SIMPLE SWAG

Simple Swag is often the best choice. No attaching it to this picket fence. Loop it behind the posts. Drape. Done.

Live swag with pine looks better mixed with fir. Pine, alone, falls jaggedly. Pine with fir is floofier.

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On to the compost pile at New Years.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken at Susanne Hudson's last week.

PUPPET BARBUDA GARDEN CENTER SHOPPING

PUPPET BARBUDA, landscape critic, was invited by a dear friend to a soiree at a bonafide retail garden center this week. PUPPET was sooooooooooo excited. In PUPPET's world plants are wholesale & arrive in trucks with vigorous helpful men. Retail garden center experiences are rare. (Yes, PUPPET purchases from big box hardware store plant departments 3-4x's/yr. Are they garden centers?) PUPPET BARBUDA's mental math, "What is my spending cap at the garden center today?"
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Instead, a preening tragedy. The garden center, inside, was dramatically static, by a decade, or more. Garden merchandise is more tempting at TJMaxx or Marshall's or Ross. (PUPPET shops those places for her garden many times/year!)
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How to fix this? PUPPET BARBUDA wishes Atlanta interior design blogger, Things That Inspire, would be invited to decorate/merchandise inside the garden center. In exchange? Promotion of her work & blog. The garden center is tight on money in a tight economy, understandably.
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PETERSHAM NURSERIES in England is where PUPPET BARBUDA vicariously shops. PUPPET is on PETERSHAM's email list & adores each missive. Their pics (they're on Flickr too) have her smitten. At least the distance to PETERSHAM's saves PUPPET money.
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PUPPET BARBUDA is horrified a new gardener, or non-gardener, would enter the Garden-Center-of-Preening-Tragedy and think, "This is what gardening is about?" Though a fabulous remnant remained from another era, CUSTOMER SERVICE. Oh, the poor dears had not much to sell.
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When PUPPET BARBUDA saw the pic, above, via Dust Jacket Attic, she thought it had more to sell to gardeners than the garden center stuffed with merchandise she visited this week. PUPPET BARBUDA's heart is on her sleeve about gardening & wants each element of the profession, & you the gardener, to prosper.
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It should be easy to have a sustainable, eco, organic, low-maintenance, spirit filling, beautiful garden. PUPPET BARBUDA would survive without hers but she wouldn't THRIVE.
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Life is short, thrive.
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Garden & Be Well, XO PUPPET BARBUDA aka Tara
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(Mental math? Thrifty PUPPET BARBUDA was willing to go $200 max, instead, ZERO)

VANISHING THRESHOLD IN HINDSIGHT

Oh dear, the perfect garden room, below. Of course I must redesign it to have French doors leading into the garden. And, obviously, a new garden on axis with those French doors. Recognize, below, the house?

A bit of the garden room, below. The perfect urn on plinth. Would look good with/without a planting. Evergreens, so plain, flanking the walk are charming. Not a garden of depth, below, but one with integrity & charm. Recognize the house yet?

In hindsight this house has the first

Vanishing Threshold I've seen. As a child I cried seeing this scene. Still do.

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Vanishing Threshold? There is no distinction between inside/outside in the scene, above. And that is exactly what I've created with my house & garden.

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Ok, Netflix send me Meet Me In St. Louis! This time I'm watching because of the garden.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

VELVET & LINEN GARDEN: BEFORE & AFTER

A few days ago Brooke Gianetti, VELVET & LINEN, posted about changing her garden.
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Attraction to Velvet & Linen was immediate. Beautiful interiors matched to beautiful landscapes. Brooke creates & lives a Vanishing Threshold life. She's a master of color, scale, form, function & more. Before, above, she started her garden renovation.Small input, huge impact at the front door. Themes: evergreens, white, terra cotta. If the spiral had been placed closer to the front door, as most people do, the entire area would feel cramped.Oh lucky dirt, below, someone knows how to make you productive.Aren't these our best days, below? Coming home loaded with plants or antiques or art or books or thrift store junk?

Already in awe of Brooke's talent, then I see, below, she's A GRAVEL GIRL!!!!!!!

Brooke's pants, side track me a bit, shoes too, above. Tiny gardens are difficult, imperfections are magnified. Barely finished, Brooke's garden is a delight.

Wish I could see the YouTube of this garden installation. Hmm, edited to 3 minutes?

Garden magic, above. Notice the placement of pots. Bringing them close reduces the scale of the garage door. Opposite of what Brooke needed at the front door.

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Brooke, Thank you for sharing all you do.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from Velvet & Linen. When you have time, there are many more pics about this project here.

LANDSCAPE ARTIST JONATHAN MYLES-LEA

Sir Roy Strong is my favorite living landscape designer. Through his books

I discovered Landscape Artist Jonathan Myles-Lea.

Jonathan created his signature style

using a combination of styles centuries old. But his PERSPECTIVES are uniquely new.

It amuses me imagining Jonathan painting my sweet garden. Seriously, I wonder what perspectives he would use. My checkbook laughs.

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No worries though. My life, surrounded by my sweet garden, keeps my soul laughing.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

IS YOUR HOA DOA?

PUPPET BARBUDA, this blog's favorite landscape critic, sniffed delightedly reading a review of the film "The Lovely Bones." A.O. Scott is one of her favorite film critics. "The novel is conceived with enough audacity to make this gimmick intriguing, and executed with enough art to make it effective." A.O.Scott
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PUPPET BARBUDA reads, "The landscape is conceived with enough audacity to make this gimmick intriguing, and executed with enough art to make it effective."
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A.O.Scott is a garden designer! PUPPET BARBUDA loves his trinity of questions a good landscape answers.
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Is the landscape audacious?
Is the landscape intriguing?
Is the landscape art?
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PUPPET BARBUDA is disgusted with typical homeowner association rules pertaining to landscapes.
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Older HOA's, especially, devalue property. How? Keeping landscapes in a timewarp of SHAG CARPET, AVOCADO GREEN APPLIANCES, POPCORN CEILINGS & ETC.
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Interior decorating is allowed to move forward why aren't landscapes?
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Outdated trim colors, foundation plantings pruned, for decades, into malicious, cruel shapes, and turf guzzling labor, water, toxic chemicals. Too many homeowners are bound by law to the uglies listed above. And losing money.
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PUPPET BARBUDA kicking dollars at words.
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Neighborhood of 350 homes, with outdated Home Owner Association rules.
Average home price, $425,000.00
Landscaping worth 5% of sales price.
$21,250.00 loss for each home.
Total neighborhood loss: $7,437,500.00
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Is your HOA DOA? Please, forward this humble post to your HOA president. Start a dialogue. Money is on the table. Don't you want more?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara aka PUPPET BARBUDA
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Pic of lunch this week in my office

BROKEN HEADS

Working in the shed behind the greenhouse I had to be careful of spiders, snakes, rats & stacks of collapsing merchandise. I loved it!! The oddest rat scurried at my feet. I screamed. Thoughts in chaos. Why? The small black rat was in reality the BROKEN HEAD OF ST. FRANCIS, about 3" & black, rolling quickly by.
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Brain thought, RAT. Eyes saw a face.
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That began my BROKEN HEADS collection.
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Girlie, above, is about 4". She cost a $1 at some nursery. Another joy of my BROKEN HEAD collection? Cheap. One nursery tried to charge me $12 for a BROKEN HEAD, ha, I walked.
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Only the observant will discover my BROKEN HEADS collection in the garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

FLOWING COLOR

SHE sent this days ago, below, a victory. SHE chose a new door & paint color. We had choices to make about the door surround; opting to keep the original windows. The door was custom made to fit her space. The color chosen to flow from the myriad gray-blues of her interior. When I saw her wreath I had to smile. Can you guess what color she asked me to design the flowering shrubs/trees in her frontyard?
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White.
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SHE has white: azaleas, viburnum, holly, camellias, magnolia, dogwood.
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It's counterintuitive, the more demanding you are of your landscape the easier it is to create.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

MY DEAR LADIES

She hired me to design her landscape. It included turning a window into French doors leading to a beautiful window encrusted room surrounded on 3 sides by garden. That room would replace

a rotting deck. Ick. Leaving that 1st appointment I saw a book by May Sarton on her bookshelf. Dahlings, anyone loving May Sarton is my bosom friend. I left with borrowed books & a new friend.

Time passed My Dear Lady installed her garden & built the French doors & The Garden Room.

More time passed and My Dear Lady introduced me to her dearest friend. Yes, I designed her garden too.

My Dear Ladies are retired school teachers and owned an antiques business for decades. Driving a used school bus they scoured northern USA for their southern antiques shop. Can't you see My Dear Ladies loading that school bus & driving stuffed with antiques?

Every Saturday nite My Dear Ladies & I are in The Garden Room, above. Wine, canapes & conversation. Always out to dinner late, in a rush, we talk so much. Sometimes, midweek, we convene, as we did last night. Other times we head off to Scott's monthly antique show.

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Occasionally we've convened in the hospital, both people & pet!

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Last Christmas my family situation 'blew-up'. Being a smart girl I drove to My Dear Ladies & The Garden Room. Ha. We had a fabulous Christmas. Last nite we tenderly broached the subject because we want to do it again. We are.

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It was presumptuous telling a client to knock a hole in their wall and build a new room. Little did I know I was designing my own sanctuary.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

COLOR: CEILING, WALLS, FLOOR

Glorious fall is coloring ceiling, walls & floor. Pink walls, & ochre carpet, below. The grey flagstone terrace with dwarf mondo growing in the cracks, below? Now, a carpet of ochre. Magic. I adore the change, no matter how fleeting.

Oooooooh, the sound of walking thru leaves enriches my soul.

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And of course, I didn't forget to color the ceiling, below.

Looking up thru the art on the wall, pink camellia blossoms, into a golden/green laced ceiling, above.

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Designing in your garden is no different than designing in your house. It's one thing to paint or coffer your ceiling inside. Outside it's a feeling of, "I own the sky!"

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OWN YOUR SKY!!!!!!!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CREATING A LIFE FORCE

TRACTOR CHICK's landscape is being installed. Double sided fireplace, bluestone terrace, gravel terraces, arbors, ponds, rill, outdoor kitchen, garden rooms, focal points, paths, allee's, orchard, compost pile, potting table with nursery area, tiny lawn to legally please the homeowners association. Hardscape is mostly installed. Plants aren't on site yet.

Yet it's already there. A new LIFE FORCE. Risking being, The-Fruit-Loop-Garden-Designer I called TRACTOR CHICK last night & said, "I feel the Life Force of your garden."

Guess what? She feels it too!!!!!!!!!

Normally, it takes longer for a garden to share its Life Force. Sadly, many landscapes never have a Life Force. If yours doesn't, once you ask, "Why?", you're on your way to having it.

PUPPET BARBUDA will not let anyone use the I-don't-have-the-money excuse. One bush, one tree, done correctly will create a Life Force. We've all been in check-book gardens, yuck.

What do landscapes with a Life Force feel like? Grace. An energy calming & inspiring; an energy making sense of anything life throws at you. Beauty, enriching & sublime filling the senses, feeding your inner muse.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from my patio this week.

FALLEN

He startled me, at my feet, walking quickly to the compost hands full. A face, looking up. My garden, already an enchantment, transitioning from metaphorical to literal? HA!!!

Hanging at the entry on my arbor at the patio, he fell. Long forgotten, perhaps a squirrel knocked him off?

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His open mouth? He's a birdhouse hand-made of cast stone with marble eyes & a rough sandy texture. Bought him lecturing in North Carolina almost 15 years ago. A perk of traveling to lecture far from home, UNIQUE LOOT.

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I adore it when my garden surprises me!!

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What charming surprises has your garden given you?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara