On The Porch

Everything on her porch told me I adored her, & we hadn't met yet.

Intuitively knowing she did the decorating for interior/exterior.

By the time a woman uses Kimberly Queen ferns, she KNOWS what she's about.

Vanishing Theshold, combining home/garden were a given, before I went into her home. I KNEW it.

Sherman, blessedly, didn't burn this antebellum home. Poppets, as Anne Shirley said in Anne of Green Gables, 'There is so much scope for the imagination..."

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Athens, GA, last month, same afternoon as the previous 2 gardens posted. I was in Girl Crush the moment we stopped at the curb. Had to know the woman creating the magic....

Depth in Simplicity

Simplicity. Flat wall softened into 3-D with: light fixture, bell, foliage, arbor. Kinetics of bell, gate, foliage, light, invitation for eye & foot. Repetition of color. Just inside the gate, below.

Piquant surpise, below, look closely, an outdoor shower.

Not far away, below, more depth in simplicity with stones in the wall.

Surprise, a second gate, below.

A curve, using iron instead of brick & wood amplifying depth in simplicity.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Athens, GA last month. Same Italianate garden as previous posts. Begun in the 70's this garden is still evolving, enjoy walking thru it. A landscape design class could be taught here.

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Notice the diminutive light fixtures? Perfection. Leaving intact a design feature of th Edwardians.

Sojourns From Italy

At the property line, below, a hedge & faux gate. Look close, it's mirrored. Hints of an English cottage garden, below.

Double axis with a potager, below, viewed from the frontyard.

Potager, below, viewed from the backyard.

Little details, oozing water ball, abound, below.

There are no wrong notes in this Italianate garden.

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Surprised to see sojourns from Italy in the same garden as the previous post?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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I knew, 20 minutes into the hour spent in this Italianate garden, it was a book. The owner, after my nonstop questions & pictures, finally relented to my rudeness and asked me into her home. Poppets, you know I had to see her Vanishing Threshold. ODG, garden views from inside her home are a day's worth of shooting.

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I would love, love, love to write & shoot the book of this garden.

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Beauty & something to learn on each page !!!!!!!

Double Axis

Looking along a path, below, in one direction. Looking along the same path, below, in its opposite direction.

DOUBLE AXIS. (Same garden as yesterday's post.)

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Double Axis, my landscape design invention (la-ti-da). I noticed the best gardens have beautiful axis, and when you turn around they are beautiful along the opposite axis, DOUBLE AXIS.

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So, dear poppets, it's not merely good enough to have a beautiful view. You must have a beautiful view in 2 directions along the same line.

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Of course you can throw a roundabout into your Double Axis and create a Double Double Axis. Life is good when these are your musings.

Subtle Focal Points

Walking into the garden room, below, (from yesterday's post) is the tennis player (have I mentioned winning the district tennis 4-A womens singles tennis championship 2 years in a row?). Opposite the tennis player, below, is St. Fiacre. Circa 1930's he is an inherited piece.

The tennis player & St. Fiacre book end the garden room, originally a tennis court.

Another doorway, above, in this garden room (apologies poppets, didn't ask its name).

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Dry stack stone wall & drystone steps. (Paying attention guys at the stone supply? Yes, you, who told my client last week it was 'impossible' to dry stack wall & steps as I drew in the plan. Please skip Scotland, Italy, my past clients in the states & etc.... you'll discover centuries worth of dry stack. By-the-way, I sent those clients to you, paying customers in a bad economy. They bought no stone from you & called me afterward confused. No worries, I got them going again & sent them to a different stone store!! 7 tons of fieldstone is your lost sale.)

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Tennis player & St. Fiacre are subtle focal points. Not subsidiary focal points & not main focal points. A delicious garden.

Create Seductive Doorways

Invite people thru your garden with doorways. Use a pair of pots, pair of vertical stones, pair of plinths, pair evergreen shrubs, arbor & etc. Drama of a step, narrowing to the path, above, less than 3' wide, lines of boxwood creating a hallway. Focal point on axis, creating a foyer and

beyond is another fabulous living room.

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Doorway, top pic, leads from the terrace in yesterday's post.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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It is this simple. Doorway, landing, hallway, foyer, living room. Gorgeous & low maintenance too.

Pot Display

When the setting is right a pot display is de rigueur.

Choice morsels to delight the eye and

invite perusal.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Have seen Pot Displays from Italy to Ireland & points between. Here, a delight in the same Italianate garden in Athens, GA as previous posts. This garden is about 1 acre.

Foyer, Hallway, Doorway

Welcome to the foyer, below. Beyond the terra cotta urn on a plinth is a hall leading to a frontdoor (iron gate). Ah, creation of mystery & privacy.
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MORE, poppets, if you can stand it !!! Gate & terra cotta urn are on axis with the bronze hatted girl in the previous post.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Landscape Design: Focal Point, Axis

Moments after seeing a subsidiary focal point (previous post) I see this charming bronze hat, below. DRAMA !! She's a terrace level below & gazing along a rill at yet another terrace level. (Counting? Yes, 3 terraces.) Down the steps, below, finally I see her. (She's backed with creeping fig.)

When she opens her eyes

she sees this, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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The rill reminded me of Helen Dillon's garden in Ireland, before she paved the lawn of course. I mentioned this to the owner & yes she had been to Helen's garden.

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Instead of buying a 2nd home the owners of this garden bought the house next door, demolished it, and created their dream garden.

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Bravo!!!

Subsidary Focal Point

In most landscapes she, below, would be a focal point on axis with a main view. In this Italianate garden she's a subsidiary focal point. A surprise, lovingly tucked in.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Remember, the landscape design rule: 1 Focal Point/area.
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Pic taken in Athens, Ga this month in the same garden as previous post.

Doorway Repurposed

Charming courtyard, below, created when an addition was added to their home. An original doorway, top at left, no longer needed.

Repurposed as a staging area for annuals.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Alas, poppets, I was there the day the annuals were ripped out. With drought, heat & the gardener just returned from vacation it was still fabulous. What fun choosing new annuals, new colors-textures-heights.

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This was the 3rd repurposed doorway I've seen like this. Mrs. Whaley's garden in Charleston, SC. A private garden in Greensboro, NC. And now this Athens, GA garden.

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Did you notice the color themes?

* Black shutters, furniture, doormat, windowboxes, plinth

* Terra cotta pots

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Pics taken last week in the same garden as yesterdays post.

Protecting Lemons

In Italy, centuries ago, when a late freeze threatened the lemon crop,

smudge pots were lit.

saving the lemons.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken last week in Athens, GA, same garden as the previous post. The gardener purchased these smudge pots in Italy.