CECIL BEATON & CELIA THAXTER

Dear Cecil photographed his conservatory, below. At first glance I thought it was an 'illumination' by Childe Hassam.
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Then I locked eyes on the Blue/White mixed with terra cotta & wicker. A trinity that will never go out of style. A trinity I've used consistently, Ha, thinking it was original.
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Childe Hassam has pictures and illuminations throughout, An Island Garden, by Celia Thaxter.
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"He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul." Celia Thaxter.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Architectural Digest Celebrity Home, 1977, via, Mrs. Blandings.

TRIPLE AXIS FROM THIS BENCH

A landscape where you might see a, "disheveled wood nymph after a night carousing with satyrs." as N. Singer wrote. Oops, digressing. Sitting in the bench, above, you'll see the house, below, a double axis.

Sitting in the bench, and looking right,you'll see this axis, above.

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The more axis a focal point has the better a focal point is.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Krystol, thanks for your pics.

POT CLUSTER

Castles to cottages, throughout Europe, you'll see pot clusters. Rather a lot, above. Sometimes it's a single pot, but wow, in that single pot is something Of-The-Moment-Fabulous.
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Don't you love gravel upholstering the ground? I'm not a fan of ornamental grass but here it's done with palpable magnificence.
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Tiny, this landscape, and erudite.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for this pic from England.

DOUBLE AXIS IN YOUR LANDSCAPE

If you have a focal point bench in your landscapeyou must be able to sit in the bench and see another focal point. Double Axis.
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My invention, Double Axis. Realizing all the best gardens have it. And. Yes, dahlings, more. The more axis views a focal point has the better it is.
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From the house, above, you see an Enfilade to the focal point bench. From the bench, above, you see an Enfilade to the focal point house/terrace/urns.
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Isn't it amazing how one line in a garden looks like 2 gardens when viewed in opposite directions?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for your English pics.

VANISHING THRESHOLD STORY

Vanishing Threshold, with so little, yet it's a story. And I want to know the story!
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NOTES:
* Great color choices: roof, doors, bricks, throw over couch, pony-curtains-chair.
* Bricks leading to house acting as a doormat.
* Chair outside brings outside in and inside out, Vanishing Threshold.
* Weeds in the bricks & gravel. Delightful. Reality.
* I would like to see lamps on inside.
* Love the tiny bit of framing with plant foliage.
* Fabulous little landscape space with few ingredients. Yet, I want to know the story.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for this Pony Pic taken while you were in England.

CENTURIES OLD YET NEW

Nothing original here. It's all been done, for centuries. Yet it's fresh at each site. Easy to maintain.
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IN THIS LANDSCAPE:
* Path mown thru low meadow on axis to home
* Repetition of greens
* Contrasting shapes, oval & connical, of large shrubs & trees
* Gravel terrace scaled appropriately to architecture of home & functional use
* Pair of planters, informing you, "Yes, enter here."
* Plant on the house, Gertrude Jekyll, world's 1st landscape designer, said, "The first thing I consider in a design is what to put on the house."
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I'm already in my new cedar Adirondack chair, from Smith/Hawken going-out-of-business sale, reading a book on this gravel terrace. Of course it's stained the color of the window trim.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for sending this pic from your England trip.

RAIN BUTT

They speak of life. The makers hand, & heart. The art of living a Vanishing Threshold life.
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Rain butt contrivances do amuse.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for sending me your pic taken while visiting England. Few people thrill at the still life of a rain butt. Much less take a picture. Mine are all slides........

SALIENT FACT: MONET

Monet's gardeners wore blue. But, of course !! The delicious book where I discovered this salient fact did not go further. Oh no. What shade of blue????????

Is this Monet's gardener's blue? Monet painting in his garden, by Renoir.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Monet, via, www.artchive.com, Girl in Blue, via, Tongue & Cheek.

OPENING A RANCH

"When a culture is self-confident, it can translate what the rest of the world wants." John Hooks, Deputy General Manager of Giorgio Armani. Ranch Burgers wish to be opened. BONO GIRL was remodeling a ranch gettaway in Athens, GA when she asked for landscape help. Designing from Atlanta I knew to open her ranch. HOW? Use a round column + have a path to both sides of the landing + punctuate the stone wall with a low column + low iron urn with curves on column (not sourced yet) + curve the turf.
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The bold curving line between turf + bed is critical. THE CURVES: Column & turf, constrast fabulously with the myriad squares of the house. New plantngs were added, many existing were kept.
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Do you see how the entry of the house is brought forward several feet? Instead of hugging the front facade it begins at the low stone column. Adding depth added drama. Remember, "dinky is stinky."
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Many RANCH BURGERS lend themselves to my French Caretakers Cottage fantasy. Replace front windows with French doors, paint the brick, rip out the foundation plantings & etc. But that is another posting!

Vanishing Threshold, above. Can't wait for the plants to fill-in between the paths.

BONO GIRL invited me to her gettaway. Forget the landscape, her dogs were the focal point.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

FRONTYARD: NO GRASS

LOVE BOAT said, "I don't want any grass, frontyard or backyard, we need places to entertain & play, and flowers & fragrance, but most importantly, there is no time to take care of anything." A Craftsman bungalow, frontyard & backyard, are both blessedly small.

LOVE BOAT significantly enlarged their original Craftsman bungalow keeping the front architecture intact. He, of LOVE BOAT, grew up in this home. His parents, from Cuba, still live here. He & She of LOVE BOAT are in food sales, working from a home office.

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He & She of LOVE BOAT have adopted several children. Children truly needing a home. Nanny lives with LOVE BOAT too. With her child. Can you believe the layers of love here?

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A friend of LOVE BOAT gave me to them as a gift. Yes, more love.

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LOVE BOAT used their home contractor to build their stone terraces. And the plantings? The friend hiring me worked with LOVE BOAT sourcing plants, digging, planting, mulching, watering. More love. (For low maintenance I used only shrubs, trees, groundcovers. No perennials, annuals.)

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Now you know why I call this home the LOVE BOAT.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SIDEWALK SHOOTING

No details dears, this is a sidewalk shooting at the edge of Piedmont Park, Atlanta, GA. Great house. Nice garden. But, WHERE IS THE FOCAL POINT????????? Keep walking, oh girl of little patience. Love the house, above, contrasting forms of plants (Cone, box, horizontal, weeping, oval), contrasting foliage colors (burgundy, greens, blue), late summer blooms (crape myrtle, rose of sharon)

10 steps after wondering where the focal point was. The garden spoke.

Then I wondered, WHY 2 FOCAL POINTS ?

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The rule is, One Focal Point/Area (subsidiary focal points allowed)

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Perhaps from house views it is, indeed, 1 focal point/area.

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The garden whisperer within says this is not the original owner. And it was the original owner who put the landscape in.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

LANDSCAPE DESIGNER - SANDRA JONAS

Before landscape design Sandra Jonas was an international model. A Montreal native, Sandra married and moved to Boston. Not the city Montreal is. Questioning her choices, past/present, a tree answered. Never seeing dogwoods bloom before, Sandra thought her husband attached the blossoms as a gift. Dogwood blossoms sent Sandra to Arnold Arboretum. In addition to volunteering to caretake the grounds Sandra started school & completed The Certificate of Landscape Design from Radcliffe College. Then moved to Atlanta.

Sandra, living in an Atlanta rental, searched 4 yrs for a historic home. And began her landscape design business, Recreating Eden Landscape Design. Her drive, above, in Hogansville, GA.

Nearly pristine, Hamilton House is circa 1844. The granite step, above, is from a home built during the Revolutionary War. I met Sandra when she took my class, Plant ID, at the local college.

In front, above, Sandra kept the original meadow. Adding only a few hollies for blocking a road view and thousands of daffodils from abandoned homesites. Daffodils she purchased, died.Original walls, above, 29 layers of paint removed. Sandra says, "I cannot explain how blessed I feel living here. It is humbling to know I am the steward for now. The house will go on. I will not. I feel an obligation not to change too much and pass it on to another generation historically intact."

"The house needed me to make its garden. Hope I can finish It!"

Carelessly, Sandra said, "As an aside, I started my Camellia Walk as a nice way to get to the compost area in the winter. The rest of the garden fell into place." She should have included knowing to design in axis, focal points, evergreen structure, color, line, form, texture.

Laughingly Sandra asked me if I saw, above, her lovely statue on a plinth. Until it's funded the birdbath is makin' do.

Curving off, above, from the main path, a stroke of genius, another path and a peek at the house.

See the upside down pot? St. Francis, above, is using it as a plinth. "I don't know that I have a design trick," Sandra says, "but I do find that a sharp edge between border & turf goes a long way to define a space. No matter what is planted in the border the eye is drawn to the line and leaves the calm impression of order."

A new area in the potager, above. How does Sandra design? "I always begin a landscape by carving out the different areas the client requires: a place for family gatherings, a place for the dog, an outdoor dinning area, a quiet private place for restful contemplation, a place to grow herbs for the kitchen & etc. Later these areas tell me what plants are required. If a dinning area happens to be in hot sun (because it is close to the kitchen) trees will be required for shade (or an arbor). Each area is then treated as a 'garden.' Fragrance is always important and adds yet another invisible element to the design."

A special place for the cats Sandra has lost, above, each with a cat headstone.

And a place Sandra likes to sit with her current cats & chickens.

In exchange for honey Sandra lets a beekeeper keep hives in her garden. OMG, you can taste Sandra's garden in her honey.

Sandra's plant combinations, textures-colors, are a delight.

Looking into the garden, below, from the back of her home, are bits of the potager, fruitery and pleasure walk.

See the ladder, above, it's leaning into a fruiting fig. Yes, I ate all I could grab and she sent me home with fig preserves.

True to her Montreal roots, Sandra adores France. While on a garden study tour in France she found the doorknocker, below, now at her backdoor.

"On Gardening", Sandra said, "My advice to a beginner is READ. READ. READ!! Quality garden authors are invaluable. Attend lectures & symposiums. Volunteer at a Botanical Garden, they need the help and they will teach you. Go on every garden tour possible. Sign on to a master gardener program. Get a good horticulture dictionary, Wyman's or Hortus 3rd."

I've roomed with Sandra for garden tours and symposia across America & Europe.

Sandra told me to bring an empty basket. You see, above, what she had waiting for me.

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Several years ago Sandra's beautiful son, a father & husband, went to sleep and did not wake up. For almost 5 years I did not see her. She was busy with her landscape design career, and coming to terms with her loss.

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The 1st bench pictured, above, Sandra named the mourning bench. It was here, in her garden, she began to heal. Walking in Sandra's garden its beauty is obvious but its strength is formidable. So is its humor.

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There are many ornamental chickens wandering the grounds. Moving art!! Sandra's landscape designs, SEJonas@bellsouth.net, have been on tours and in articles.

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LOL at the entire model thing, above. I knew Sandra, a friendship that feeds my muse, a decade before hearing that story. Why? We're always talking gardening. Life too. Sharing laughter tempered with tears. Life is that way. So we garden.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara