Hydrangea Drying Now

Hydrangeas, too many weeks, have spilled into my paths. (These are EXACTLY the type of problems I want in life!) Finally, edges of their blossoms feel 'papery'. Time to dry. Drought & hi temps are the obvious diary entries upon each petal.

Cut the stems, peel off the foliage. Voila, ready to dry.

Lazy Woman's Guide to Drying Hydrangeas by Tara Dillard.

Could it get any easier, above/below, than sliding an entire bouquet in the slats of my French garden chair?

I like that the blossoms are not perfect.

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Their story, more potent.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken Sunday. Love, love how my Robin's egg blue looks in the top pic. The table, from France, on the patio many years, was moved inside while redecorating earlier this year.

Hobby Lobby ?

A greenhouse for table, wall, or to force bulbs indoors & the cats won't chew them up.

Did you know, Hobby Lobby sells a few garden things? Good size, weight & depth for this metal house, above/below.

Chinoiserie, below, what will it look like painted your color?

I don't have, below, this shape of cloche. Tempting, but it has plastic panes.

Prices comparable to a nursery. BUT, everything shown is 50% to 66% off. Oddly, most nurseries I go into don't have this merchandise.

Found my quarry, below, a small cloche.

In Italy I saw large urns filled with bronze plants used atop buildings as finials. Wish these metal flowers, below, came in more sizes.

Smallest tray, below, $5.

3 size terra cotta pots, cheapest I've seen anywhere recently.

Classic pieces. Each will be unique in your garden.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken over the weekend. Needed watercolors too for renderings of my Landscape Designs. A good shopping trip, found everything I needed. No, Hobby Lobby has no idea I'm doing this post.

Pink Whispers

Oakleaf hyrangea, below, in shade. Flowers begin white, fade pink, & will go beige at their conclusion.

Another oakleaf hydrangea, below, 5' away, in partial sun. Fading, with bits of pink, to beige.

Full baking sun, and no rain in 4 weeks 2 days, below.

White fading into beige, no hints of pink, a few crispy browns on foliage.

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Sun to shade, 5' apart, different stories. Both gorgeous, both happy.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken yesterday morning at my Bay Terrace. Are you a Plant Whisperer? Did you know both plants are vigorously happy?

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You don't expect perfection & uniformity with people! Why expect perfection & uniformity from your plants?

Tasha Tudor's GARDEN

House, garden, life, it's all in Tasha Tudor's Garden, Tovah Martin author & Richard W. Brown photography. This book continues to inspire over a decade after discovery. Tasha's cache pots & how she used them were 1 take away from the book I knew I had to copy.

Finally found one, top pic, this spring while lecturing in Richmond, VA. Three Swallows Antiques had a booth at the Flower Show.

Can you believe Richard W. Brown's photography, above? Looks like a painting.

"I don't make proper flower arrangements; mine just grow, like the garden." Tovah Martin's writing invites you to tea with Tasha Tudor.

I have yet to create a floral arrangement in my cache pot. Cat's are one excuse but, mostly, it's selfishness. Not wanting to take so much from my garden.

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Soon, especially with this 4 week + drought & heatwave, it's time to prune the espalier oakleaf hydrangea. Yes, that will be the 1st arrangement in my cache pot.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Laskett, top pic, isn't he a grand cat!!! Don't have this book? Order today.

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2nd pic, a little of my fabulous desk, an old door rescued when they tore down College Boy's grandmother's home. After she died we lived there a couple of years. It was the 1st brick house in Tucker, GA. Miss Louise had a 3 acre garden with something new coming into bloom every 2 weeks. 50 acres of wooded pasture with horses was behind the house. And.................

Cote de Texas, "Copy"

Cote de Texas copies Carol Glasser. Joni says, "I bought a birdcage because she had one." (Carol's home, below.) Joni says, "I bought red toile because she did." (Joni's home, below.)

Joni says, "I collected English smalls because she did."

Joni says, "She bought Kenneth Turner candles, I bought Kenneth Turner candles."

Joni says, "I could go on & on how I tried to clone my aesthetic into hers, rather unsuccessully I'm afraid because true genius is not so easily stolen."
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True genius in design includes a fascinating fact, it's a gift, if you pay close attention, for the taking. Joni pays close attention. She knows to COPY.

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Copy, it's the first rule of Landscape Design. If it's beautiful in one garden it will be beautiful in yours.

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Each time you COPY it is unique.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from Joni Webb's blog, Cote de Texas. Bottom pic is from Carol Glasser's home. At this moment, in my attic, an antique plant stand rests. Not much longer. It's coming into daylight this month & filled with terra cotta pots & ivy topiaries.

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If you haven't perused Cote de Texas yet you have a treat ahead.

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Joni has her Carol Glasser & I have my Susanne Hudson !!!!

Scalamandre's Toile at Monticello

Did you know 'Aphrodite' by Scalamandre is an original toile used at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello?

A heavy linen, tea stained backdrop with deep India blue.

Yes, I'm a fabric junkie.

Not quite 2 yards, this lovely toile came into my possession yesterday. (Fortunately/unfortunately a consignment shop is enroute to my 5 mile speed walk at Stone Mountain Park. Obviously I must stop 1-2/mo.)

Unpriced, ugh, I had to ASK, "how much". Wanting it BAD I turned in an Oscar performance. She answered, "$5".

Oh my, the tree, above, takes my breath away. And the statue, and the stone terrace...

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Like cousin Charlotte, in E.M. Forster's A Room With A View, I shall use this bit of toile as the serendipitous al fresco picnic cloth.

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Perhaps invite you to lunch in the Natchez Circle, and toss it over the antique table.

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I'll wear it too. Off to Hawaii later this summer it will look fabulous draped over my shoulders as I walk the beach every morning. Already have a tank swimsuit white/w dark blue flowers sprinkled evenly.

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Did you know someone could obsess so much, so fast about a little $5 square of fabric?

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And, do you know how important the right fabric is to your landscape? (Just in case you thought I was going off topic.) Your curtains, a couch, a chair, a tablecloth. What fabrics are seen inside your home while standing in the garden? Do they tell me who you are?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Hawaii on frequent flier miles, yippee. And the rest of the trip a gift from my parents. Haven't seen them in ever so long. Dad & I love our early mornings with coffee on the Lanaii watching the sun rise over Waikiki.

Bring in the Light

Susan Burks, SEB Designs, didn't like a short, dark hall near her family room, kitchen, laundry. A solid wood door to the garage, above/below, WAS in the hall.

She replaced it with this door. Choosing seeded glass, and etching it, to block views of the garage.

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Obvious, yes?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Obvious, but I would never have thought of it. Pic taken last month when I was working on her landscape design. No flash used taking the pic.

Gypsy Chicken Caravan

On axis, below, with a dining room view a Gypsy Chicken Caravan. Literally !! On wheels, it moves daily.

Hedgerow Farm makes it seem easy.

If the eggs aren't washed they can be stored at room temp. Did you know that? It was news to me.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Just realized Hedgerow Farm should be my first posted video. You would love seeing this petite Snow White look-alike, dolled-up in her fabulous form fitting jeans, cowboy boots, sunglasses, talking & laughing as she moves her Gypsy Chicken Caravan. Pics taken last month at Hedgerow Farm.

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Out that dining room window? Ugh, 2 huge A/C units, huge generator, & etc... No worries, I've designed the solution. Will post as it's built.

Garden Room: 101

Before construction, Susanne Hudson & I knew our Garden Room was fabulous. Understatement yes? We designed architecture & landscape, decorated & styled with only items junked, rescued, borrowed. (Well, we did buy tin roofing, gravel & a few pots.)

Tiny, potent. Peek thru, below, see our potting table?

Alone, or with girlfriends, this Garden Room is a life changer. Virginia Woolf territory.

Delightfully different views into each side.

Leftover pavers from edging the gravel. Voila, a table. And a meadow, does it get any better? Yes, hearing the crunch of gravel, smelling the fragrance of meadow & woodland, sound of rain on tin, seeing the chandelier & lamps on at nite. Knowing you have a bolt hole.

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My favorite part? Building the garden & Garden Room with Susanne. And this was work?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Built for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, on site at Le Jardin Blanc in Douglasville, GA. Poppets, I had to spend several nites with Susanne while we created this Garden Room. Attended a Gala 1 evening. Progressive dinner another nite. Behind the scenes for a huge wedding at Le Jardin Blanc another nite. Mexican & margaritas another nite. Garden tour & Thai food 1 nite. Oh my, FUN.

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Want a Garden Room? Susanne & I can create one for you, contact here.

Details of a Garden Room

Rescued sink, "champagne is on ice in the conservatory", & stand made from leftover structural pieces, century old rescued pine. Rescued culvert, above, has a new life, & the rescued chest, windows, shutter.

How calm the shutter looks, above, hiding the sink. Carpet, #89 granite gravel.

Nap, above, on the daybed in the Garden Room? Notice its pot feet? Having a chandelier & lamps is of utter importance.

Chandelier, for sale, alas borrowed from Le Jardin Blanc, hanging from the tin roof. Ugh, we had to buy the roof. Curtains? Jute erosion control fabric. Bedding borrowed from Susanne Hudson's home, & mine.

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Hydrangea welcome, above. After all it's the garden Susanne Hudson & I created for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival on the grounds of Le Jardin Blanc.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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You will not believe what this Garden Room looks like. Can't wait to show you the money shot, soon poppets ! Alert, this garden room built solely with the labor of 1 man & 2 women. None labeled 'young' in contemporary culture. Ha, young in what we create. Please, let us create a Garden Room for YOU. It's all we wanna do. Oh dear, this snippet is turning into the lines of a country song......... ta-ta before it gets worse.

BUILDING A GARDEN ROOM

Susanne Hudson, a year ago, asked me to build a garden with her for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. I knew then it must be a Garden Room.
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We Field Gathered over 95% of the Garden Room. The roll, below, know what it is? Jute erosian control fabric. Can you guess how we used it? Disgusting 1980's French doors, from the dump, turned into something fabulous, below.

Our wagon, below, filled with a foray behind the barn.

Pine timbers, below, from a factory torn down in Atlanta, about a century old.

A good man for this project was unspoken, below. Notice, we did not think 'crew of men'. Notice, too, more Field Gathering: old wheelbarrow, bed frame, & altar table on its side. But you already saw that yesterday. Oooh-la-la, notice the old bathroom sink in the Tara Turf?

Poppets, pay attention to the galvanized culvert, below.

How would you use it?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara