Privacy in the Open

Typical subdivision, below, seen from the street. Standing at the frontdoor, above, a view of the street, below.

Why do Americans give real estate to passing cars?

Vanishing Threshold landsape design starts inside your home. Not at the street.

Hints of the street, above. To the left of the bed, above, is the driveway.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week. A client from many years ago called me back for some tweeking. They are both self-employed, grandparents & have Show dogs. Crazy busy lives, yet wanting a beautiful, little care, landscape. They are do-it-yourself gardeners.
Good timing for the visit. They are repainting soon & we will choose a more faded shade of white & the gutters will become 'copper'. And they're in need of a good pruning. A fabulous landscape with zero styling for these pics. (Magazine landscapes styled for their moment of glory aren't my thing.)

The Chair

SHIPMAN sent this, below, from Greece yesterday. Of course, in my mind, these chairs have already been designed into fabulous gardens.
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Graveled terrace, ancient wood harvest/farm table, tree trunk arbor, 3 old chandliers not matching but hanging at the same level above table. 6 of these chairs with a pair of bentwood/cane armchairs at each end of the table.
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At the entryway of a garden room. A pair of these chairs with chickenwire molded into dog forms covered in a small leafed ivy. At the other end of the garden room another pair with chickenwire in cat forms covered in variegated ivy.
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In honor of a dear friend a cluster of shopping bags arrayed around the chairs.
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Of course there are chickenwire forms of people with the chairs...
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What do you see?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Can't wait till you get back SHIPMAN, lunch???

Underused Plants

Now that you've seen, Edgeworthia, below, how can you not have it? Winter blooms on deciduous stems. Grown as a shrub or small tree depending upon your pruning. Part shade to edge of woodland in the south, full sun to part shade in the north, zones: 5-9. . Pic

Lonicera fragrantissima, below, visually a bore, but once you smell her, you will have her. A gangly shrub, zones: 1-9, with arching canes, sun or shade, plenty of winter blooms to bring inside.

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Witch Hazel, below, a small understory tree for shade to part sun. Blooms in winter. Foliage persists through much of winter, beige, boring until you see it dripping with rain/dew backlit by the morning sun. Upon that morning you will know why the universe was invented.

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Each are drought tolerant & essentially carefree. Oddly, I chose winter bloomers.

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More Underused Plants at the Garden Designers Roundtable today.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Discovered the pics via Garden Lust. Not entirely clear if they were from the New York Times or taken by Garden Lust.

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The Garden Designers Roundtable posts will be up after 1pm central.

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Wish everyone could have camellias and gardenias and tea olive & etc. Alas, narrow zones.

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Fantasy plant? Dwarf eleagnus, 2'-3'.

Landscape Design

Almost 3 decades designing landscapes, writing books, hosting my own CBS TV show, national lecturing & national awards. Guess what I won't do? Wing it in my own little garden. In the beginning, & too long after, I did.

Winging it wasn't getting me beauty of the ages, low maintenance, color all year, views on axis, or Vanishing Threshold.

Like Monet I like to work en plein air, with drawing board, folding table/chair.

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On paper, the science & art of Landscape Design meld. Paper also invites the MUSE.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Rosemary Verey's, The Garden In Winter, is my favorite landscape design book. Designing your own landscape? Buy her book. Top pic, beloved rescues Laskett & Henry working on a long distance landscape design in the office.

Flag Site

Landscape Design Rule: 1 focal point/area. Flags are focal points, frontdoors are focal points. Flags, sited at/near frontdoor diminish both.

Flags reeking of cute? Must I go there? A flag with the word 'Welcome'. Oh dear. Your home & garden say 'WELCOME'. Remember, CUTE KILLS.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken in my garden this month. The best gardens BREAK RULES.

Diminutive

Historic light fixtures were

often diminutive. Keeping the original says a lot.

This original light fixture, above, told me volumes about my client before meeting her. Of course the entire entry reeks of quiet elegance, intellect, narrative & confidence. What do you want your entry to say about you?

Had to share Peaches, (she lives here) a rescue, above, with you. Intellect? Ha, Peaches has her owner firmly under control.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Doormat

I first saw this type of doormat, below, in a centuries old French garden (cobblestones set in gravel). As perfect as this entry, below, is I want to take it back

further. Do you know what I mean?

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Do you know how?

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The container. Fabulous, but too new for this landscape.

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We have already sourced a new container, almost a century old, in Birmingham, AL.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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When the new container arrives the current era will be blended across the past.

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Timelessness, a grace in every landscape fortunate enough to wear it.

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 !!!!