Design, above.  And have.  Teaching at the Atlanta Botanical garden.  Check, for 2 decades.  Teaching at the local college, check, and award winning there, too.  Remember, where I began, not liking the garden, above.  Get the memo, it's a life memo too, Work = Love, and stewardship, and etc....... 
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Better than a life memo, a G*d wink.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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More Charlie Munger, below.

"Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero.

Choose clients as you would friends.

The best armour of 0ld age is a well-spent life preceding it.

When you borrow a man’s car, always return it with a tank of gas.

If only I had the influence with my wife and children that I have in some other quarters!

Take a simple idea and take it seriously.

In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables — like the discount warehouses of Costco.

Don’t do cocaine. Don’t race trains. And avoid AIDS situations.

We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one.

You’re looking for a mispriced gamble. That’s what investing is. And you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced. That’s value investing.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.

All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiring more than you are paying for.

You must value the business in order to value you the stock.

No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.

There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash — and I don’t want to go back.

…it never ceases to amaze me to see how much territory can be grasped if one merely masters and consistently uses all the obvious and easily learned principles.

Once you get into debt, it’s hell to get out. Don’t let credit card debt carry over. You can’t get ahead paying eighteen percent.

If you always tell people why, they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply.

Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something. This is such a no-brainer.

You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.

Three rules for a career: 1) Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself; 2) Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire; and 3) Work only with people you enjoy.

I won’t bet $100 against house odds between now and the grave.

I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge.

…being an effective teacher is a high calling.

I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart…

Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

In my life there are not that many questions I can’t properly deal with using my $40 adding machine and dog-eared compound interest table."

Blossom from Your Roots

"Those who deny their roots won't blossom."  Dave Weinbaum
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More than roots of family, roots of your soul's joy, grace, peace must blossom.
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In your landscape, will I know who you are, to your roots?
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Ironically, to those who love you, a high percentage anyway, will be afraid of your blossoming.  In whatever form/root you choose to blossom.  Take that to the bank, stick a fork in it, a stinker when haters-gonna-hate arrives at your doorstep from 'loved ones'.  Truly, in the full epoch of your life, failure to blossom in the landscape, because of a 'loved one' ?


Pic, above, here.  Snyders, Frans--Bodegon.
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Visited a friend's garden last month, hadn't been there in YEARS.  A joy of time/place/camaraderie.  She's done so much, some in frustration without full blossom.  Her husband at the root of that.  Quickly told her of Beloved's 'No Zone'.  My belief it is a 'man' thing, not specific to a certain man, just men liking their comfort zone, and control.  Encounter it often, too often, the manly, 'No Zone'.  Not a bad thing, just a thing that 'is'.
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She loved it.  Hugged me, said she was so relieved I put up with it too, the 'No Zone'.  She thought she was in this No Zone boat, alone.  Not !
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How do I deal with the No Zone?  Deeply considered Landscape plans, shared once vision quested, then pay for what I want myself.  Ha, that pay wall thing.  Follow the money.
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Another friend's garden visited this year, a new home and landscape.  Something worse than a partner's No Zone is happening.  Alas, this is haters-gonna-hate, witnessed several times thru the years.  My friend has encountered cutting remarks about their new beautiful/fabulous garden/home from several long-time friends, several.  Obviously, those friendships much thinner to gone.  Sadly, witnessing this scenario happens about once in 4-5 years with clients/friends.  Haters-gonna-hate the jealousy version.
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Mention this only because I see it occur, and to those experiencing it, you probably think it is only you, you're somehow at fault.  Nope.
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All of this, inspired by the floral arrangement, above.  I have zero skills for floral design, it's its own world of skill/talent.  However, this floral arrangement I can do, antique bowl included.  My budget has never allowed for such a bowl, however, I do have similar old bowls from thrift stores, junk shops.  All  with cracks/chips.  Love cracks/chips, I can afford them.
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Not allowing myself to blossom, for lack of vision questing or $$$, not an option.  I adore people who blossom.  Being in bud is as pleasurable as blossoming.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T         
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A client many years ago, huge home, huge property, had a No Zone husband, didn't want her to work, or garden.  Her plan of attack to blossom in her garden?  She worked for cash for a neighbor, paid cash for what she wanted in the garden.  The garden bills her husband paid?  Poor man, he honestly thought the incredible garden cost what he paid.  Their entire neighborhood, sans the men, knew how her garden was paid for.  Old story, clients both passed away....  Hope this isn't too much truth...  Indeed, I have garden stories NOT to be told here.  That's why my Conservatory in the garden for lunch, or later with wine/canapes quite the delight.  Small groups.  Stories I have, and oh my, better, the stories I'm told. 

Edward Slingerland: Wu-Wei in the Garden

Most requested by clients/students?  "I don't want to spend a lot of money, it must have little maintenance."  This is what I know for sure.  Replying in detailed response to that pair of demands, via Gardenese language, no one accepts, no one.  From those who have asked, of course.
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"Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons."  Alan Watts, The Way of Zen.
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"Things become complicated only when we think about them."  Alan Watts.



Pic, above, here.
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"Trying to force a lock bends the key.  For which reason a truly intelligent man never forces an issue."  Alan Watts.  (I must try harder to prevent bent-key-thinking.  Better, when bent-key-thinking intrudes into my life, from another, "I'm not listening to your bent-key-thinking.")
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"To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.  When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown.  Instead you relax and float."  Alan Watts.
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Wielding this style Garden Design, above, rich, humorous, humbling.  Further along the Garden Design archetype than whence begun.  Few immune to the Garden Design archetypes path.  Nothing new, existed well before cuneiform records.
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Humorous?  Simplicity, above, gives you, you.  Richest construct in your life, you.
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"We have allowed brain thinking to develop and dominate our lives.  As a consequence, we are at war within ourselves.  The brain desiring things which the body does not want, and the body desiring things which the brain does not allow; the brain giving directions which the body will not follow, and the body giving impulses which the brain cannot "  Alan Watts.
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Funny?  In my garden, there is no 'me'.  In my garden, my body hears what my brain cannot.  In my garden, I am gone, with the body remaining present.  Follow your bliss, find where you experience eternity here, Joseph Campbell truths.  In my garden there is no me, no time, no hunger, no tiredness, no awareness of bruising/bleeding, no sense of want, no fear, expansive joy.  Deeper, at the conclusion of being in my garden, answers arrived to questions known, and unknown, ahead of being in my garden.  Epiphanies from spirit, without fear.
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Seek presence over productivity.  Gaining maximum productivity, though not sought.  .
"All to easily, we confuse the world as we symbolize it with the world as it is."  Alan Watts. 
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Before I had a language describing being in my garden I labeled it, "The best selfishness ever."  After a few years realized it is grace.  How could it not be grace?  Epiphanies too many, too potent, life changing.  Bounty of resources, from garden epiphanies, beyond measure.  Into the realm of E.M.Forster describing a multi-millionaire woman, one of his characters, as having no 'resources'.  Interesting.  Letting go, giving up control, is a resource. 
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"The brainy modern loves not matter but measures, no solids but surfaces."  Alan Watts. 
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There are places to "Transcend our futile strategies for controlling life and surrender to its living essence."  In the garden, merely one. 
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"We have been taught to believe that the best way to achieve our goals is to reason about them carefully and strive consciously to reach them. Unfortunately, in many areas of life this is terrible advice. Many desirable states — happiness, attractiveness, spontaneity — are best pursued indirectly, and conscious thought and effortful striving can actually interfere with their attainment."  Edward Slingerland
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Your act of choice, is my Garden Design writing.  Write an article about how to dig a hole?  No longer do I confuse the map for the territory, noise for signal.  Though I'm wicked good about digging a hole with a shovel or auger attached to a Caterpillar.  Pure noise, how to dig a hole if you're wanting a good garden, you in your Garden is signal territory.
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" For the early Chinese thinkers … the culmination of knowledge is understood, not in terms of grasping a set of abstract principles, but rather as entering a state of wu-wei. The goal is to acquire the ability to move through the physical and social world in a manner that is completely spontaneous and yet fully in harmony with the proper order of the natural and human worlds (the Dao or “Way”). Because of this focus on knowing how rather than knowing this or that, the Chinese tradition has spent a great deal of energy over the past two thousand years exploring the interior, psychological feel of wu-wei, worrying about the paradox at the heart of it, and developing a variety of behavioral techniques to get around it. The ideal person in early China is more like a well-trained athlete or cultivated artist than a dispassionate cost-benefit analyzer."  Edward Slinglerland     
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"Our excessive focus in the modern world on the power of conscious thought and the benefits of willpower and self-control causes us to overlook the pervasive importance of what might be called “body thinking”: tacit, fast, and semiautomatic behavior that flows from the unconscious with little or no conscious interference. The result is that we too often devote ourselves to pushing harder or moving faster in areas of our life where effort and striving are, in fact, profoundly counterproductive."  Edward Slingerland. 
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Clients with gardens getting-there the fastest?  All women, ages 40+, and a gay couple who travel the globe for their work, and are 30+/50+. 
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"Some of the most elusive objects of our incessant pursuits are happiness and spontaneity, both of which are strikingly resistant to conscious pursuit."  Maria Popova
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" Wu-wei literally translates as “no trying” or “no doing,” but it’s not at all about dull inaction. In fact, it refers to the dynamic, effortless, and unselfconscious state of mind of a person who is optimally active and effective. People in wu-wei feel as if they are doing nothing, while at the same time they might be creating a brilliant work of art, smoothly negotiating a complex social situation, or even bringing the entire world into harmonious order. For a person in wu-wei, proper and effective conduct follows as automatically as the body gives in to the seductive rhythm of a song. This state of harmony is both complex and holistic, involving as it does the integration of the body, the emotions, and the mind. If we have to translate it, wu-wei is probably best rendered as something like “effortless action” or “spontaneous action.” Being in wu-wei is relaxing and enjoyable, but in a deeply rewarding way that distinguishes it from cruder or more mundane pleasures."  Edward Slingerland.
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"We’re drawn to people with wu-wei, Slingerland argues, because we inherently trust the automatic, unconscious mind due to a simple fact from the psychology of trust — because spontaneity is hard to fake, we intuit that spontaneous people are authentic and thus trustworthy. But Western thought has suffered from centuries of oppressive dualism, treating intuition and the intellect as separate and often conflicting faculties — a toxic myth that limits us as a culture and as individuals. Fortunately, Slingerland points out, recent decades have brought a more embodied view of cognition acknowledging the inextricable link between thought and feeling and debunking, as Ray Bradbury so eloquently did, the false divide between emotion and rationality. (We’ve seen, too, that metaphorical thinking is central to our cognitive development, and metaphor is itself rooted in emotion.) The Chinese tradition, on the other hand, has a millennia-long history of cultivating a more integrated model of the human experience..."  Maria Popova .
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If you haven't discovered Maria Popova yet, you're going to be glad you have now.
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Letting go, and finding eternity, in the garden, has made my life.  Those in my tribe, share this joy.  This is your garden.  Not me writing about when to deadhead your peonies. 
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Within each Garden Design, from a historic template, wu-wei/grace/abiding, is the bonus.  Guaranteed. 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Landscape Choices

Choices from the heart, below.  Why so rare?


Pic, above, here.
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"Honesty has a power that very few people can handle."  Anon.
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Make the choices for the garden in your heart.  Manifest.  Live.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Mastering the Art of Garden Design: Not What You Think

At the front end of planning your garden, from personal experience, if there is a problem with the outcome, those problems reside in you, not the garden.
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Assumptions about where to begin, "What plants will I have?", wildly, achingly, charmingly, sweetly, misplaced.  Going a step further, I did, decades ago, realized my initial assumptions beyond arrogant.  Worse, arrogance aimed at Nature.  There for me to wield.  Ha.
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Before we have language, we see Nature.  For most that unspoken language, remains throughout life.  Seeing through a glass darkly, thinking as a child type of stuff.
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Getting the horticulture degree, still, did not unlock the door to creating a beautiful garden, understanding Nature's language.  Off to Europe for decades studying historic gardens.  Designing/installing gardens all the while as vocation.  Dots on the Garden Design map emerged, some connected.  Map is not territory. 
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Having lunch at a client's farm, decades from my starting dot, standing inside her kitchen, looking through to the potager, a dot, outside the realm of Garden Design, appeared, and connected all the  dots.  The master dot.  Epiphanies are a drug of choice.  This one simple, seen since birth, yet zero comprehension for decades. 
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Providence never separated ornamental horticulture from agriculture.  Man's folly, made the separation.  Separation dot date?  Onset of the Industrial Revolution, late 19th century.  Until then we  lived with Nature.  The dot was clear.  Without it, death.
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"The eighteenth century was the culmination of thousands of years of agrarian society.  The nineteenth century would bring in the Industrial Revolution to America.  Until then, most societies based their economies on the raising and trading of crops, so nature was always in control.  People measured the work day by the rising and setting of the sun, and one hailstorm or flood could ruin a year's work.  Everyday life was an ongoing struggle against nature.
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Historically when people have been able to raise enough crops and food to sustain a comfortable life, they have challenged nature even further by turning their outdoor environment into a living art form, a pleasure garden.  Most societies have even given the garden religious significance.
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A garden is a balance between measured, human control on one hand and wild, mystical nature on the other.  It is the place where humans attempt to create their particular vision of an idealized order of nature and culture.  A garden is not just the opposition of unpredictable nature and organized society; it is the mediating space between them.  Human intellect, intuition, nurture, and spirit meld together in a garden.  Since culture shapes both the form and meaning of a garden at a particular place and time....."  Barbara Sarudy, Gardens and Gardening in the Chesapeake, 1700-1805.     


Pic, above, here.

How little can you have in your Garden Design?  When I design a garden, the last question I ask myself, "What can I take away, and it holds together?"
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Inside a garden, above.  Outside a garden, below.
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Ironically, at every price point client, I'm told, "I don't want to spend a lot of money.  It must be easy to take care of."  These gardens, above/below.  Get it right.  Macro and micro.  Master dot.  Maximum pollinator habitat exists where hi density meets low density.  No, this garden isn't agriculture for man, it is agriculture for Nature.  Hence, us.
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Feed the bees. Without them we perish.  Basic.  Simple.  Nature knows, we forgot.  More to this Nature 'stuff', Barbara Saludy alluded to it richly, above.  Cadence.  Will get to that another day. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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One of the most potent Garden Designs you'll see, above.  Tara Turf, meadow mowed at differing heights, with a mix of plantings suitable to the zone, attracting myriad insects, attracting myriad mammals, (reptiles too, love my lizards), in turn attracting different genres of insects, mammals to the hedging and wild wood beyond.  Nature in full cycle, master dot included, high density mixed with low density.  While providing for property value increases, HVAC expense decreases, less maintenance, no chemicals, no irrigation.  Easily maintained with unskilled labor.  Of course the goal is to maintain as much as you can yourself, placing mind/body/soul into Nature's realm, Nature's cadence.  As long as you can.   
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Designing gardens, I design simple.  As requested.  After the concept plan, it's normal to receive requests for more 'stuff'.  Here's the negotiation.  Put this plan in first, if you want more later, easy.  Of course the final plan always includes a few of those extras.  If I don't put them in, the client will liberally dose the garden themselves.  Better to be like Barney Fife, Nip It.
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With a proper garden design, epiphanies daily.  Epiphanies that will change your life.  How could Nature not do that for you?  Example?  It's almost fall, when the trees drop their leaves, baring themselves naked ahead of winter, they are being fed by what they let go of.
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Meditate on that.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Garden Design: A Color Rule

Crisp & tidy, below.
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Whimsical.
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Copying a seemingly staid Garden Design Rule.
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What rule is that?
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Pic, above, here.
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Paint your garden furniture & accessories same color as your house trim/shutters.  Have loved this 'rule' for decades.
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Here, they've done more than classically phone-it-in-garden-design.
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They've let the color carry the weight of architecture.
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Does your garden tell me who you are at the curb?  Check.
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Is your garden so incredible I must go inside and see your home?  Check.
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It's one thing to deeply, truly, adore a color.  Another, entirely, to wield that color across your realm.  No fear.  Life is short, wield your color.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Irma residue is almost put away on our property.  Living in our ca. 1900 home for 2 years, we've done little Garden Design, it's mostly roads/drainage/shed renovations/drilling a well/pond updating/clearing invasives etc.  My personal gardening consists of a pair of aloe plants in terra cotta, and an echeveria a friend gave me, repotted into terra cotta.  Three little souls in terra cotta.  Last weekend, watering my trio on the back deck, they did spend Irma inside the house, I noticed one of the aloe did not fit in its pot, it was dwarfed by its pot by .5" diameter.  Hmm.
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Yard a debris field with fallen limbs, a new roof at the back of the house, lots of men covering ground here.  Hmm.  They are our men, all on our team.  Several employed by Beloved loooong time.  Hmm.  Thinking this one thru, my little aloe in its new pot.  If any of the men had broken the pot, I would have been told, "Miss Tara........"  Days pass.  Approached Beloved, on the deck, we were grilling dinner, "My aloe vera is in a new pot, and I know who did it."  He's looking at me all stoic, his Mona Lisa smile something his mom would recognize about age 6.  "You did it."  A day prior, I repotted that aloe vera into another terra cotta pot, an exact fit.  He looks at the pot, "If I had found a pot to fit, would you have known?",  "No.", "How did you know it was me?", "The men always tell me when something happens.",  "Hit it when I was blowing the deck.", "5 acres, loads of men, new roof, tree limbs, I'm a Garden Designer with 3 tiny potted plants to her name, you thought I might not notice?"
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Why are these type of stories so deeply amusing?  He almost got away with it.  Would have been fine if he had....

Penelope Bianchi: Garden Template

Concise architecture, verdant vining vertical lawn, primitive shutters, hi Victorian crenelated benches, potted plantings, no foundation plantings, gravel to the house, diminutive light above the door, the pair of poodles in welcome, no lions here, rich restraint, you have me at first glance.
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At a jobsite yesterday, this garden, below, in my head.  A more formal vernacular French, yet it will be lapping gravel to the house, potted plants, benches against the home, and vine on the home.  


Pic, above, here.
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Client hired me in an emergency.  Angst in her voice at the first phone call.  She had purchased a new smokehouse made to historic templates, and it was arriving in 2 weeks.  Where to place it?  Going full French, by request, I knew exactly where to place it.  Bless & grace in historic Garden Design 'rules'.  Zero fear siting her new 'toy'.  More, she wanted it sited at the edge of their new potager and orchard.  Delightful, the more constraints a garden has, the easier to design.
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Her husband is a garden zealot also, but the poor dear man travels like the wind across the globe for his career.  He had to trust what we were doing with the smokehouse.  Cannot imagine what that felt like for him.  We knew to get the smokehouse right, it must also make him beyond happy when he returned.
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Better than siting the smokehouse correctly, we got something larger.  A garden will inform you when it's pleased.  Their garden said something quite nice, a huge double check.  Approaching their home, from the main approach to the front door, and from a slight angle, as above, it's a Money Shot.
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Wildly excited at this discovery, I told the client right away.  When she saw it, she called her husband right away.  Once he got home, it was obvious to him too.  Three garden nerds in a pod.  High-fiving our Money Shot.
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Meeting with the grading contractor at their site today.  They've got grading, and oodles of other necessities ahead of photography.  You can be sure, their before/after, will include this photo, above.
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Why?  Once you get the memo about Historic Garden Design Rules, you'll be using them too, they're for every site.  Promise.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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I love Penelope Bianchi's garden.  Heart-on-my-sleeve, LOVE.  More pics of her garden here.  Penelope Bianchi's website, here.  Somehow, before internet, social media, love for Penelope Bianchi's garden arrived in a magazine article.  Years pass, blogging etc arrives, and now I love Penelope too, the person, and her garden.  Penelope's interior design and gardens must be imprinted onto your skillset templates.  Consider this your best homework assignment ever.    

House & Garden Well Matched

Perhaps not your cup of tea, below, but a perfect cup of tea nonetheless.  Deer proof boxwood, evergreen, punctuated topiaried forms amongst the green meatballs.  Low maintenance, drought proof, no bugs.  Amusing, the slight stone dry stack retaining wall.  Great thought went into needing/not needing it.  We see which won.
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Trees lovingly pruned, small space, several rooms & hallways & walls.
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Huge invitation to enter with the pair of urns, graced with stone steps.
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Have a seat in the parlor, chairs/fence using black makes the small spaces 'larger'.
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House used wisely as the backdrop focal point.  Incredible restraint with the house, great simplicity, dozens of choices made, each with the answer, 'No'.  Modesty of the entire package, house & garden, displays a wise heart.

"A garden is not a picture, but a language.", Henry Mitchell.


Pic, above, here.
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As time passes, above, I would prune the meatball hedges into simple hedges, no rounding, letting the rounded topiary shapes 'pop' more.  Better than my thoughts, it would be more fun being friends with this gardener, above, and enjoying it unfold through their head/heart/hands.
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Great joy in getting the call from a gardening friend, "I'm going to move that hedge by the house, and put a gate in the fence near ......"
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Irma update.  Hope it's the last.  Power came on last nite, att phone service came on while we slept, over 3 days without.  Beloved's team cleared, chain-sawed, raked, blew, etc. all yesterday.  We're back to a new normal.  Sunlight has changed with many large lost limbs, new scope for the imagination.  A Georgia Power team & a Tennessee Power team got our power restored, we're on the main drive in the historic district.  Side roads will get power today/tomorrow.  They had greater storm damage.

Faux Bois: Diane Husson

How is it chair & table, below, appear grown from the trees?
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Never have I seen faux bois this beautiful.  Nor so well mated to its site.
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The impression deep, I pinned it to my own pinterest garden board.  Perhaps, one of my century old pecan trees could handle this type of faux bois.  Two years in our ca. 1900 house and 99.8% of what I see for gardens does not pass go for our garden.
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If the grass, below, were grown as Tara Turf, and the table/chair set at angles more appropriately, below, the scene becomes, timeless.  Appropriate angles?  Chair/table must appear in relationship to the person who just left after reading a long letter from a dear friend while drinking hot tea.  Demand much?  Yes.
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My tribe understands, 2-3 for lunch in the Conservatory, and ask their thoughts for exact table/chair placement.  Probably a good 15 minute discussion.  With added time for going into the vignette, adjusting, walking away for perspective, going in to adjust again.


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Diane Husson, sculptor, designs & creates by hand the faux bois, above.  Each piece unique, no molds.  Glad her name was on the pic, above.
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From her website, " My latest quest is to make sculpted concrete faux bois furniture that appears to be formed from live branches and still growing curious vines. These benches, chairs and tables are created to look like artifacts from an ancient civilization where the boundaries between nature and the spirit world were paper thin, and some secret wisdom is waiting patiently to be rediscovered. "
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She's succeeding in her quest.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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This is not a sponsored post.  Wildly impressed with Diane Husson's work.  She also creates large scale art pieces for commercial clients.

Life: Topiaries, Windmills, Rabbits, Baskets, Stone Terraces

Last month, earnest conversation with Beloved about my garden topiaries for inside the house, made the poor man more confused at my reasoning, methods, plodding.  Not that he wasn't already deeply confused by my winning trinity.
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Wickedly I decided to mention full-on my topiaries.  Understand, at present, zero exist.  Exactly the excitement of embarkation of a quest realm.  Dear, dear Beloved, poor- unfortunate-soul, as one Disney (The Little Mermaid) movie sings.  Been trodding this path before meeting him.  Real path to me, a path he can't see, not real to him.  Velveteen Rabbit hasn't had quite all his hair loved off .
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Topiaries delayed, moving from my house of 30 years, into our ca. 1900 house 2 years ago.  No worries, soon soon will build my conservatory here.  Perhaps 2.  A small garden shed has a tin roof at front, and another at back.  Built for tractors to park, instead, will source old windows, hire the carpenter, voila, a pair of conservatories.  One will have modest heat.  Obviously for the topiaries to overwinter, when they are off display from the house.  Exactly how serious I am about 'my' topiaries.
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A pair of vintage florist stair-stepped wire shelves are already on the front porch, awaiting their spring/summer/fall use for many topiaries, quickly swapping inside/outside.
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Beloved considers this topiary quest merely another Don Quixote tilting at windmills.  Stupid, doomed to failure, waste of time.  No worries, I do have a great love, Laskett, on this path to topiaries, loving each moment of it.  Good enough for me.
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Much laughter seeing Architectural Digest's new article about Tory Burch, below.  Obviously her hair has all been loved off, her decorator's, Daniel Romualdez, too.  Topiaries, front/center.


Pic, above, here.
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Once topiaries are in the house, in the conservatory, on the vintage florist wire shelves, I'm copying the pic, below.  Our house has a graveled front parking court.  Will source the blouse, below, at local thrift store, and wax-shine my ugly little service van, Tess.  So ugly she's cute, type of ugly.  More, Tess is fun while being useful.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Collateral to  topiaries is Bunny Mellon's garden, below.  When I saw this pic, had never seen another garden designed exactly like mine.  Curiosity to discover the brain behind it led me to Bunny Mellon.  And, her topiaries.


Pic, above, here.
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A portion of my basket collection, in my office, below.

 
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Baskets in my office, above/below.
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Bunny Mellon had a few baskets, below, too.


Pic, above, here.
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Entering my garden room, below.



My stone terrace, below, planted with myriad flowering plants, something for each season.



Bunny Mellon's stone terrace, below, planted with flowering 'weeds'.


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Bunny Mellon, below.
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Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Isn't your garden worth tilting at windmills?
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Laskett, below, in my office overlooking the stone flowering terrace.
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Pic, above, here.
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Cannot imagine life without tilting at windmills.  Found my tribe while tilting at windmills.  All their hair, loved off.

Whimsy From Mundane

Planted as mundane, cliche, just-enough-to-get-by, socially acceptable, stale, ubiquitous, time passed, someone decided to enjoy the canvas.
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With great resource of mind, no money, the banal came alive.


Pic, above, here.
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Charming, silly, wonky, fun, unexpected, I would have never thought of this, so, hence, adore it.  More, filed it away to the memory bank.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Amazing how many clients have already taken the stale of their landscape, and begun its new story of grace and whimsy before hiring me.  Not knowing where it's headed, trusting the digging, pruning, and pure exhilaration , knowing its path has a destination into realms unknown yet filled with the oxygen of their new life.
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What a ride I get to share with so many.  Knowing up front much of what will unfold, excepting the best details of unique grace, joy, wonk, fun.  Providence in the details.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Of course I'm well aware of earthlings having zero trust for any of the above.  Was raised to be one of those widget earthlings.  Bless the bad times, without them no choice to enter the Garden.  And, stay put !  Go ahead scare yourself.  Best ride ever.  Promise.
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No?  At a minimum order so many daffodil bulbs that you scare yourself at the price.  Must start somewhere.  

Plantswoman Into Garden Designer

After acquiring an  American degree in horticulture, educated to be a guy in a truck mowing grass, blowing clippings, siting plants in outcurves/incurves to grow oversized for extra monetizing pruning, needful of fertilizer, chemicals to kill Nature, and a real nice irrigation system, let's not forget the yearly replenishment of mulch, and twice yearly exchange of colorful annuals, all bundled into a tidy yearly contract, $$$.  Hey, who needs more?  Me.
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Late 20's when I began decades of European travel, studying historic gardens, I didn't have words to describe what I was seeking, only words describing what I didn't want about gardens, a few above.  In lieu of words, I was listening to my heart.  Traipsing off, sure of discovery, unaware a pupil of E.M.Forster for sure.
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Blessedly, the first study tour, England & mostly Scotland, I got the memo.  More, the memo arrived, narrated by General Patton, aka George C. Scott.


Pic, above, here.
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When I hosted my own garden show on CBS-TV their mantra was, don't-tell-me-SHOW-me.
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Exactly how I learned across Europe.  Their historic gardens full of show, and loaded with delightfully intuitive conversation, 'tell', from all the gardeners & owners the sites had the privilege of working with across centuries.
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Quite the example, SHOW, above.  About lost all my knee strength seeing this, decades ago.  Understanding ALL.  Immediately, understanding all.  Where that comes from, intuitive understanding, aka epiphany or koan, I metaphor to my Muse.  Like it was said toward the end of Dr. Zhivago, 'A gift'.
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In hindsight I went to Europe a horticulturist/plantswoman, returned a Garden Designer.  If I was told this would happen, zero chance I would have believed it.  None.
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What did I hear General Patton say from all those years ago?  "Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!"  Quite the proper image popping into mind.  Bombs exploding, Patton winning, he spoke like a warrior, the type I knew.  Age 10, seeing the film when it came out at the theater with my family.  Dad the NASA engineer made it obvious Patton had nothing on him with language or results.  Though, sister/me were deeply impressed at the dinner table one evening, while Chris Craft was director at JSC, dad said, "Chris Craft has the foulest mouth of any man I've met."  We silently made knowing eye contact, "We must hear this Chris Craft."   Ha, never did.  But the awe remains.  Amusing, now, when Beloved says, "You can dog cuss."  A skill I don't use often, perhaps when the little toe on the right foot is broken standing on the bow of a boat trying to hitch the hook from the hoist inside the boathouse.
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Patton's bombs exploding, from the clip, are pure Joseph Campbell, Power of Myth, slaying the dragon, every scale of its hide a metaphor of "Thou Shalt."
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Why tell these stories, above?  These stories are the people hiring me, for decades.  People who've intuited their rabbit hole, gone in a little, maybe a great distance, yet for the Thou Shalt's of their lives, not the full distance.  Job, children, health, many Thou Shalt's, yet intuiting all, without words, just able to still hear a bit of their distant heart.  My life, needing to work for filthy lucre yet a heart unable to stay in the dire depths of Thou Shalt, instead, creating my own job, and taking it.  Collateral with infertility, a great wealth of time granted, honoring that gift, jumping into the rabbit hole, seeking & finding what the heart spoke without words.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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JOSEPH CAMPBELL (words of Chief Seattle, 1852): “The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky, the land? The idea is strange to us. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, all are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We’re part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. Each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father; the rivers are our brothers. They carry our canoes and feed our children.

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If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. This we know: the earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth. All things are connected, like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

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“Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? What will happen when the secret comers of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? The end of living and the beginning of survival. When the last red man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any spirit of my people left? We love this earth as the newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it; care for it as we’ve cared for it, hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. 
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Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all. One thing we know, there is only one God; no man be he red man or white man can be apart. We are brothers, after all.” 
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Bold letters mine.  The 'dire' I had to run from, choosing to live, not merely survive.  Beware of choosing to live, it rocks the boat for others in your life.  Bigly.

Stone & Flow Garden Design

Macro: Islands in the gravel, no edges.  Meandering flow, as if the gravel were water.
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Micro: Small space, high function, drifts of plantings make the space 'larger' axis views into beauty from the home.
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Crazy: Using green-meatballs and I like them.


Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design Class, above, in a single pic.  Color echoes a delight, furniture choices/materials perfect.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT
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Thank you for continued calls, texts, emails about Harvey in Houston.  Mom is dry, kept her power, worst damage are fronds from her palm trees fell.  She said they needed pruning anyway.  Many homes in her neighborhood flooded.  Sister still evacuated, home is dry, and a scare this morning with new mandatory evacuations placed on her neighborhood.  Put her address into the interactive map, she's 4 blocks away.  Hundreds of homes already flooded in her neighborhood, ahead of this new mandatory evacuation.  Keeping hope, she too stays dry.  Prayers for all, people/pets/wildlife/livestock, affected by Harvey.