LANDSCAPE INSPIRATION BOARD

I always ask for a landscape design mission statement. TRACTOR CHICK wants her home to be an extension of her landscape, not, her landscape an extension of her home. What colors do you have in your home? They will flow into your landscape.

Want an outdoor fireplace, pond, kitchen, etc? Tear out pictures.

Another designer created a mostly fabulous concept plan for TRACTOR CHICK but it had FATAL FLAWS. (That plan had the outdoor kitchen on perfect view from the front door thru the foyer-formal dining room-breakfast room-French doors. The most important view (axis) on the site. And a stream flowing uphill.)

TRACTOR CHICK knew she wanted a 2-sided fireplace & a pizza oven.

Lots of garden rooms.

Little grass.

A compost area, and potting table.

One of TRACTOR CHICK's lists, above.

Laying out strings for garden rooms, flags for trees & the bench will be, ta-da, the bench. This begins the bid phase for the project.

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NOTES: Yesterday TRACTOR CHICK & I met at Smith/Hawken going-out-of-business sale for patio furnishings & urns. Great success. This sale lasts thru Nov. get there if you can.

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PUPPET BARBUDA was stunned at the first design on this property. Sniffing the winds, detecting profit margins. The stream didn't really flow uphill. The concept plan had grand visions for dumploads of dirt, a bobcat & laborers. Worse, to dearest PUPPET was directing the main view of this home onto a refrigerator.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

FRIENDS & FLOODING

Atlanta has flooded. Yesterday morning my contractor went to pick up plants for an installation. 3 acres of plants had washed down a creek. Another wholesaler had lost only an acre of plants down a creek. Douglasville was one of the hardest hit areas. Acres of homes under water.

A woman drowned in her car less than 4 miles from my home.

My leaking roof & flooded crawl space pale in comparison.

Driving to appointments yesterday, encountering detours. Washed out bridges & sections of road simply gone.

Seeing crews cutting huge trees, restoring power.

Connecting with friends & clients discovering who is fine and who is affected by this flood.

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Susanne Hudson, pics above, lives in Douglasville. Her home & garden were spared. Isn't it wonderful to hear good news?

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The bad news is incredibly humbling.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

PRANCING THRU OLD LONG ISLAND

PUPPET BARBUDA adores prancing thru Old Long Island. Not worth her effort, above. A beer taste - champagne budget landscape.

Above, PUPPET BARBUDA is prancing the landscape & peering into windows. She likes.

OMG, get serious, PUPPET BARBUDA thinks as she ignores this wretched landscape, above.

Not bad at all dear ones, above. PUPPET BARBUDA is delighted with the steps, vine & espaliered shrub. And is that gravel leading to the steps? Delicious!!

PUPPET'S kicking up the gravel, above. Wondering, are they French or was it just French travel giving inspiration?

PUPPET BARBUDA knows well the bones of this garden, above. Time has taken its owner and most flowering shrubs. But the design was so fabulous (axis-double axis-focal points-enfilades-rooms-contrasts-scale-line-form-flow) it remains. And, the structure of this landscape design can be maintained by the least skilled worker. Trees, hedges, meadow, focal point.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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House pics via Old Long Island

RETOOLING FLORAL ARRANGEMENT

Shrubs, urns, tools are the new floral design. Design techniques are the same.

But the scale is larger than life. Look close, above, old tools drape the arbor.

Fresh, silly, classic, stately, sustainable, low-maintenance, above. So old it seems new. French toile patterns date back centuries using the old tool bouquet motif.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Yes, I took these pics in Susanne Hudson's garden.

GARDEN STYLISTA

Sure, it's pretty now but what will it look like in winter? In winter hang an old iron light fixture painted an incredible color.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from HOME a fabulous blog I discovered yesterday.

GUERRILLA GARDENING

My secret vice? Tossing seeds out the car window. Done it for years. Guerrilla Gardening is its name. Who knew?
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Seeds of choice: hollyhock, cleome, rudbeckia. All from my garden.
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Are you Guerrilla Gardening too?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from the Guerrilla Gardening site.

PRETTY vs. GOOD: Perennial Garden

Perennial gardens are like people, they may be pretty, but, are they good? Winter is the test of every beautiful perennial garden. Is it pretty in winter?
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Above, a good perennial garden: canopy & understory trees, backdrop hedge (fence-wall-house are fine too), boxwood. Each element forming structure/bones for the winter landscape.
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Dwarf conifers are great in the perennial border. They peak in winter. Of course, in my Southern zone 8, rosemary is evergreen and blooms all winter. La-ti-da. Sweet.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Golden Age Gardens

MONTY DON'S WHEELBARROW

Monty Don's manly wheelbarrow doesn't work for me. Why? Why waste gardening energy with a full wheelbarrow on one wheel?
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If you're serious about low maintenance gardening choose a 2-wheeled wheelbarrow.
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A 2-wheeled wheelbarrow works for you, balancing weight vs. you balancing weight with hands-arms-chest muscles.
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WHO IS MONTY DON? Ha, he's the best. Discovered him thru his book, The Prickotty Bush. I read it each January. If you like gardening in the least, get this book.
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I'm quite serious about the wheelbarrow. Remember, 2 wheels. Of course if the 1-wheeler came with Monty Don, hmmmmmmmmm !!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via 1st link which includes tidbits from his recent book, delicious.

SEVERAL LANDSCAPE DESIGN TRICKS

Do you think this is an accident? Just Let It Touch. My landscape design trick with focal points. Foliage barely gracing the edges of a focal point.
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Think the azaleas 'accidentally' bloomed on the chair? Hardly. I designed it to happen.
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Pruning to the event.
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Siting the Well-Placed-Chair. It's on axis in the woodland walk from the back gate, and the front gate. It's on axis from inside, Vanishing Threshold: downstairs breakfast room & living room, upstairs library.
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More than a home run, the chair has 5 axis views.
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And you thought it was just a chair in the garden?
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Landscape design skills used:
...........Tara Inventions............

1. Just Let It Touch
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2. Vanishing Threshold
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3. Well-Placed-Chair
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4. The-More-Axis-Focal Points-Have-The-Better-They-Are.
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Traipsing continents for decades seeking what makes a landscape work. Seeing universal patterns across space/time. Copying them. Naming them.
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In college my landscape design classes had none of this stuff. Why not? Perhaps it's what the Founding Fathers discovered. When truths are Self-Evident they need to be written.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

OVERDOSE YOUR THEME

Choose a theme for your landscape and overdose on it. French? Cottage? Conifer? Perennials? Italian? Native? Color? Historical? Japanese? Victorian? Chinoiserie? Focal Point Axis? Paths + Entries? Mid-Century Modern? Lutyens? Jekyll? Vanishing Threshold? Mediterranean? Desert? ??????????
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My frontdoor, above. Victorian doorknocker a gift from SHIPMEN while they worked in Malta.
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Yellow? It works well with my red brick which has too much disgusting orange. Painted over previous incarnation, Williamsburg blue. Playing with a chinoiserie pattern. Thought I would paint over the chinoiserie pattern the day it was done. Instead, years later it remains.
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Does your frontdoor tell me who you are?
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A frontdoor does not have to be painted your shutter color.
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What color should your frontdoor be?
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Choose from your artwork, wall paper, fabrics. Make sure the color works with the exterior colors of your house.
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"Our lives are about getting the outside to match the inside." Jung
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My theme? Very English!!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

DEEP IN THE SASANQUA

Deep in the sasanqua the ginger lilies bloom.
Standing in the garden this morning, below, their reflection deep in the mirror of my old armoir.

The glass of my grandmother's secretary, below, reflecting more ginger lilies.

Looking into my home, from the garden, it's important I see, and feel, warmth, joy, appreciation.

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Demand a lot (beauty, nurturing, serenity, wit, charm, fragrance, birds, butterflies, carefree, organic, epiphanies, sweetness, sounds, spirit) from your garden. You'll get it.

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Making the bed this morning I saw deep in the sasanqua the ginger lilies bloom.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CHOOSING TO PAINT & STAIN

It's not an easy choice. Staining wood & painting iron in your landscape. No going backward once your 6' teak bench is stained.

Hard work going forward painting your inherited rusted iron chairs.

I waited years to pull the trigger.

It never looked 'bad'.

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Once the deed was done, WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG?

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A French conceit, consistently applying color in the landscape. Studying in France I saw that it worked.

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If it works in a fabulous landscape it will work in yours.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara