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."

Garden Design: From Low Order Thinking to Emergent Behavior

Chairs, below, come in aluminum.  Don't know if these are.
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At the front end of wanting a pretty landscape this type of garden, below, was intimidating, for the most ridiculous of reasons.  Aside from assuming great expense, it got worse.  Who was I to have a garden like this?  Certainly a low order of mentality.
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"There is a kind of shrewdness many men have that enables them to get money.  It is the shrewdness of the fox after the chicken.  A low order of mentality goes with it."  Sherwood Anderson, 1876-1941, in a letter to his son.
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Low level thinking, I was spot on. 


Pic, above, here.
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"Inspiration exists but it has to find you working." Pablo Picasso
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".....acquire power over your aye and no and learn to hold and withhold them in accordance with your higher aims."  W.E.B. DuBois in a letter to his daughter.
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Plantaholic, no worries about Garden Design.  Getting the plants I wanted, arranging them beautifully, while delightful in the micro, macro was the true hunt.  Ah, seeing past the low order of mentality.  (One must keep a sense of humor about our past selves.)
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See plant I love, buy it, until about age 26.  That was my low order power thinking.  I was that fox just-a-gittin'it-after-the-chicken.
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"Power laws are interesting because they reveal surprising correlations between disparate factors as a mental model, power laws are versatile, with numerous applications in different fields of knowledge." Shane Parrish. 
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Moving further from the fox just-a-gittin-it there are linear relationships, 'twice as big requires twice as much, non-linear relationships 'don't need twice as much for twice as big' they're a more efficient system.  Finally, there is the complex system, a system made up of myriad components, called emergent behavior.  Emergent behavior, "In many instances the whole seems to take on a life of its own.  Almost disassociated from the specific characteristics of it's individual building block." Geoffrey West.
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For the time & money my first landscape, in my early 20's, quickly showed "Diminishing returns: Point where more input yields progressively less output."  Shane Parrish.  Also known as my inspiration to work harder, buy books, take classes, get another college degree, horticulture.  That first garden made from love, but low order thinking, was not what I wanted.  I was smart, energetic, in deep desire, yet the garden, awful.
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Garden Design is not the fox after the chicken, nor linear thinking or non-linear thinking, and more than a complex system.  Garden Design is Emergent Behavior.  Layers of garden design rules compound upon themselves, how could they not, working with living materials, weather, and the non-linear relationships of much of this narrative between layers and their collateral 'amplify results'.
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Still with me?
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"Any fool knows that to work hard at something you want to accomplish is the only way to Be Happy."  Eugene O'Neil.
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Back to the garden, above.  It's a Garden Design course in a single photo.  Hi density/low density, canopy, understory, walls, floors, focal points, entries, axis, double axis, comfort, dining/furnishings, Nature, invitation, pretty all year, even in snow.  Further, if plantings are chosen wisely, they will be deer proof, need no irrigation/chemicals, little pruning.   
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Earthing: Bare Feet on Earth, Why You Need Earthing & The Science of Earthing

Front end of my career in horticulture I lectured at local garden clubs.  Decades later, still lecturing at local garden clubs, in addition to key note lecturing in auditoriums, ballrooms, tents...  Why?  Old school, paying it forward.  I owe the Garden Clubs.
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Garden Club ladies 'made' my career.  More, I see & experience what Garden Clubs do for their individual neighborhoods.  What?  Garden Clubs are the last bastion of civility in the tapestry of community.  They keep neighborhoods informed of police activity, new/departing neighbors, holiday decorating, neighbors with a major health issue or new baby, often they send cards, bring meals, sponsor a yearly garden tour, have annual all neighborhood party, provide scholarships, maintain entrance signs/landscape and more.
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Rare is the Garden Club lecture given, without me learning something new. 
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Giving a Garden Club lecture last month, during the Q/A, blessedly, a woman mentioned, walking on Earth barefoot.  She didn't have a lot of knowledge about it but she had bought a book about Earthing, not read yet.
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Fruit loopy enough to catch my attention.  A joy to be past the age of perfect knowledge, instead of thinking she was a fruitcake.  Today, had time to look up her cray cray comments about walking on Earth barefoot.


Pic, above, here.
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The National Institutes of Health produced, Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth's Surface Electrons. 
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  Abstract
"Environmental medicine generally addresses environmental factors with a negative impact on human health. However, emerging scientific research has revealed a surprisingly positive and overlooked environmental factor on health: direct physical contact with the vast supply of electrons on the surface of the Earth. Modern lifestyle separates humans from such contact. The research suggests that this disconnect may be a major contributor to physiological dysfunction and unwellness. Reconnection with the Earth's electrons has been found to promote intriguing physiological changes and subjective reports of well-being. Earthing (or grounding) refers to the discovery of benefits—including better sleep and reduced pain—from walking barefoot outside or sitting, working, or sleeping indoors connected to conductive systems that transfer the Earth's electrons from the ground into the body. This paper reviews the earthing research and the potential of earthing as a simple and easily accessed global modality of significant clinical importance. "  Full article, here. 


 
Pic, above, here.
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The Earth Beneath Your Feet (Part 1): Why Going Barefoot May Boost Your Health and Beauty (and Dirt Just Might Act as a Giant Antioxidant), by Sara Gottfried, MD.

"Is “Earthing” Totally Woo-Woo Pseudoscience?

It’s called earthing because some scientists theorize that to stay healthy, particularly with all the stray electrons we’re exposed to from constant smart phone and computer use to insulation from our cars and shoes from earth energy, our bodies need a daily charge from mild electrical currents surging through the earth’s surface.

Think of yourself as a walking talking battery-powered device. You need to plug into the earth to keep all your systems charged and running at optimum levels, particularly your adrenal glands and how they are managed by your brain signals (and burned out by stress).  Hey, it works for your phone and your toothbrush… why not the human body?

Sometimes called grounding, you can also accomplish the task by swimming in salt water. Just like electrical connections in our homes need to be grounded, so do we.  Otherwise we go all haywire and the results can be major mood tankers such as: chronic pain, sleep issues, endocrine imbalances, depression, anxiety and possibly even mood swings and weight problems.  Even the aging process itself."  Full article, here. 

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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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From, David Benjamin,

" By walking barefoot we experience multiple benefits that we don’t receive either at all or nearly as much by walking with shoes. One of the more obvious benefits of walking barefoot is that we have a connection to the earth and it’s magnetic field. Our body is conductive to the earth and the earth is conductive to our body. The earth is full of negative ions and we flood our body with negative ions by walking barefoot, this is also known as ‘earthing’ or grounding. A great book to read to learn more about this is the book Earthing by: Clinton Ober.

We need negative ions, especially in today’s world. Positive ions are more abundant in cities and anywhere near electronics and electro-magnetic frequencies. Think your cell phone, laptop, tablet, television, cell phone towers, microwave etc. Basically anything with a power source that emits a signal, bluetooth, wifi, even electronics that don’t emit a signal still emit positive ions. Because we live in a world of positive ions and disconnect ourselves from the earth’s natural negative ion field we are flooding our body with pro-inflammatory positive ions caused by the electronics and gadgets around us."  Full article, here. 

More from this Author 

David Benjamin is the founder of HealthyWildAndFree.com. He's a health and & green living advocate. He is the author of Dirt Cheap Weight Loss: 101 Ways To Lose Weight On A Budget. He believes that if we take care of ourselves and take care of our planet we can enjoy a much more sustainable, healthy, happy and harmonious life. Eat your greens, Live green and appreciate the green around you! Pura Vida :)You can connect with me on Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Welcome to Earthing & Grounding.
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Exciting to discover the science for what I've done, as a primal need, since earliest memory, playing on the Earth.  Explains what I did moving from my 30 year home/garden.  Began crying at a restaurant during dinner, day before closing.  Crying became intolerable, had to leave restaurant, Beloved sure I'd lost it.  I had.  In the car all I could say, between sobs, Take me to the mountain, Take me to the mountain, Let me out at the walk-up trail.  Smart man, performed as requested.  I knew the only place I could stop crying was to lay flat on my back, on Stone Mountain.  Pure granite.  Under the stars & moon, laying on Stone Mountain, I cried, sobs.  Did not know a person could do such crying, nor almost an hour of sobs.  I was Earthing/Grounding in its most literal sense.  .
Explains my walking around Stone Mountain 3-6x/week the entire 33 years living in Atlanta.  Earthing.  Needing the ion exchange, without having the science or terminology.
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Ha, who is laughing now?
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If you've read this far, you got the science of Earthing/Grounding.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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. 

Sourcing for the Seasons: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years

Creating a container, or several, for the upcoming holidays.  With beauty, and without angst.
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Ingredients easily transposed to what you can source.  Sourcing includes what is 'found' and what is purchased. 
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Focus on the shape of your container/s, and the silhouette of your arrangement.  Shapes to copy, below.  Not your traditional garden container shapes/plantings, more, taking from the realm of Florists.
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Pic, above, here.
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Containers, above/below, expensive, even sourced 2nd hand.  Broaden your scope, retaining visions of these, yet transposing to finds at thrift store, junk shop, side of the road on garbage pick-up day.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Adore this Halloween party, above.  Pure stage decorating, feels like a true Birthday party celebration for hallowed souls....
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Transposing, above, I've already sourced velvety & feathered red cardinals to set upon branches sprayed white, going up just after Thanksgiving, and remaining thru New Years.  Branches from my woodland, and those cardinals sourced at dollar store.  Two for a dollar to be exact.
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Easy.  I like pretty, and easy.  And the fun of the hunt.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Top 2 pics look like Deborah Silver's work, but didn't see her credited. 

Modernity of Historic Garden Design: More You

Shoes, below, centuries old.


Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design, below, centuries old.


Pic, above, here.
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Shoes & Garden 'read' modern.
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"..that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection."  Lord Bacon, written centuries ago. 
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Discovering this Dutch Garden Design, above, I was excited to discovered who designed it.  A new talent?  Who could this be?  Simple, elegant, functional.
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Instead, centuries old.  So modern, it feels like a conversation, no, a new friend and discussion about Garden Design. 
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Why is it a new gardener is convinced they will recreate the wheel of Garden Design?  That would be me, decades ago.  Now?  Blessed to have left that persona in the rubbish heap.  More, with a knowing smile, not persona, ego.  Counterintuitively, historic Garden Design is about becoming more 'you'.  A proscenium for your life.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T 

Engine of Providence

Low Tara Turf, below.  From 1st meeting adored its charm, character, function.  Here, perfectly balanced with formal pruning, canopy, open, woodland beyond.
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Did you immediately understand all these things too?


Pic, above, here.
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Oddly, decades after falling deeply for Tara Turf, an epiphany.
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More than 'aesthetics', pure function.  Engine of Providence.
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Tara Turf next to canopy/understory are maximum pollinator habitat.
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My adoration/desire no different than the attraction a bee has for flowers.  None.
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Life at its most basic.
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Tara Turf, indeed.  Drama. Bees have known, since bees have been.
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Maximum pollinator habitat can increase crop yields by 80%, do the math.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO T
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TARA TURF

TARA TURF IS UNIQUE TO EACH REGION. 
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TARA TURF, in GA, is a mix of grass-moss-clover-mondo-ajuga-dandelion--mazus-and what the wind blows in. Add crocus, dwarf daffodil, thyme if desired.
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TARA TURF is mowed at 1-2-3 heights, below. Beneficial to wildlife, organic, sustainable, fragrant, low maintenance, eco and only uses rainwater.

                           Pic, above, I shot at Sissinghurst.

