LANDSCAPE APPROACH. GOT ONE?

Approaching each landscape design one of the first things I know, before getting out of my car, is the MAIN VIEW TO THE HOUSE.

Some homes are approached from both directions along the street. Many are approached from mainly ONE direction. Design to the main direction.

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Is the main direction of your house a side with air-conditioner? Garage with garbage cans stored outside? Ha, you've got serious landscape design issues.

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The main approach above? The top pic.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

GARDEN BY CANDLELIGHT

Don't let candlelight be missing in your garden.

If they look this good during the day unlit

imagine their seduction at night.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Susanne Hudson's garden. Now, off to buy lanterns! Don't forget thrift stores & repurposing light fixtures.

SUMMER HOUSE

Perhaps your garden needs a summer house. Cool respite to enjoy your garden from another vista. A place to eat, read, nap, gather.
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Think about it. And in your imagination put in a ceiling fan; keeping mosquitos away.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

COMBINING TEXTURE

For greater impact plant large leaved plants next to small leaved plants. For greater impact plant purple foliage next to chartreuse foliage.
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It's all about texture. Leaves are Texture.
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Big leaves are coarse texture. Small leaves are fine texture.
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A boxwood leaf is fine texture next to a magnolia leaf which is coarse texture.
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A boxwood leaf is coarse texture next to a creeping time leaf which is fine texture.
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TEXTURE is relative.
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Then I used the Tara Rule, JUST LET IT TOUCH, above.
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I used plants bug proof, drought proof, zero chemicals, zero pruning. They peak at different times spreading interest throughout the year. The conifer peaks in winter, purple setcreasea in summer.
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Ha, did you think it was simply a picture of 2 plants? Yes, after putting all of the above skills into creating the combination.
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PLANT COMBINATIONS. If you see plant combinations you like, & they fulfill all of the above, then dahlings it's time to follow the first rule of landscape design, COPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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If you're keeping existing plants you know what to do. Place new plantings of contrasting texture next to them.
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You'll never be stuck again designing your landscape.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

THE WELL-PLACED RAKE

With wood tines this rake was bought for ornamentation. To create vignettes. Then realizing this is the rake to use on a bluestone terrace. No scratching of your stones with metal tines.

In the foreground, above, is a Pee Gee hydrangea. With dried blossoms, by the rake, is an oakleaf hydrangea. After this picture was taken I added 'Anna Belle' hydrangea.

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Oakleaf/'Anna Belle'/Pee Gee, tolerate full-sun in my zone 8 garden. Oakleaf's bloom early summer, 'Anna Belle' most of summer, Pee Gee late summer.

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The burgundy foliage? A Weeping Cut-Leaf Red Japanese Maple. Bought for 90% off at Lowe's. A hand-written sale sign for all shade trees several fall's ago. Ha, the cashier said this tree wasn't included. Hunger, lust, desire, dahlings, I had to have this tree. Yes, a $200 tree for 90% off. Had to ask the cashier for the manager, to get the sale price. Wholesale, trees this size are more than $200. Sold, $20 !!!

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What you can't realize about this vignette in my garden? It's at the front of my tiny property and neighbor's houses are EVERYWHERE. But, la-ti-da, I have my little Cotswoldian idyll and don't see them.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

COLOR: BEFORE & AFTER

After creating garden rooms, color is my #2 choice for what's important in a landscape. Came across this pic, below, yesterday.

OMG, so glad I stained the teak and painted the iron.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

WHEN TO BUY & DIY CONTRACTING & etc.

November is the best month to buy plants on sale. Most nurseries must make space for Christmas trees, arriving typically, by Thanksgiving.

A tempting email arrived from here. I bit. And bought!!

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A delicious man helped place my order, arriving Dec. 4th. Gosh he was rollicking good. I think I asked him to deliver my plants himself. He wasn't sure they would let him. Honestly, I begged him to be the one unloading my plants with me.

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We are still emailing back/forth about my order. More deliciousness.

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What's so delicious? Try a 25 gallon Variegated Kousa Dogwood at $90, a 45 gallon Cryptomeria at $130, 25 gallon Natchez Crape Myrtles at $60 and super tasty 7 gallon Setsugekka Sasanqua's at $40. Best prices of the year.

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Told you Mr. Rollicking Delicious was good.

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It's been almost a decade since I've done a large tweek in my garden. At my baywindow I'm creating a gravel terrace. 2 Adirondack chairs from the Smith/Hawken going-out-of-business sale were bought for this new garden room. Another gravel terrace is being added in my side garden under the crape myrtles. A chandelier is waiting in my garage to be hung from the crape myrtles over this new seating area. Teak seating was bought from TJMAXX.

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My garden is tiny & full of rooms. Soon I should win an award for most garden rooms/square foot!!!

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Gravel for the terraces will be ordered tomorrow. Laying in bed I connive where it should be dumped. There's no where. At the bottom of my short drive seems best. Don't want the dump truck breaking it. Guess who shovels? Me. Hired my contractor, Dan Riddle, to plant the big stuff. Can only afford him, and workers, for a full day.

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Why tell you all this? So you can be your own contractor too.

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AND, my interior was SUSANNED Tuesday. When Susanne Hudson left (10am-7pm) I was excited and dizzy. Since Tuesday I've been taking my notebook with color chips/notes around the house & to bed, it's beside my computer now as I type glancing at the colors.
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SUZANNE MEASURED. Things I knew couldn't be done, were done, because she measured. Antiques from my garage will be going inside, finally. She also named rooms. The Parlor, Music Room, Garden Room, OMG, what fun.

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Top pic is of HighGrove, Prince Charles's estate in England. And the bottom pic was a joy to come across. I've been in that garden. Don't remember where. Must peruse my pics & find my shot of the same spot. I think the pics came via Golden Age Gardens .

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

HEDGE FUND IN THE LANDSCAPE

Cute Kills in a landscape. Yes, another Tara Rule. Why?
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Often, cute, has lovely origins but in execution the effect is derivative, clumsy, pedantic. Cute hijacks thought processes. It's static. Not a dynamic statement. Nor timeless.
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What to do instead?
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WHIMSY.
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If hedges are the walls of garden rooms, shouldn't they have windows?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took this pic in Atlanta while Joel Tressler was shooting for my book.

HOW TO ADD INTEREST TO YOUR WALLS

Gertrude Jekyll, world's 1st landscape designer, said the first thing she considered when designing a landscape was what to put on the wall. I literally set her book down when I read that sentence. To digest. Why?
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No symposium, book, magazine, college professor ever, EVER, said to put anything on the house.
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Jekyll's sentence rocked my world. Hope it rocks yours.
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Gertrude loved to use CLEMATIS MONTANA on walls.
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In Italy, I discovered every conceivable plant espaliered. EPIPHANY: use espaliered shrubs instead of vines. Much, much-much-much, easier. No wires, no trellis needed.
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Shutters, tool bouquets, art, faux doors, faux windows, birdhouses & etc. are also in your quiver; adding interest to your walls.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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On my wall, above, she's hanging on the nail vacated, for the moment, by my dovecote which is in the repair shop. The Yellow Pages delivery person smashed it to smithereens. (A Christine Sibley piece bought at her gallery/garden before she passed. Every piece of hers was bought off the 'seconds' table, 90% off.) Do you have a landscape larder for garden emergencies?????????

THE SECRET OF FABULOUS LANDSCAPES

Entering Great Dixter, below, the household drive. Tires crunching along the gravel, scent of meadow.

Passing thru the yew hedge into this, above.

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See the landscape design secret?

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No?

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Back your car down the drive, park it on the road, get out, walk up the gravel drive, slowly, and thru the yew hedge.

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Notice the contrast of meadow to clipped lawn? Formal to informal?

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Ha, the secret tool of the worlds most famous landscapes is

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CONTRASTING FORMAL & INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS.

Did you think this gravel drive & meadow were 'natural'? Ha, not one inch of this drive or meadow were unconsidered. TOTALLY DESIGNED.
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TARA TURF was born in this meadow over a decade ago. And the epiphany of what the best landscapes create, FORMAL GARDEN ROOMS NEXT TO INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS.
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CONTRAST.
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Yes, contrast flower shapes/colors, tree forms, foliage colors/shapes & etc. Knowing, contrasting FORMAL/INFORMAL is the most important.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Lucky me, taking the pics at Great Dixter while Christopher Lloyd was alive. Note: In another area of Great Dixter meadow is designed up to, and touching, the house. Ha, remember the Tara Rule of Just Let It Touch?
Oh, meadows have been sustainable-organic-eco-low maintenance-beautiful since before language was invented.

10 KICK ASS WAYS TO LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Landscape design rules make everything unique about YOU, more intense. Landscape Design Rules copied, above:
1. Vine on house. (Or espalier a shrub)
2. Pot cluster, themed (terra cotta).
3. Well-placed chair.
4. View into house delightful.
5. Color on house. All wood in landscape is peacock blue.
6. Color on chair. All metal in landscape is faded green.
7. Contrasting foliage shapes & colors.
8. Contrasting bloom shapes, spikey & round.
9. Does it hold together in winter?
10. Just let it touch. Foliages touch each other, the chair, the house
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You'll see these rules followed in the best landscapes. Claude Monet to Gertrude Jekyll to Christopher Lloyd to Vita Sackville-West to Sir Roy Strong to William Morris to Rosemary Verey to Tasha Tudor to Tara Dillard..... to YOU.

Don't like the pot cluster? Don't use them, plant a shrub. Voila, same landscape, but now you own it.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took the pic in a lovely private French garden.

A LANDSCAPE WORTHY OF JANE AUSTEN

Pleasure walks, focal points to stimulate conversation, peaceful corners to sit & read, have lunch, write a letter, gossip with a friend, entertain, experience metaphors of nature writ large, a retreat to retire & contemplate, connive perhaps, most importantly it's civilized. Of course it's my garden.

These views taken from my office window this week with my cell phone.

Living within this tiny plot of land in a cluster home subdivision and all the cares of the world; this garden allows me a Jane Austen life.

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Ugh, the matchmaking part? Terrible. Did it once, never again. They divorced.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara