TRAILING DRESS, GARDEN, HOWARD'S END

"Why did we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all gamboge-colored paths?" Won't tell you what 'gamboge' is. Why take away a pleasure? A great day when a dictionary is needed. "Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday..." Mrs. Wilcox walking in her garden peering into her house, Howard's End. This scene from Howard's End so enchanted me I had to buy the book. Not imagined by the movie director, I discovered, but written into the story.

You must understand, walking about my garden, and peering into my house, calms & fills me with energy. A private, sublime, pleasure. Why would I share it with anyone, these thoughts? Then discovering my private joy was written about by E.M.Forster in 1910.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics via Hooked on Houses from the movie, Howard's End

THE SECRET OF GARDEN ENTRIES & HALLWAYS

Did you know, the more entries a garden has the better a garden is? Why?
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Garden Entries are focal points drawing the eye, foot, imagination. Leading to foyers, hallways & living rooms. If you can do it inside, dahlings, you can do it outside.
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Above, Garden Entry with tiny landing leading directly into a hallway. See it? Can you label each section? Spread it farther. See the walls? See the ceiling?
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Creating a garden is no more than creating outdoor rooms.
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My favorite garden hallway is above. I took the pic in the Cotswolds. Don't you want to see where the hallway leads?
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How important are Garden Entries & Garden Hallways????????? Today, I'm off to finish a landscape design for a garden full of living rooms. I will add Entries & Hallways connecting them. La-Ti-Da. One of my favorite things to do.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CAN YOU FIND THE GARDEN THEME HERE?

Artist Stephanie Corder profiled me on her blog yesterday using the name of my business as a theme. I remember the moment, decades ago, creating the name of my business.

Little did I know

it would become the way I design landscapes, Vanishing Threshold,

and

live my life.

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My business, and Stephanie's theme? A Garden View.

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Artwork, above, curated by Stephanie, was created by several artists, and written about on her blog. She's an artist too, multi-media, available here.

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Thank you Stephanie for the profile and the artwork you chose.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

15 REASONS TO HIRE AN INTERIOR DECORATOR

15. Not your specialty. Want your dermatologist to do a heart stint?

14. Create rooms with serenity, filling you with energy. (Ha, hire the decorator.)

13. Place ceiling fixtures properly. Hire the electrician twice?

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12. Choose light fixtures: new to junkers from thrift stores stored in your garage.

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11. Place artwork on walls. Move paintings 2-3x's on newly painted walls?

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10. Place bric-a-brac. Trifling trinkets when you do it.

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9. Place lamps & choose new shades. Most important if you have a lighting fetish.

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8. Place furniture. Pianos are heavy, buffets too.

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7. Honor collections. Culling years of collecting into Something....Anything. Will toss what you tell me to.

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6. Choose flooring. Too many choices to go it alone.

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5. Choose fabrics. Too many choices.

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4. Choose colors. Too many choices.

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3. Increase intended function of each room/space.

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2. Save money.

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1. AMPLIFY WHO I AM

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Yes, I'm hiring an interior decorator, Susanne Hudson. Counterintuitively I know Susanne will save money and make me, more me. My house, 22 years old, with original everything, has reached a crisis. Oh, the clawfoot tub in my garden? Dahlings, it's coming inside.

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It's time my house catch up to the FABULOSITY of my garden, VANISHING THRESHOLD.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics, saved privately to show Susanne what I adore. I didn't keep their provenance, ugh. If you know the source, & let me know, I'll update this post. Thanks!

NO SPACE TO GARDEN

When there is no space to garden, yet there is, indeed, a garden it speaks of the gardener not the garden.
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Passed this little garden, above, during an open garden scheme in the Cotswolds.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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PUPPET BARBUDA sees: charm (remember CUTE KILLS), perfection of scale, field gathered plants, rescued hardscape items, sharp eye for color on the door, Vanishing Threshold, contrasting foliage texture & color, stone softened with plantings (my rule of JUST LET IT TOUCH), fabulous maintenance, low maintenance, modesty of checkbook (PUPPET BARBUDA is disgusted when someone says, "I don't have money to garden"), joy in the gardeners hand-heart-eye (ha, mind-body-spirit).

A MADELEINE

Where does it go? Client, Friend & Mentor Mary Kistner would have me to lunch. A cloth on her table. Cloth she wove. Flowers she had cut that morning. A book, too, would be near the flowers, opened to a page completing a still life with the vase, dishes, cloth. Dishes she orchestrated. Mary cooked, carefully chosen recipes, always hiring a neighbor to serve/clean, facilitating our conversation.
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Sparking. That's what I called our conversation. Interesting, full of energy.

David Stevens, my contractor, entered our realm. A kindred spirit. Many lunches & Sparking. Enjoying our trinity. After 15 minutes of lunch realizing it was 2 hours. Ending, always, with a walk of Mary's acreage. Snow, rain, spring's shocking greens, fall's crown of colors, summer's green humidity.

Did I think, ever, to take a picture of the table, food, cloth, book, dishes, Mary, David? Though not long ago, it was another era.

Mary died, home & acreage bequeathed to a land trust. David died. Their ashes enrich Mary's land. Their memory enriches me.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tare
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pic from Apartment Therapy.

HALLOWEEN IN THE LANDSCAPE

I spent the night with Susanne Hudson this week. Her house & garden are Halloween. Below, her tin roofed potting shed.

Susanne, photographer Joe Descoise, and I are working on a book project.

It's about Susanne's interior/exterior design. Wednesday was a full day of shooting & discussions.

Thursday morning Susanne & I were in the library drinking coffee when I 'found' the book's title.

It was in an old stack of 3x5 note cards Susanne has used for eons with lectures.

It's obvious these are my pics. Aaaaah, you should have seen Joe's.

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We began shooting this summer, and of course we need a full year of shots. It's amazing, this is work? Each time, leaving Susanne, I feel energized, full of peace, and creative.

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Exactly why I've taken on this project.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

LIVING AS STILL LIFE

Setting your tools down, do they look this good? I saw the gardener, as he was working, set these down as I was meandering Great Dixter in England.
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EPIPHANY.
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My gardening, without effort, should look like a still life. Just like Great Dixter.
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Now, mostly, it does.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SUPPORTING BEAUTY

Books, calendars, magazines, TV often don't show the whole story. It's the whole story I adore, above.
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Seeing the gardener's loving hands.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Hmm, can't remember where I took the pic, England?

LIGHT BULB MOMENT

Her entire house, guest bath below, is filled with beautiful, and interesting, things. Decades in the house, the landscape was well maintained, functional, good. Not beautiful and interesting. After I lectured at her garden club she hired me. A small phase was installed. Her light bulb went on! With confidence she's been buying terra cotta and iron pieces, significant pieces, beautiful & interesting. Sending me pics from her phone while shopping.

A place she's found incredible things for her garden, above, Englishman's. Their website, unfortunately, doesn't have pics of all their landscape merchandise. They also sell lots of interior items.

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Now her house & garden are a Vanishing Threshold.

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Always fun to see the birth of a GARDENISTA!!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic, above, from the Englishman's site.
And of course her garden is more than about buying 'stuff', the plantings are gorgeous. Will post her again this spring.

HOW TO GET LOVELY HIPS

Athletic hips. Sexy hips.

Subtle hips.

Have you ever seen such rose hips?

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Fall is the season for rose hips.

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Wish I could tell you which roses they're from but I didn't write down their names. Pics taken while studying in France.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

WHAT'S MISSING IN THIS PICTURE?

Centuries of landscape design & garden maintenance lessons in France, where I took this pic. What is wrong in this pic?
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The gardener has increased his gardening time by 10-15X's. Why? Don't we all want low maintenance?
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Fallen prunings, with thorns, have to be picked up by hand. Leaves & petals will have to be blown.
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A sheet under the prunings, dahlings. A sheet. All is picked up, no thorn worries, no blower.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Other gardeners at this public park outside Paris were using sheets.