TARA TURF, mixed heights, above, in England.
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Studying landscapes in Europe I noticed, NO LAWNS. TARA TURF is used commercially and residentially.
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New neighborhoods lack smell and mixed insects. Did you know there are more good bugs than bad bugs?
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Old neighborhoods smell like my childhood. Clover, grass, bugs, dirt, all the good things.
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Most new neighborhoods have deed restrictions outlawing TARA TURF.
TARA TURF, I shot, in England, above.
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The outlaw label, against TARA TURF, should be amusing but the stakes are too high.
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The cost of mow-blow-go is too high. Lawn mowers are not regulated. One hour of lawn mowing is equal to 11 hours of driving a car.
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Fertilizer, insecticide & fungicide kill machorizal fungi, and are toxic to groundwater.
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 TARA TURF, I shot, in Italy, above.
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And drain into groundwater. Atrazine in our drinking water was on the front page of NY Times 8-23-09. TARA TURF uses no chemicals.
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Yes, I design lawns. Preferring TARA TURF but using what deed restrictions require. 

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

Bunny Mellon: The Weeded Stone Terrace

Do you know, below, what you're looking at?
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Seeing stone terraces with 'weeds' in the cracks, was a moth-to-a-flame epiphany.  "Got it", immediately.  Never saw a stone terrace with 'weeds', by choice, in USA, discovered them studying historic gardens across Europe. 
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Soon after discovery, learned 'why' they originated.  WWI took most of the labor force for home/farm.  Stone terraces had been pristine, maintained yearly, with repointing between the stones.  No labor, no repointing, 'weeds'.  Of course decades had passed before my epiphany and those 'weeds' in stone terraces across Europe were mostly Lady's Mantle.  WWI created a new Garden Design conceit. 
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A few years had to pass for my stone terrace budget to align with wanting a stone terrace.  Once the stone terrace was installed, another 3-4 years passed getting the variety of  'weeds' perfected. 
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That stone terrace was hedged with Tea Olives, the Tea Olive Terrace.  Gave me years of joy, now, moved into a ca. 1900 home for 2 years, I miss my Tea Olive Terrace as I would a dear friend.     


Pic, above, Oak Spring Garden Foundation.
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Before I moved, Vanity Fair had a garden article with a stone terrace filled with weeds.  Almost an exact replica of my Tea Olive Terrace.  Who is this person?  Had to know.  This was my introduction to Bunny Mellon.
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Bunny is the only gardener in America I know of to purposefully design/install a stone terrace with 'weeds' too.
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The weeded terrace.  Takes 'weeded' to a new level. 
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Later, another epiphany arrived. Unbeknownst to me, adding 'weeds' to a stone terrace increases pollinator habitat, in a zone already rife for pollinators, high density with low density. 
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT
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No worries, well aware a weeded terrace is a love it or must get rid of the weeds venue.  Heart on my sleeve for weeds in stone.  Even if Bunny wasn't good company for loving a weeded terrace, the beauty and pollinators are more than enough joy.

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

Color: Counterintuitive Paint Trim

Happy charmer, below.  Makes me want to go inside. 
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See a change, an easy change too, making the roof higher and house taller?
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Once I tell you the change, you won't believe me.
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But, true nonetheless.
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Know?


Pic, above, here.
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Paint the trim at roof line, a tone darker than the siding or a darker tone from the roofing material.  Seems counterintuitive.
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White jumps forward, and pulls down, at roof line.  Darker tones heighten a home by a 1', or more.  Promise.
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Can't finish without mentioning the 'Welcome' sign.  Banal.  Dinky is Stinky.
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Especially here.  The front door is screaming 'Welcome !' with incredible class & elegance.  Why diminish that impact?
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Be wary putting words into your garden.  Can be done well, but with care.
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Favorite sign in a garden?  Tea Room & Toilets .
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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More rabbit holes in this photo.  Those delicious lights, too perfect.  But, that is gardening.  Layers of delight here.

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