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

Thursday, April 19, 2018

How to Turn Tree/Bush Trimmings Into Landscape GOLD

How few have 'seen' this, below, seeing a pile of sticks/branches in a compost pile?
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From this starting point, below, take it, own it, play with it, see what happens in your garden.

2.Rose basket Magical Forest shop 1- now that is a big delivery of flowers.
Pic, above, here.
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At a bridal shop, below.  Owning the fence, owning it inside/outside, owned by the garden.  More, who knew onions were a historic sign of long life?

 enclos*ure – Page 2 – Life in gardens — old and new.
Pic, above, here.
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A new way to 'see' sticks/vines.  More, onions too.
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It's the way you carry it #WiseSayingsforLife
Pic, above, here.
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No reason not to try this, ingredients are free, with eyes to see.  And now you have them !  I've never been too proud to shop for my garden at curbside on garbage days. 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Friday, April 13, 2018

Why Your Health & Property Value Are Better With This Hedge

Most notably, in the garden, below, is the hedge.  Yet not the only notable element.  At the front end of reading this post, make your list of reasons the hedge is a good idea.  Perhaps your list is all negatives with the hedge, fine, make that mental list.
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At a point long past, in USA, the petite hedge lost favor, foundation plantings gained the upper hand.  Ignoring centuries of Garden Design history.
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After WWII, USA had a building boom, and builders had a certificate of occupancy to gain before being able to sell their new homes.  Landscaping was part of that package for the CO.  A fact remaining in force.
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Pic, above, here.
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The style of a home's architecture does not influence whether or not to have a similar hedge, above.
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Subdivisions, city scapes, a home close to the road, are viable territory for a hedge, instead of a foundation planting.
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See the hedge, above?  Now, go inside the hedge, go into the garden, go into the home, look toward the sidewalk and road.
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Gone.  Sidewalk, road, cars, now blocked to your view, at a minimum diminished. 
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More, depending on the height of your hedge, and ground elevations, a hedge will obliterate most views of cars passing by.
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Multi-tasking, a hedge hiding the view of cars, from your home, filters myriad toxins cars release from engine/tires.  Did you know living at a busy road, with car/truck toxins spewing, is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes/day?
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A hedge is also your starting point for a garden room.  Paradise, in derivative, is a walled garden.  Blocking the ogre of cars/traffic/toxins begins your sanctuary, with a hint of privacy.  More, a layer of control, better, controlled by you.
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What do you want to do inside your hedge?  A pair of benches inside the hedge, facing the house, focal points on axis, and a place to sit.  Perhaps a pair of stone terraces either side of the front walk, the list is long on choices, your choices. 
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A home, or neighborhood, with the garden design choice of front hedges, has increased property value.  If an entire neighborhood is conceived with all homes having front hedges, it will be of greater value than a replica neighborhood without front hedges.  Why?  Good landscaping increases property values. 
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Good landscaping also benefits health.  More layers of a good garden design, around your home, has more of the bacteria for our body's microbiomes.  Our bodies formed in synergy with Earth.  Without the bacteria of Earth, inside our bodies, we die.
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What are your thoughts about a hedge in front of a home?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Monday, April 9, 2018

5 Top Secrets of Historic Gardens

At the 'very' front end of creating gardens professionally, in my 20's, I wanted to create these gardens, below.  Went to college again, got that degree, yet no closer to the skills to create this garden, below.  USA curriculum taught me how to be a guy in a truck, mowing grass, weed-eating, pruning, planting, mulching, swapping annuals 2x/year, installing irrigation, and dowsing yards with poisons toxic to animals/insects of land/air, designing with incurves/outcurves and a right smart focal point tree at the right corner of the home.  Really?
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2 decades studying historic gardens across Europe.  Truly.  Now, been designing gardens, below, for decades.  A blessed life.
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But, not where this is going.  Garden designing, below, is outrageously counterintuitive.  Take what you know, turn it around, flip it upside down, add a 3 layer chess board, bingo, you can design the garden, below.
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More, in an epiphany, knew the artistic/scientific rules of designing gardens historically applies to other arts, and life layers.
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Édouard Vuillard, Repast in a Garden, 1898
Pic, above, here.
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Time to jump to shoes, following historic Garden Design rules, in my mother's closet.  Mom has the best clothing taste of anyone I know.  Born/raised in Augusta, GA, her Aunt Pink owned a local dress shop, Pinks.  Aunt Pink went to New York City 2x/year, ordering clothes for her shop.  From birth to wedding honeymoon departure, Aunt Pink dressed mom.  I wore that same wedding dress too.
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Mom's feet have had a few issues recently, we wear the same size shoe, mom told me to take any of her shoes.  What an offer !
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Several hours over the weekend, going thru shoes for me, shoes to thrift store, shoes mom can still wear.
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Yes, trying on so many shoes, I started to get lazy.  Didn't really like some of the shoes, decided not to try them on.  Then, remembered how Historic Garden Design is a Template for Life, and mom's impeccable taste, I tried on every pair of shoes I didn't like.
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Exactly as in a garden, those shoes POPPED.  What was I thinking?  Trust.
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 Wearing Trench coat is always a great Idea. 45 Casual Work Outfits For Women In Their 40s
Pic, above, here.
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Unfortunately, some of the shoes I adored did not fit.  However, learning, yet again, the potency of Historic Garden Design rules I did not mind, the shoes left behind.  It's always all about a garden for me.   Pay dirt, again, living this way, gorgeous shoes.

Outsource your Monday-Friday wardrobe to an expert stylist who gets you.
Pic, above, here.
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Best Historic Garden Design Rule, above, ever.  Evah !  Did you see it immediately?  Hope so.
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"I want a Garden that says, 'Listen to me,' not 'Look at me.' "
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Look at the top pic again.  It's a garden begging you to listen, and more, listen to your heart, listen to Providence, listen to Nature, listen to friends.  A garden letting you slip the bonds of here/now.  A garden gifting you eternity, now.
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Historic Garden Design is counterintuitive.  Trust that in all your affairs.
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5 Historic Garden Design Facts:

1. A Garden Design must create a 'Listen to me' world around your home/life.
2. Know Historic Garden Design rules are counterintuitive.
3. Follow Historic Garden Design rules.
4. Trust Historic Garden Design rules for YOUR garden.
5. Trust Historic Garden Design rules for your Life.
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Seems simple, 5 Historic Garden Design Facts.  Ha.  Yoda simple.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Design Like Charles Faudree: In Your Garden

Garden Design inspiration is all around you, inside your home.  I must see inside your home, to design your garden.  More than views on axis into the garden, interior design layers too.
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A Charles Faudree room, below.
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One Garden Design conceit shouts at first glance.  On the buffet.  Pure Garden Design.
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Tall hedge or espalier shrubs, pair of understory trees, low hedge.  Total copy of the painting, lamps, flotsom/jetsom.  Have known to copy interior design, into Garden Design, for decades.  No one told me, never saw it in a book, pure Garden Design Whisperer.
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You're probably the same, yet never verbalized this, or took action steps.

Charles Faudree – Everyday Living
Pic, above, here.
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Bedside table, below, would be a delight to copy into Garden Design.  Backdrop hedge, tree, flowering shrubs, urn on plinth.
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Pic, above, here.
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Image result for quotes charles faudree
Pic, above, here.
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Fireplace mantels, dining room tables, chests, each good resources, inside, to copy into Garden Design.
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Look around you.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Monday, March 5, 2018

What Lucinda Chambers Can Teach Us About Garden Design

A few weeks ago, this, below.  What a garden !  Knew at once, great skill involved, more, the gardener put their entire being into it.  Oddly, at the front end of gardening professionally, horrendous USA degree in hand, I would have known the opposite.  Garden, below, no good, too bohemian, too wild, nothing 'done', certainly not a contender for entry in a Garden Show for spring in a large city.. 
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Twenty plus years later, traveling historic gardens across Europe, then a decade staying put, designing/installing historic gardens.  I knew I had to follow the paper trail for this garden, below.  Further, I knew the woman in the garden, was its owner/designer, from 1st glance.  Odd, yes?  She could easily be a model for shoes or pants or maybe fabrics.

Lucinda Chambers, Fashion Director of Vogue UK, photographed at her home in Shepherd's Bush
Pic, above, here.
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Didn't take a full minute of sleuthing to learn this is Lucinda Chambers, for 3 decades the stylist for Vogue UK.
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Style crush – Lucinda Chambers | designer fabrics australia
Pic, above, here.
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No wonder Lucinda has an incredible garden, art is art.  Styling a photo shoot, styling an entire clothing outfit, zero difference styling a garden.
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 Похожее изображение
Pic, above, here.
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I came late to thrift store shopping, had just joined a church, and needed a few outfits.  In my late 20's, never looked back.  Thrift stores entirely too much fun.  Clothes, patio furniture, dishes, sunglasses, etc.
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Женщина хочет выглядеть неотразимо вне зависимости от погоды и возраста. В зрелости гардероб женщины должен быть более сдержанным и классическим, сохраняя при этом индивидуальность и экстравагантность. В 40 лет женский гардероб слегка отличается от гардероба женщины за 50. Появляются нюансы, о которых не стоит забывать. Тепло и комфорт в одном флаконе Для дамы, которая и …
Pic, above, here.
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Seeing dozens of Lucinda Willams clothing choices, I knew.  Permission.
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SILVERTIME all, grown up.
Pic, above, here.

In my closet, what I had considered divine thrift store purchases, yet incoherent for combining/wearing, were suddenly Lucinda Chambers approved.  Lucinda gave me approval, for combining disparate clothing into pure joy to combine, and more importantly, to wear. 

Lucinda Chambers.
Pic, above, here.
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Historic Garden Design is permission.  Crazed, divine, permission.  Sure, there are historic Garden Design Rules.  Each one, knowingly, making your world better, more you, and the honor of stewardship with epiphany of permission.
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Fashion Styling and Image Making with Lucinda Chambers - a new Business of Fashion course
Watch Video.  WATCH video.  Watch Now, 1 min 54 seconds, WATCH.
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Lucinda Williams, above, in her own voice, about styling.  Zero separation in styling clothes, gardens, architecture, etc. 
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From Lucinda:
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"Educate your eye."
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"It's a craft."
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"Everything is information."
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"Nothing is off limits."
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"It's not beyond your reach."
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"Passionate about doing it."
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"It's only for you."
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"It's completely doable."

Lucinda Chambers, Fashion Director of Vogue UK, photographed at her home in Shepherd's Bush
Pic, above, here.
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"For 36 years, Lucinda Chambers has been at the forefront of magazine publishing as fashion director of British Elle and British Vogue, where she held the position for 25 years and established long-lasting relationships with some of the world’s leading photographers, including Patrick Demarchelier, Nick Knight and Paolo Roversi. Throughout her career, she has also worked closely with fashion houses such as Marni, Prada, Jil Sander and Chanel, consulting on collections and advertising. Most recently, she styled Pharrell Williams and Imaan Hammam for the December 2017 cover of US Vogue."  Business of Fashion.
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Moving from my 30 year home/garden 3 years ago, toted 18 loads furniture-clothes-books-etc in my tiny beloved van, to the thrift store.  Wish I had discovered Lucinda before all those loads.  Happily, I didn't give away all my crazed, divine clothing purchases.  Better, gave me permission to buy more.
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In all my searching for more of Lucinda Williams garden, found nothing.
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Lucinda's garden, photos above, has the classic color trinity, green-brown-white, with subsidiary color, pink.  Did her home photo shoot in the garden, need a bit of styling, hence the pink sheet?
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Lamp, lampshade, old chairs, old table, macrame plant hanger, each mimic Lucinda's clothing and professional styling.  First rule of Garden Design, copy.  Garden Design rule, written by me long ago, "Does this garden make me want to go inside?" 
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Vine at the window, above?  Curtains for garden views.
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Photo shoot in Lucinda's garden a classic of enfilade styling. 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Saturday, March 3, 2018

The Biggest Landscape Mistake You Don't Know You're Making

Garden Design thought, as incentive, "I want an outdoor dining & living room."
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Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design thought, as punishment, "I need to do something with my backyard."
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Image result for ugly backyard
Pic, above, here.
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Change your thoughts, change your garden, and life.
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 Hamptons patio dining & entertaining - via Tom Samet
Pic, above, here.
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Awaiting Garden funds?  Looking at, above, put it into a different price point.  Concrete squares from hardware store & field gathered patio furniture all painted the same color.  Martha Washington used long wood planks atop saw-horses, with a plain cotton tablecloth, to host their many guests.
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Do you need to do something with your backyard?  Do you want a backyard dining & living room?
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Beware the questions and statements you make for your Garden.  Those questions will make, or degrade, your garden.  More, your life.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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The Power of Incentives: Inside The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior

“Never, ever, think about something else when you 
  should be thinking about the power of incentives.”
— Charlie Munger
According to Charlie Munger, there are only a few forces more powerful than incentives. In his speech “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment,” he reflects on how the power of incentives never disappoints him:
"Well, I think I’ve been in 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

Entire article, here.  

Thursday, February 22, 2018

How to Move Your Foundation Plantings While You Gain Your Life

During a time of life turbulence a quote appeared, without seeking, reading a magazine, It's Safe to Let Go.
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Wow, what a concept !  I'm not in charge.  Instead of clinging to that fantasy, Let it go.  Afraid to let go?  Don't be, it's quite a flight.  The ride of your life.
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Realizing it was said, too, in a movie, Out of Africa, "Let it go, this water belongs in Mombasa anyway."
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Moving away from that particular personal era of life, and into the land of green meatball foundation plantings.  You must realize, they are connected.  Literally connected.  Have been hired by several women thru the years, not many, merely several wanting to get their landscapes to match their hearts.
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Amazingly, all of those women had a hedge at the front of their property.  Hedges that I designed to open, Welcome, come in.  More amazing, during those years, being hired by hedge women, never realized I was part of their tribe.
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First epiphany, for me, pull foundation plantings away from the house.  Rather obvious, having studied historic gardens across Europe.  Years, I had my hedge, without a gate, similar to, below.
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Happy, content, thriving, adored having that hedge moved, opened my home, gave breathing space, birds/butterflies more numerous.  Finally, enough of filling the spiritual well, notice I created that fertile ground for myself, my well overflowed, epiphany arrived, put a gate into my hedge.  Just as I had done for clients. 
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Heads-up, none of this stuff works unless the epiphanies are your own, and you'll know.  Not exactly burning-bush moments but you will have the knowledge downloaded into your heart/DNA, and understand.  Still doubting, still unsure?  No worries, it's safe to let go.

923 Likes, 6 Comments - Tom Samet (@tomsamet) on Instagram: “Good Morning "East Hampton!" repost @skaufman4050 Full Bloom!”
Pic, above, here.
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My front yard hedge, below, after putting the gate in.

 TARA DILLARD: GARDEN DESIGNERS BLOGLINK: TARA'S TRINITY OF THE SOUTHERN GARDEN
Pic, above, shot in my front garden.
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My front yard today.  Lawn?
Pic, above, shot just inside my front hedge.
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Not snow, above.  Better, Chinese snowball blossom petals.  Caressing my plants, gravel, furniture, home, LIFE.

Playing with my front hedge at the street/curb, below.  Adoring rustic, pastoral, my garden drips abundance, upon many layers.
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Tara Dillard's front gate!
Pic, above, shot in my front garden.
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Looking at my front hedge, below, from inside.
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TARA DILLARD: Garden Design Begins Inside Your Home
Pic, above, shot in my front bay window.
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Standing in my front yard, below, inside the gated hedge, looking into the same bay window from, above.
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TARA DILLARD: Looking into my living room from the garden, chinese snow ball, lamps on, blue + white
Pic, above, shot looking into my front bay window.
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It does take a lot to get here.  Where?  Vanishing Threshold.  What exactly does that entail?  Knowing it's safe to let go.  Your garden is not in your head.  Your garden is in your heart.  Waiting for you.
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About being safe to let go.  You'll have the privilege of relearning it many times.  Each time, more riches.
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It was good fortune, knowing to turn to my garden, letting go.  Deeper than good fortune, an action going back centuries with many, each learning themselves, taking their own action steps of facing the fear, letting go, discovering the abundance of Providence.
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"In building this horticultural paradise, Tradescant presented nature as a book that man might read like the Bible.  He understood the world in the same way as Johannes Kepler, the brilliant German mathematician and astronomer, who had described it as 'the very Book of Nature in which G*d as Creator has revealed and depicted His being and His Will with Man in a wordless tract'."  Andrea Wulf & Emma Gieben-Gamal.
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Imagine my surprise, reading those words, above, last week.  Letting go, too many times to count, tumbling into the best rabbit hole, ever.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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"Christopher Wren believed harmonious proportions came from mathematical laws underpinning Nature."  Wulf & Gieben-Gamal.
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Until reading, This Other Eden, by Wulf & Gieben-Gamal, didn't realize Christopher Wren, architect, was Garden Designer also.
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Foundation plantings are a holy grail of USA landscaping.  It's safe to let go.  Do you realize what I found, moving my foundation plantings?  What words would you use?  What does your intuition tell you from reading this post?   I know what I found.  My life.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Why Have a Garden or Plants Inside

How to write about putting a Garden Design together?  Seriously, how?  After several attempts, writing for my first book's publisher, beyond horrid, I knew what to do.  Write about Garden Design in the same manner of every class I've ever taught in the Horticulture program at the local college, and Atlanta Botanical Garden.  Decades experience with those.
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In addition, this has never been mentioned outside my innermost tribe, choose what biblical scholars have chosen since the bible was written, obsess over a single word.  In a secular manner, of course. 
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At the front end I knew Garden Design, in your personal realm, held a huge gift to wield, selfishness.  That front end lasted almost 2 decades.  Epiphany arrived.  Selfishness, was the wrong word.  Correct word?  Grace.  Amusing.
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Personally, another word, for my own garden and gardening, presented, atonement.  Not religious, more literal, at-one-with.
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Studying historic landscapes across Europe for decades, many were estates with acreage.  Plenty of scope-for-the-imagination transposing their Garden Designs to subdivisions in USA.  Ironically, all, began as farms.
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Time passed, partaking historic world Garden Design for suburban USA, a layer, without awareness, learned.  Combining agriculture with ornamental horticulture.  This epiphany made me laugh out loud.  USA colleges, in their wisdom, separate the agriculture school from the ornamental horticulture school, Providence never has, never will.  Does this really matter?  Think, dead bees.  Won't go beyond this at the moment, quite its own rabbit hole, and we're already in a different rabbit hole.       

Lutyens Bench in Lush Setting | Landscape & Architectural Design: Arabella Lennox-Boyd
Pic, above, here.
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Scrolling thru pinterest yesterday, came across, above.  First thought, that's MY garden.  Designed, exact garden for myself decades ago, in the backyard of my 30 year home.  (Posted in earlier posts.)  Learned this style, Tara Turf Stone Terrace, while in Europe.  Fell, hard, pure putty.  This style Garden Design, above, not understood, in the macro, in USA.
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Southern Living magazine came to shoot that garden twice thru the years.  A day before they arrived, the second time, wasband, decided to help.  When I discovered his 'help' I let out a cry, nothing emerged but spit.  Tried again for voice, none, pure spit.  Knew to walk inside the house I was so mortified, not comprehending.  If he had tried to sabotage me, a life's work, he could not have chosen a better method. 
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My garden, same as above, was entirely pruned of its rustic backdrop hedge.  Gone, poof, over a decade of growing it to Garden Design perfection.  Guess what replaced that rustic backdrop hedge?  The side of my neighbor's home, mere feet away.  Spit?  Miracle I didn't stoke.  Wasband thought the RUSTIC HEDGE was garbage and I was lazy for letting it appear?  Part of a master plan I awaited years for. 
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There is patience, impatience, and, tarapatience which can go either way.
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Will move along, getting irritated just writing this terrible story.
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A few years ago, pinterest again, found this garden, below.  Stopped me flat.  Who did this?  Never, anywhere, country/continent, seen this Garden Design, below, excepting one place, my own garden.  I must meet this person, kindred spirit. 
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Vanity Fair shot this pic, it was within an article about Bunny Mellon, here.  Had never heard of her.  Looked up everything I could after seeing her garden.  Zero disappointment, instead, learning and epiphanies. 

 A birdhouse and pots of citrus. August 2010 Portfolio Inside Bunny Mellon’s Estate Photographs by Jonathan Becker
Pic, above, here.
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Both gardens, above, have the same layer of Garden Design.  Crazy rare in USA.  Do you intuit this layer, know what it is?  Hint, it's the missing link between Agriculture and Ornamental Horticulture. 
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More, it's the original Sustainable.  Further, it's the original Organic.  In addition, it's the original Eco.  Have I missed any words of horticultural commerce since 1960, aka filthy lucre?
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Head's up, Providence has no ornamental horticulture.  It's all Agriculture.  Remember my choice to obsess over single words?  Notice the capital letters.  Sure, learned a lot across Europe in historic gardens for decades.  Epiphanies from that learning arrived across decades working in my own garden.  Working?  Never worked a day in my garden.  Pure washing-of-the-servants-feet.
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What is this layer of Garden Design, pics above?  Pollinator habitat. 
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Gardening this way requires zero irrigation, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides.  Big Whoop, as one of my dearest WWII veterans liked to say.  Best Big Whoop ever, gardening this way increases agricultural crop yields by 80%.  Do the math.  Now do a bit of Johnny Cash, Meditate on it.
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After decades of Gardening, realized, to me, crazy-who-cares-whatever, but I still think it, the bible is the word of G*d written by man.  Nature is the word of G*d written by G*d.  Zero will to push this thinking upon you.  If G*d not your 'deal' fine, Nature is a pure science, as is Garden Design.  Garden Design is no will-o'-the-wisp. 
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From other realms, finding more words, better, describing thoughts transformed into literal experience.
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"Our culture doesn’t think storytelling is sacred; we don’t set aside a time of year for it. We don’t hold anything sacred except what organized religion declares to be so. Artists pursue a sacred call, although some would buck and rear at having their work labeled like this. Artists are lucky to have a form in which to express themselves; there is a sacredness about that, and a terrific sense of responsibility. We’ve got to do it right. Why do we have to do it right? Because that’s the whole point: either it’s right or it’s all wrong."  Ursula Le Guin
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"History is one way of telling stories, just like myth, fiction, or oral storytelling. But over the last hundred years, history has preempted the other forms of storytelling because of its claim to absolute, objective truth. Trying to be scientists, historians stood outside of history and told the story of how it was. All that has changed radically over the last twenty years. Historians now laugh at the pretense of objective truth. They agree that every age has its own history, and if there is any objective truth, we can’t reach it with words. History is not a science, it’s an art."  Ursula Le Guin
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Several years after discovering Bunny Mellon's gardening, I came to understand her topiaries.  Topiaries sprinkled throughout her interiors, and gardens.  She copied the idea of topiaries, and their shapes, from ancient Romans.  Made it her own.  More, shared with all.  With an eye to 'see'.
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"Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day- like writing a poem or saying a prayer."  Anne Morrow-Lindbergh
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A garden view you've created, from inside your home, is the same, to me, as Anne Morrow-Lindbergh discovered arranging a bowl of flowers.  Inherently the same, I think, Bunny Mellon thought of her topiaries, and garden.
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"One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience. There are always areas of vast silence in any culture, and part of an artist’s job is to go into those areas and come back from the silence with something to say. It’s one reason why we read poetry, because poets can give us the words we need. When we read good poetry, we often say, ‘Yeah, that’s it. That’s how I feel."  Ursula Leguin
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Had an aunt that liked to say, often, Life cannot be lived without art.  Loved her, thought her eccentric, time passed, I know she is wise.
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"Storytelling is a tool for knowing who we are and what we want, too. If we never find our experience described in poetry or stories, we assume that our experience is insignificant."  Ursula Le Guin
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Oddly, have discovered the opposite, about 'insignificant'.  Not in a good way......We assume that our experience is significant if we don't see/read about it elsewhere.  For Garden Design, proof is rampant throughout continents & centuries & cultures, ugly landscapes, landscapes that don't perform, landscapes that kill bees & poison ground water etc.
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Terminally Unique, phrase I learned in a group Lois formed for friends/family of alcoholics.  Until going into that Lois group I was Terminally Unique.  Blessedly, 1st meeting, got the memo.  Not Terminally Unique, merely collateral damage to the alcoholic in my life.  Significant, insignificant, words matter.  Once realization hit, bigly, about being collateral damage, it changed my life.  Anger & expectations left the room.  Once you lose being Terminally Unique, you realize it's been a wild ride having your fur rubbed off, maybe losing an eye, part of a foot, poof, Velveteen Rabbit, you've been loved into being real. 
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Nothing in Garden Design is original.  Nothing.  Over 11,000 years of Garden Design history, and literature, it's been done before.  More, why not choose to work with the greats?  I do.  Copy, it's the first rule of Garden Design. 
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Humorous reading yesterday morning.  Sunday early, cold, sitting by the fire, reading for pleasure, only the cats for company, sun awakening thru 2 walls of windows.  Discovering, more proof of not being original.  Me.  Not original.  Deeply pleasing, sublime.  Pure at-one-with-atonement.
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"We ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won’t get us very far."  Neils Bohr
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"That is why I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as “objective” and “subjective” are, a great liberation of thought. The whole thing started with the theory of relativity. In the past, the statement that two events are simultaneous was considered an objective assertion, one that could be communicated quite simply and that was open to verification by any observer. Today we know that “simultaneity” contains a subjective element, inasmuch as two events that appear simultaneous to an observer at rest are not necessarily simultaneous to an observer in motion. However, the relativistic description is also objective inasmuch as every observer can deduce by calculation what the other observer will perceive or has perceived. For all that, we have come a long way from the classical ideal of objective descriptions."  Neils Bohr
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" In quantum mechanics the departure from this ideal has been even more radical. We can still use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For instance, we can say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that cloud droplets have formed. But we can say nothing about the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation. To that extent, every physical process may be said to have objective and subjective features. The objective world of nineteenth-century science was, as we know today, an ideal, limiting case, but not the whole reality. Admittedly, even in our future encounters with reality we shall have to distinguish between the objective and the subjective side, to make a division between the two. But the location of the separation may depend on the way things are looked at; to a certain extent it can be chosen at will."  Neils Bohr
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Maria Popova, quoting Ursula Le Guin, moves on to Neils Bohr, in her Brain Pickings yesterday, adding, "This, Bohr notes, is why the language of objectivity doesn’t belong in religious rhetoric — religion and its pluralities are best understood, and best applied to human life as an instrument of moral enrichment rather than one of dogmatic constriction, through the lens of complementarity:"
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"The fact that different religions try to express this content in quite distinct spiritual forms is no real objection. Perhaps we ought to look upon these different forms as complementary descriptions which, though they exclude one another, are needed to convey the rich possibilities flowing from man’s relationship with the central order."  Neils Bohr
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Maria Popova goes on to write, " Bohr considers whether or not the tenets of religion can similarly offer useful abstractions, even though they are not to be taken as objective truth:

In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society. Even if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a particular human society, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its particular level of knowledge. Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and death and the human condition to other members of the society in which he’s chosen to live; he must educate his children according to the norms of that society, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot possibly help him attain these ends. Here, too, the relationship between critical thought about the spiritual content of a given religion and action based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that only a sense of being sheltered under an all-embracing roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set."  Neils Bohr
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Humbling to have experienced the conversations, above, practicing the art of Garden Design, garden writing, and gardening.  Finally, to the point, the experience of a Garden, gardening, or topiaries inside, is a conversation.  Whether you think so or not.   Don't have the garden you want?  Take your conversation, between you/your garden to a new level, 2nd order thinking to be exact.
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From Shane Parrish at Farnum Street,
“Second-Order Thinking
In his exceptional book, The Most Important ThingHoward Marks hits on the concept of second-order thinking, which he calls second-level thinking.
First-level thinking is simplistic and superficial, and just about everyone can do it (a bad sign for anything involving an attempt at superiority). All the first-level thinker needs is an opinion about the future, as in “The outlook for the company is favorable, meaning the stock will go up.” Second-level thinking is deep, complex and convoluted.
Second-order thinkers take into account a lot of what we put into our decision journals. Things like, What is the range of possible outcomes? What’s the probability I’m right? What’s the follow-on? How could I be wrong?
The real difference for me is that first-order thinkers are the people that look for things that are simple, easy, and defendable. Second-order thinkers push harder and don't accept the first conclusion.” Here, Second-Order Thinking: What Smart People Use to Outperform
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All I wanted was a pretty garden.  What a ride.  Bull is still bucking.  Hanging on, loving it.
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Karl Jung, "Our lives are about getting the inside to match the outside."  
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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Perhaps you would like to receive Brain Pickings.  

