Don't Overbuild

Solving a slight drainage issue easily, affordably, without pooling water, without breeding mosquitoes & will last over a century, below. Path was terraced, #89 granite gravel poured, slope dug into with stone laid (dug in about 1"-2" at each base) angled into the slope.
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Unskilled labor required at each phase, above. Easily woman powered, or man.
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Water, now, follows the path. As does the eye & foot.
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Too often I am at a new client's landscape and discover French drains already installed. And already NOT WORKING. Excepting mosquito production. And They Are UGLY & Expensive.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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New path, above, in Jeri Farmer's garden. Not all areas, obviously, can be solved with the method above. Some areas, alas, do need a French drain. Dahlings, I don't want you oversold by a contractor wanting your money instead of the right thing for your landscape. Studying gardens in Europe I saw this same method used countless times in many countries. Built one in my garden 2 decades ago. Will find pic and post it soon. It's fabulous!!!

Brown Choices

Brown, below, is a landscape design choice. Is it on your radar?

Leaf Litter Mulch is a choice.

Leaf Litter Mulch? Love it.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Preparing my garden for a tour, 4 years ago, I realized the standard set by local garden designers (Ryan Gainey & etc.), which I was happily copying, wasn't for me, anymore. Instead I went 180 degrees to my Mentors, all women. Each with Leaf Litter Mulch. A choice made in the afternoon. By dark, sooooooooooo tired, still working in my garden, I glanced up to see my garden and began to cry. Why? It was the missing element, Leaf Litter Mulch, I had the garden I had always wanted.

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Pics from Susanne Hudson's garden last week.

Checkerboard Flooring

Checkerboard flooring, below, in shade. Grass won't grow.

12" X 12" concrete squares.

Gorgeous all year. Affordable, low-maintenance, unskilled labor, rain water only. Add crocus, scilla, blue grape hyacinths.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Yesterday's client's office has a black/white checkerboard floor. Soon the garden outside her windows will have checkerboard flooring too.

Pic taken last week in Susanne Hudson's garden. She installed the checkerboard flooring herself. 18" X 18" concrete squares? Too heavy. Unskilled labor & woman powered.

Espaliered Draperies

Oakleaf Hydrangea, below, draperies outside at the Bay Terrace. A pair espaliered each side the largest window.

Blooms, colorful fall foliage, exfoliating winter bark. Sometimes a bird's nest.

Each year this most terrible time arrives. Awful. Faded blooms & a year of vigorous growth it's time to PRUNE. I natter on about espalier this-or-that but it's never easy. Pruning off faded glory. Why? I know it will produce next year's beautiful show.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in my garden. Oakleaf Hydrangea are native.

Getting It, Fast

Enter Rose Terrace thru a pair of gardenias. Get comfortable in an adirondack chair.

Hear the crunch of Shot Pea Gravel under foot.

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Overhead, a cathedral of mature Crape Myrtle. Espaliered against the wall: tea olive, camellia, hydrangea, climbing rose. Edging for shot pea gravel, cherokee gray flagstone & rescued brick. View, embracing arms of hydrangeas & the Tea Olive Terrace with its pond-hedges-groundcovers.
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Last December the Rose Terrace was a bed of hydrangea under the crape myrtles. Yawn. I wanted to ENJOY my garden. You know, wine/canapes with girlfriends.

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Why is this new garden room FABULOUS FAST? Dahlings, I followed the rules.

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Garden Design has a history of templates that work EVERY TIME.

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Of course I had to get over myself to know this.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in my garden. AND this new garden room was CHEAP.

Subsidiary Focal Point

Perfectly placed, Donkey, below, is nibbling

the ivy.

I asked Susanne if she placed Donkey at the ivy tendril. She had no clue what I meant.

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A cute donkey cart? My famous words about Cute Kills? Well, dahlings, there is an exception to every rule.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken in Susanne Hudson's garden last week.

Accidental Seasons

Like? Me too. Pulled from the basement, below, my grandmother's wheel barrow. No time, yet, to fill it with terra cotta pots & 'style' its placement.

Today, above, with hydrangeas. In spring, below, with Chinese snowball.

Chinese snowball petals swirling, below, onto unfurling hydrangea foliage.

In the snow, below.

When sasanqua's bloom in fall another wheelbarrow pic. Had no idea it would become a seasonal attraction. Still pondering where I'll place it once it's filled with terra cotta pots. I adore this type of pondering. Priceless.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Susanne Hudson created the top wheelbarrow.

At The Gate

From the Tea Olive Terrace, below, looking into my backyard. At the same gate, in my backyard, below, looking into the Tea Olive Terrace.

Double Axis: 2 views fabulous. A fabulous view in 1 direction must be fabulous in the opposite direction.

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There are no exits in a garden, only entries.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in my garden. See the template? A Trinity of the Ages: Path, Gate, Boxwood. Ramped up: painted gate, gravel path, blooming hydrangeas.

Vanishing Threshold

Looking out, below, the Garden Room. Looking into, below, the garden room.

Vanishing Threshold.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in my garden last week, Hydrangea 'Penny Mac', dug from her garden. Found the antique French garden chair at my favorite junk shop last year. A rusty, flaky $22. Have this Vanishing Threshold pic with: azaleas blooming, camellias blooming, pittosporum blooming, oakleaf hydrangea blooming & snowfall. Will get them combined for a post; at some point.

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Debut: exterior paint, Bemjamin Moore HC-Waterbury Green.

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I'm quite serious about Vanishing Threshold. AND it must be for every window of your home.

Egyptian Warrior Booty

"More than 3,000 years ago Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt sent a company of gardeners to what is now British Somaliland for new species, and a century and a half later another Egyptian queen received from an army which had invaded Assyria many new plants, including a pomegranate and a new water lily." Joseph Wood Krutch Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken at Le Jardin Blanc last week. Bust & 19th century smoke house. Can you imagine what fun Queen Hatshepsut had when her Garden Party returned !!!

Incipient Calm

A petty bourgeois comfort. I know. Hydrangeas & Blue/White China say, "Keep Calm & Carry On", ha, without words.
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Exterior painting, 5 weeks, completed. You know how they left my garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in my garden earlier this week. H. macrophylla 'Penny Mac' shown. Dug from Penny's garden by the Queen of Hydrangea Heaven herself. Decades of blue blossoms in her garden & years in mine. 2 years ago, severe drought, they turned pink due to poor aluminum uptake. Plenty of rains since last fall, hmm, still pink.

Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival

Susanne Hudson & I are creating a garden for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, in Douglasville, GA. Saturday, June 5 - Sunday June 6th, 2010.
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This chandelier, below, will be in our garden. Along with rescued treasures: rusty, dirty, antique, arcane. And: #89 granite gravel, busts, furniture. Ha, almost forgot, plants too. A tram circles the gardens on tour. Including Susanne's nationally recognized garden, below. Erica Glasener , of HGTV fame, speaks Saturday, 5th and so will I. In the evening there's a garden tour & progressive dinner.

Twice to Douglasville & spend-the-nites with Susanne already, working in our garden. More work days & spend-the-nites ahead.

This is work?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken at Susanne's yesterday morning, yes, a 'work' day morning! She toured me to some of the gardens Wed. evening because I won't have time to see them during the Festival. We were able to have private time with the owners, & their dogs, strolling their gardens after a lite rain. The air cool, fireflies, and scent of jasmine pervasive.