Thursday, May 4, 2017

Chicken Intuitive

Chickens arrived in my life, 5 birthdays ago.  Eight heirloom girls.  Green, blue, white, & brown eggs.
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Before their 1st month of life, it was obvious, I'm good with my chickens.  Intuitive.  Oddly, understanding their commands.  Until getting my girls I was a chicken virgin.
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If you understand dog/cat commands, you should probably understand chickens.  Maybe not.
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My chickens give me pleasure, daily.  Entertaining, never boring.  They're beautiful too.  Calming, like watching ocean waves.
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More, I've discovered chicken people, such as myself, overlap much in our DNA, becoming quick friends.
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It hasn't been lost on Beloved how much better I am with chickens & gardens, than a man.


BALLERINA~MOM~BLOGGER:
Pic, above, here.

After we had lunch today near our home, I did the ubiquitous, cleared Beloved's plate into napkins.  For some reason, my pleasure with his tasty crumbs, irks him no end.  "Oh, the girls love a biscuit.  Pizza is their fav, but cantaloupe....", I got the-look.  Quickly I mentioned his homemade biscuits I dole out 1/morning.  My girls truly love Beloved's homemade biscuits best, "Crumb Pecking Good", were my exact words.


chick's work is never fone.:
Pic, above, here.

Chicken, above, beautiful, and the one, below, loved well, just like my girls.

I want somebody to love me like this boy loves his chicken:
Pic, above, here.


 ....worth noting that you can get them for free from a farm i bet (they don't wait for them to molt anymore, they just get new ones):
Pic, above, here.

I don't write about 'how-to' with chickens.  Not that kind of expert.  My chickens are for my soul, teaching me all sorts of bible metaphors, in addition to their comedy routines, and pure joy.

this is exactly how I would dress to feed chickens.:

Pic, above, here.
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Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, above.  I went to Chatsworth, historic garden design study, years before having chickens.  Now, thinking, How could I not have made sure to see her chickens?
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After getting home, and giving the girls Beloved's scraps, including a bit of biscuit, proof again, Beloved's homemade biscuits are crumb pecking good.  Store bought biscuit crumbs, ignored.
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If you're thinking of getting chickens for the 1st time, my Pinterest Chicken Board has a lot of good links.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Hope you already know, The Vintage Contessa, from the top pic.  She's gardens & chickens too, along with junking, vintage clothes, Italy, her sons, her husband, etc.  From her latest post, "Then YOU have me in my CONTESSA CURTAIN COATS who at almost 57 would LOVE TO OWN a full length LEOPARD PRINT COAT!!!INstead,I have had coats made out of old curtains!!!I had the POCKETS MADE BIG to GATHER the HENS EGGS.I did not want to go down to the coop and scold myself for forgetting the basket……..you see I wander the garden in the cool summer mornings and enjoy visiting with THE GIRLS.They are always happy to see me!"

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Show Me Your Garden Tools

Only one arena, during my formal Garden Design education included the 'work area' for a garden.  A shed, barn or garage, most with an outdoor space for compost, wheelbarrows, ladders, etc.
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Gardens I studied across Europe, had work areas.  Got the memo.
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Low maintenance gardens, aside from their design, include work areas.  Further, I've added, 2 sets of your go-to tools.  One at the front of your home, another at the back.  Get an odd gift of 30 minutes ?  Go into the garden, get a few easy things done.  Won't happen if you have to hunt for your pruners &tc.  "Show me where you keep your garden tools.", I ask for my garden design work.  
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Almost 2 years moved from my 30 year home/garden I'm still missing my organized garage.  Our ca. 1900 home has no garage, a couple of sheds, both utilized with Beloved's 'stuff', and a graveled basement.  He's sourcing the perfect pole barn now, once built, and a bay enclosed, the sheds become 'mine'.
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Ironically, I tease Beloved he did not fall in love with me, but my garage.  In all sincerity, about every 2 weeks Beloved asks me for some 'tool', Where is, Get me, I need, Can you find, blahblahblah.  You know I want him to have his pole barn.  Knew my garage was important, now I know too well its outsized importance.  
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Jokes collected by Bear … Hope you had a laugh. https://beartales.me/2017/05/03/great-jokes-3-may-2017/:
Pic, above, here.
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Yard work is a breeze when your garage is organized! Get this wall unit from #MarthaStewartLiving and more ideas to store your homekeeping essentials.:
Pic, above, here.
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Nice start, above, but a lot of wasted space.  Condense tools, add a table, staged to hold pruners, nails, screws, twine, wire, &tc
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A pretty table, a lamp, you know the drill.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Vanishing Threshold: Bunny Mellon

From the garden, below, a view of the terrace.  Exactly the photographic style of the 80's.  Each piece, every layer, in alignment to the Narrative.  This story a trinity between owner, beauty, happiness.
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Vanishing Threshold, inside/outside have no boundary.
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How do I know this?  Before her, below, and a tiny contingent of other 'hers', I was writing the same story at my home/garden.
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Seeing this pic, below, the 1st time, I knew who it belonged to.  Linking backwards, discovering I was not wrong, Bunny Mellon.  Originating in the pages of Architectural Digest, its caption, "Antigua Residence: A terrace features an Henri Rousseau landscape."
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A great laugh, the painting.  My 1st urge, wanting to call my client/friend/mentor Mary Kistner, we needed one of our trademark meandering lunches for me to divulge this rich tidbit.  Mary was creating her Vanishing Threshold trinity decades before I was born.  This, merely another delight we will share once we are in the same place again.  Mary died over a decade ago.

Tour the Exquisite Homes and Gardens of Late Design Legend Bunny Mellon Photos | Architectural Digest:
Pic, above, here.
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Oil paintings I've put on terraces & porches, for decades, for myself/clients have all been from thrift/junk shops.
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Of course Bunny put a Rousseau painting on her terrace.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Mary Kistner was a collage artist in the style of Kurt Schwitters, she installed art shows for other artists at several museums across USA, her memorial service was in a museum, standing room only.  Perhaps you can see those layers in the pic, above.  A few weeks after Mary died I received a call from her estate attorney, Mary left me something & an appointment needed to be made for pick-up.
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In my office, just above my laptop, is her bequest, an already framed piece of her collage art.  Titled, "Feuillage IX", MKistner 2000.  Receiving her bequest, and a few times since, has brought happy & grieving tears.  Mary had, I know, a wicked glint in her eyes & trademark smile, putting "Feuillage IX" into her will to me.  At one of our lunches, it had to be in fall, I shared with her my epiphany about falling leaves, while I was driving along Hugh Howell Road in Tucker, GA.  Decades of seeing falling leaves, I finally got the biblical narrative.  Trees drop their leaves, and are fed by them, every year of their life.          
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More, trees drop their leaves ahead of the brutal season, winter.  Vigorously showing off their lacy branching beauty against the sky, richly taking in strength from what they let go of.  The bible, inspired word of G*d written by man.  Nature, inspired writing of G*d.

Monday, May 1, 2017

When the Shovels Speak


Through the decades how many discarded shovels have I seen?  Never did I see this, below, in them.

amazing giant fir cone sculpture made from old shovels, by artist Floyd Elzinga... would be beautiful in the garden:
Pic, above, here.
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"...expression is not revelation...Art reveals something beyond the message."
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"A poem of the right shape will hold a thousand truths.  But it doesn't say any of them."
Ursula  K. Le Guin
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I saw shovels and took them for noise, he, above, saw shovels and took them for signal.  Where else am I confusing the map for the compass?
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"Learning is something you pursue for yourself, after all, whereas education is something that is done to you."  Farnum Street
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"The notion that you can look at a work of art as pure form strikes me as idiocy.  If the work comes at you, it comes with everything it's got, all at once."  William Rubin, MOMA curator
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"...A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences.  So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem."  Steve Jobs.
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"Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought." Einstein.
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"Take an object.  Do something with it.  Do something else with it."  Jasper Johns.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Friday, April 28, 2017

Dry Stream Beds


Oh my, below.  A lot of stone, and effort.  Wish I could have our stone mason, using the same stones, do his magic.  Giving him total freedom, only saying, "Javier, this looks like a truck drove across the lawn pooping stone.  Fix it, however you wish."

Dry Creek River Bed Landscaping | Car Interior Design:
Pic, above, here.


Garden at Kannon - ni...:
Pic, above, here.

Paying attention to neighborhoods closing in on a century of age it's easily apparent which type of stone channel performs best over time.  I've seen variations on this stone water channel, below, for decades in the oldest of neighborhoods.  All, still safely channeling the water away.  Some used stone, some brick, some a mix of both.
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Called to work at a historic home, the stone water channels were a pretty wabi sabi rabbit warren of pattern in the garden and at the base of the home.  The new owner said they wanted to get rid of them.  I asked if their extensive daylight basement stayed dry after heavy storms, "Yes.", was water ponding elsewhere in the garden, "No."  They kept the stone channels.
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 Drainage - driveway landscaping ideas | Park Landscape Design Driveways:
Pic, above, here.
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With new neighborhoods I've noticed what the first houses do in their landscape, the rest of the neighborhood tends to copy.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Entry Ways: Flow & Focal Point

Studying garden pics on book/magazine covers since the 80's, it's not hard to realize the more entry ways a garden has, the better a garden is.  Enfilades rule.  And, the focal point is primo.
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Studying more deeply, it becomes obvious, entry ways in a garden are focal points, yet the rule for focal points is, One focal point per area.
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Breaking garden design rules, is inherent to historic garden design.  Modern too.
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Instantly, below, I wonder why the screened porch doesn't have a door at its left, and front.
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Adding the doors, a necessity, adds magic circles.  Flow.  As shown I hear Cole Porter, Don't Fence Me In.

Modern Farmhouse just outside of downtown Austin, TX for a family of four and their dog Hank.:
Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Twig Fencing: Get the Look For Less

Oddly, most often, adding 'more' to a small space, enlarges it.  Another of those COUNTERINTUITIVITIES about Garden Design.  Off topic, but had to mention it.  More, off topic, deer won't jump a fence they can't see thru/beyond.
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Twig fencing, below, hard to copy throughout most of USA.  Make it yourself?  Sure, in your spare time.  Great, you've sourced it ready-made, now to afford it.


In the high places of Dorset - Ben Pentreath Inspiration:
Pic, above, here.

Luckily, big box stores sell rolls of reed fencing, below.

 
Pic, above, here.


 Marmalade Season - Charlie McCormick:
Pic, above, here.
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Perhaps reed fencing is now input into your Garden Design vision questing.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Are You a Picnic Person?

My mother-in-law introduced me to 'The Picnic'.  Moth to a flame.  My mom let it be known putting peanut butter/jelly on bread for a small child at home was stupid, odious and a ridiculous waste of time.  A picnic?  Not happening.  So.  The concept of spending days hunting/gathering for a picnic, taking place at an exotic location, the more inconvenient the better, and finding the exact right recipe for vichyssoise soup as a picnic 1st course, which china to pack, the best wines to pair with the food, cloth napkins, and so much more.  Yes, yes, yes, I bought the farm, love a picnic.
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My last proper picnic was too long ago.  Went with 2 lady friends to the Kentucky Derby.  We packed an incredible picnic.  Enjoying ourselves immensely the oddest thing kept happening.  Passerby taking our picture, some even asked if it was ok to get our picture.
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Last year we had plans for a holiday lunch that fell through.  Beloved asked me, What do you want to do now?  I said let's go get some things, pack it up, and have a picnic by the pond, at the back of the property.
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Whoa.  That took the air out of him.  He got that look, Is she crazy !  We had no picnic.  In fact, that's all I remember about it, no picnic.  What we did instead, zero memory.
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Saw this pic, below, a few days ago, and all I could think was the picnic I didn't have at the pond vs. the many picnics taken with my mother-in-law through the decades.
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If you've read, To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Wolfe, know that I refuse to let a picnic by my pond become that trip to the lighthouse.  Too much fun to be had, inviting my local core of lady friends for a picnic by the pond this fall.


Having a picnic near the tulip bulb fields of Aalsmeer, the Netherlands, 1960, via Collectie SPAARNESTAD, Nationaal Archief Commons on flickr. The largest flower auction in the world is in Aalsmeer…:
Pic, above, here.
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Are you a picnic person?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

A Cure for the Green Meatball

Truly curious.  Did green waves, below, start life as green meatballs?  Hope these green waves sail a thousand ships.
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Fence color.  Perfect, enlarges the space, and the potted tree, again, color enlarges its space too.
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Both artworks sited on axis from the house, with pure museum backdrop.
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Gas grill is pruned into its niche, hiding from view.
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Little maintenance, merely blowing, pruning.  Would like to see same shot with the green waves at their peak of scruffy, before a pruning day.

love the green backdrop to the pieces:
Pic, above, here.
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Bravo to the pruner, foliage to the gravel.  Amazing perfection.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Monday, April 17, 2017

Mercy: Man & Dog

A lot of reasons to smile, below.
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If this man does/could have a garden, I know it would be wonderful.  He's got the attitude.  Garden Design is over 11,000 years old, and has a lot of  'rules', each one meant to be intelligently broken with love, simplicity, wit.  Proving, afresh, why the ancient Garden Design rules, rule.
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Laura, it's a small bag! Too bad it can't be a large bag and hold 8 items.:
Pic, above, here.
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"Mercy is the conscious choice to be kind when one can be cruel."  Mercy...."seeded in scripture yet almost biologically encoded into human nature."
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There is an ineffable secularized mercy, above, from man to dog.  Yet that mercy travels in both directions, in giving mercy to his dog, it pours back onto him.  And why the pic reeks of love.
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In my garden, without intention or knowledge aforethought  I found this secularized mercy, mercy profane.  Continuing to garden, decades, hallelujah, epiphany finally arrived and I got the memo, sacred mercy.

"Practicing mercy can be redemptive and rebellious."  Mercy can be used as a shield, toward ourselves, above, and others.  For years I labeled this the-good-selfishness, until realizing it as grace.
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"Mercy only exists because of and as a counterpoint to our capacity for cruelty."  In a garden is the harvest, mercy, against life's cruelty.  Ironic the story of man/woman 1st placed on Earth in a garden, sin entered, poof they were sent into the cruel world.  It's no wonder I love a garden.
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Before moving away from my 30 year garden, 2 years ago, I knew it would be hard.  Deeply hard.  There were no words, trying to articulate to Beloved what I was leaving.  Now, 2 years later, I have the words.  Leaving my 30 year garden I left its unconditional love, and mercy.  Beyond reason, beyond doubt, I know unconditional love & mercy need not come from a person.  G*d has given myriad resources for those gifts.  
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"In denying others mercy, we deny ourselves."  Pure Joseph Campbell territory of follow your bliss.  Within it you will find mercy profane, and sacred.  And, of course the Earth wisdom of Wendell Berry.
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All quotes, above, Anne Lamott.  Wendell Berry & Joseph Campbell, below.
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The old and honorable idea of 'vocation' is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber596505.html
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There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber596494.html
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Urban conservationists may feel entitled to be unconcerned about food production because they are not farmers. But they can't be let off so easily, for they are all farming by proxy. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber461112.html
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The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber461100.html
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Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/josephcamp390717.html
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"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."    Joseph Campbell
Love is a friendship set to music."  Joseph Campbell.
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Love is a friendship set to music.  "  Joseph Campbell.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Friday, April 14, 2017

Decadence at Garden Entry

The first time I arrived to Penny's drive, below, my car stopped as the hydrangeas lay heavy either side my hood.  Had to stop.  To take in what was happening.  More than greeting my arrival, I was being caressed.
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Garden Design's decadent greeting.
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Creating entryways in a garden, perhaps the most overlooked necessity.  Early into serious Garden Design study it was obvious, the more entry ways a garden has the better a garden is.
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Penny took it to new layers.

The country garden hydrangea gate.    Renae Moore Designs: Gardening with Tara Dillard:
Pic, above, here.


 TARA DILLARD: Focal Points in the Landscape:

If you've read my missives for a length of time, you know exactly what to do next.  Copy.
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Entry into my backyard, above, entry into my frontyard, below.  Hello.

TARA DILLARD: GARDEN DESIGNERS BLOGLINK: TARA'S TRINITY OF THE SOUTHERN GARDEN:

Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Pics of my garden, above, taken in my previous 30 year cottage garden.  Penny founded the American Hydrangea Society, and the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival in Douglasville, GA is a huge annual success.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

What's Missing from this Front Porch?

Sitting on the front porch swing, below, yesterday before dinner.
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Furnishings are functional, still not 'permanent' after moving here 2 years ago.  Awaiting back deck staining & building a conservatory, both may pull furniture from front porch.  Until then, no worries, I like using the front porch.    Floor, below, still needs staining.
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Chair, at front door, below, leverages me coming/going from my car for work and grocery, always something to set down.  Better, that chair has the best packages delivered upon it.  Moving in, a friend told me, because I was now in middle of nowhere, You've got to get amazon prime.  Never considered that a need.  Now rural, it's a need.
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3 ceiling fans are a need.  Rural insects dine upon livestock patties, growing to impressive sizes, while having a higher IQ than their city counterparts.  They're born knowing my name, where I live, and adoring my hide.  Worse, they love going for car rides.  
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Notice what is missing below?
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Huge.
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Ironic for a Garden Designer, yet a point of particular pride.

Image may contain: outdoor and indoor

Posted this pic, above, on my facebook yesterday.  Asking same question, What's Missing?  Got a quick answer from hilarious source.
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Surprisingly got answers that I wasn't looking for, but were true answers.  People are rarely a component of my Garden Design photos.  During my formative era, Garden Design photos rarely had people in them.  But there was a stronger reason for having no people.  Money.  With a roll of slide film, I could only afford usable pics that would last decades.  People & cars date a garden pic.
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Still life pulls me greatly.  Interior/exterior.  An invitation to enter.  Someone noticed that too.  A+ to him, he left me a bit stunned, as if he'd found a 'secret' !
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That friend knowing immediately what's missing, above, was the daughter-in-law of my former boss.  Her father-in-law owned the nursery/florist I worked for doing propagation work for 2.5 years.  Learned much from her father-in-law, and always enjoyed seeing him at industry events for decades.  A good man, gone many years.  Now, she & her husband own that nursery.  It's obvious what's missing right?  Plants.
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Not to that layer yet, excitedly anticipating growing small topiaries in terra cotta pots, a Bunny Mellon layer, and in a funny twist, interesting begonias.  A particular begonia from a friend's grandmother's plant, and here's the twist, that nursery I worked at as a propagator has an outstanding variety of old fashioned begonias.
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Until the plant layer arrives, I'm enjoying the anticipation.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T