This is the weekly email digest of brainpickings.org by Maria Popova. If you missed the special annual edition of highlights, here is the best of Brain Pickings2017. If you missed last week's regular edition — Ursula K. Le Guin on what makes life worth living, an illustrated meditation on our paths to acceptance, Jane Hirshfield on writing and the fluid self — you can catch up right here. And if you're enjoying this newsletter, please consider supporting my labor of love with a donation – each month, I spend hundreds of hours and tremendous resources on it, and every little bit of support helps enormously. If you already donate: THANK YOU.

Not a paid endorsement, nor bartered, Brain Pickings or Farnum Street.
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Thursday, February 1, 2018

Home Office & Garden

Garden Design begins inside your home.  Views looking out.  Especially your important views.  Your  office desk must have a good garden view.  Too bad cell phone/laptop/blogs didn't exist at the front end of my career.  Why do so many put their office in a basement, with views to horridity?  In a noticeable shift, many clients now put their home office in prime real estate, not the basement.
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Winston Churchill, below, at his Disraeli desk.
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Image result for disraeli desk
Pic, above, here.
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I had a carpenter copy, below, Winston Churchill's Disraeli desk from this photo, above, about 2 decades ago.  He had no dimensions to copy from.
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Carpenter asked what type of wood.  A bit showy, immediately answered, tiger maple.
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My office has been repainted the past week, not quite complete, with unexpected plaster repair.  Color?  Best color ever, and I did not choose it, this room was already painted lightest pink by previous owner.  Never a pink person, walked into the room, LOVE, at first sight.  As the days pass, almost 3 years in our ca. 1900 home, I love this pink more.
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 Image may contain: indoor
Pic, above, shot in my office yesterday morning.
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Tiger maple Disraeli desk, above, setting on a table awaiting Conservatory construction. 
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Pic, above, tiger maple Disraeli desk, shot in my office yesterday morning.
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Aside from making me happy, the pink walls have another super power, the pink changes drastically throughout the day, by the second.
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Found the exact pink for repainting, Benjamin Moore, Classic Colors, Key Pearl - 885.  If you've wanted a faint, magical pink, Key Pearl.
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Empty, my office echoes, have been doing many whip-poor-ill whistles, ridiculous, but oddly deeply, satisfying.  With furniture it's overstuffed, several pieces awaiting removal to that future Conservatory.
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As Matisse did with many works, my office and my garden have no threshold, they are one.  Vanishing Threshold.
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Wanting to give you a fabulous garden, wonderful, a home & garden without threshold, beyond wonderful.
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Now that you know, hope you already have this for yourself, if not, create it, own it, live deeply in it.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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A few home office events, below.

Saturday, December 27, 2014


Creating a Life of Roses

She sensed I was sinking.  I didn't know I was.
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With time, clarity.
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At the driveway between the Big House where she lived, and the Carriage House where I lived, backed by 50 acres of wood & pasture with horses & dogs & cats, and solitude, she slipped me a volume, 
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A life raft.




Written at Long Barn, above, the home she rented from, Vita Sackville-West, Morrow mentions a moment.  Coming into the room, a climbing rose tendril & bloom had fallen inside the open window.
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In that instant I was crying, heaving cannot breath tears.
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My life was horrible, and no where near having something as beautiful and sweet as a rose blossom falling into my house from the garden.



Jumping forward a decade+, I walked into my home office, upstairs, opened the window, and a climbing rose, dropped tendril & blossom softly onto my desk.
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This rose said, "You've been flying for quite awhile, you grew the wings you needed."   Until that moment, I had forgotten those heaving tears a decade earlier.  New tears, as unexpectedly, with the same heaving force, except I was catching breaths between laughter.
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Jumping forward 2 decades, I'm still in awe of these 2 roses, anchoring a decade, and the start of living.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics from Yale library, here.  This is my Janus, January, story, what is yours?
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Of course I read all of Morrow's books after the 1st gift.  Have given them as gifts.  Paying it forward.  Giving it your all?  Not happy?  Buy the book, hit the link.


Monday, November 22, 2010


Hepcat

Finally, met a HEPCAT, below.
My right hand on his dropleaf table at Scott Antique Market this month, he anticipated my intent, before I finished my sentence, he had grabbed my right hand & lowered to his knees. Firmly guiding my hand (me clueless) to a screw. They were loose on purpose.
Bought the Hungarian chest & too cute watering can, above, before I met my HEPCAT.
HEPCAT knew loose screws would make it quicker to get the legs off the table.
HEPCAT wanted $175 for the table, (me- intense eye contact), then he said $145? I said, "You think about that price while I wander the booths & come back." "$100?" "Sold, will you keep the table while I wander?" He grabbed my hand, "Let's shake."
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There was something intensely USA-of-my-childhood, real, true, honest, earnest, delightful, a light behind his eyes, spiritual, joyful, peaceful, warm, intelligent, been thru the fire & came out a phoenix within HEPCAT.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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HEPCAT, George, was at the location inside the perimeter & selling his wares outside on the sidewalk at the end of the building. Poppets, you do realize what these acquisitions are for? My new conservatory!!!

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Garden Design: No Flowers

Designing a garden, now, with horrid views thru a pair of formal dining room windows.  Horrid.
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Pool pumps, rickety/collapsing/rotted potting table, spent/broken pots, stacked plastic bags potting soil, you have the vision.
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Luckily pool pumps are backed by another wall of the home, clad in lapboard.  Easy fix.  Carpenter will fence pool pumps, to proper height, in matching lapboard, each section removable for maintenance.  Have ridden this bull at rodeo before.
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Remaining disasters easy fix too.  The pair of windows are several feet apart on the same wall.  Carpenter will make custom potting table running full length of window-wall-window.  At each window, clustered, a collection of topiaries in her well chosen lead color pots.
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A flock of topiaries, plenty to swap inside her dining room, yet have rich amount for outside views too, on that new potting table.  This is Vanishing Threshold.  Notice, Garden Design goes inside.  More than the topiary arena, but that's beyond the scope of this missive.

463 Likes, 13 Comments - White Flower Farmhouse (@whiteflowerfarmhouse) on Instagram: “Topiaries in the shop #northfork #nofo #farmhousestyle #topiary #whiteflowerfarmhouse…”
Pic, above, here.

Garden Design begins inside your home, below.  Views to the garden, everything.

 7. Мой дом
Pic, above, here.
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Just wow, below.  Curtains take on a new meaning in this home.  Candle & vase of foliage pure homage to the work of Providence.

 The Autumn Window = happinessPic, above, here.
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How could I let my client look at pool pumps and a broken potting table?  Not in my realm.
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Gorgeous 30 Modern Dining Room Decoration Ideas https://bellezaroom.com/2017/09/03/30-modern-dining-room-decoration-ideas/
Pic, above, here.
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Another new layer for her Garden Design.  Replacing a wall of windows with this door, above.
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 Susanne Hudson's conservatory, with hydrangeas.  via Tara Dillard.
Shot pic, above, in Susanne Hudson's garden.
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She's also getting her Conservatory this layer.
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 Red Door Home: October RDH Blog of the Month – Belgian Pearls
Pic, above, here.
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Muse surprised me, above.  Client is also getting the open portion of this structure; client's scaled a bit longer.  It's on axis with the opposite end of her garden. 

This is phase 2, with my client.  Mentioned new clients to her, and their husband's mostly worried about the 'Garden Designer' spending money on flowers.  Her best laugh of the appointment.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Best Color Trinity

Towards the front end of your Garden Design, choose a color trinity for your exterior.  House, furniture, gates, light fixtures, pots, hardware, fencing, watering cans, door mats, knobs, etc.  In addition, choose a name for your home/garden.  Once you've done both, order note cards, name cards, using the color trinity.
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Green-Brown-White is the classic color trinity for over 2,000 years.  Chosen by the best minds across centuries, seemingly chosen by Providence.  Magic in Green-Brown-White ?  It's unique for all permutations.
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Where do I pull colors from for clients?  Inside the house.  Art, furniture, wallpaper, rugs, etc.  Uniformly, once colors suggested, "I love that !"  Of course.


Pic, above, here.
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In addition to Green-Brown-White, you get to choose a subsidiary color/s.  To be used as hints, and also pulled from interiors, especially your art.  Scrumptious Green-Brown-White, below.  Saved for colors but seems more a current USA political poster.

Padlet example of Medieval Mumblings, an introduction to Medieval History
Pic, above, here.
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Through many years of choosing exterior Green-Brown-White, something pops immediately.  At first painting, home/garden recede into their niche, radiating considered contentment, an air of inevitability, and timelessness.   

 Front yard inspiration-curving line to doorwY with bench along the path, plus arbor over front windows
Pic, above, here.
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Humbling, this moth, below.

 This Spanish moon moth is flaunting his good looks in the handful of days he has left to live. Unable to eat after emerging from his cocoon, the adult devotes all of his remaining time and energy to reproduction.
Pic, above, here.

 Charleston Single House-style home
Pic, above, here.

 'Austeja' (Lithuanian bee goddess) by illustrator Q. Cassetti. I think it would look great as a felted tapestry.
Pic, above, here.
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Aside from Green-Brown-White, above, all those subsidiary colors.  Be still my heart.
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There's little I encounter, not seen thru a Garden prism.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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An answer to my question, yesterday, about Lucinda Wharton:

"Curious about her parents, how they raised this old soul child."

Lady Rebecca Eildon Courtenay (b. 1969), is married to Jeremy Lloyd Wharton; they have three daughters: Alice Lucinda Wharton (b. 1998), Emilia Rose Wharton (b. 1999) and Tatiana Elizabeth Wharton (b. 2002).

-the above from Lucinda Wharton's grandfather's Wikipedia entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Courtenay,_18th_Earl_of_Devon

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Thank you, The Hunting House, would not have known where to begin.  Lucinda's love for her home in the country, palpable.