Kerry Ann Mendez: Author, Speaker, Designer

The Ultimate Flower Gardener's TOP TEN LISTS, 70 Garden-Transforming Lists, Money Saving Shortcuts, Design Tips & Smart Plant Picks for Zones 3, 4 and 5. By Kerry Ann Mendez.Warning: Kerry Mendez is explosive. She's on fire for gardening. When lecturing she emits a direct electrical current to your mind/heart. (Which, unfortunately, travels to your checkbook!)
The 8th Annual Great Gardens & Landscaping Symposium, April 1-2, 2011, at The Equinox, Manchester, VT, is not to be missed. (Another talent of Kerry's, she created & produces the symposium. Great speakers, sponsors, location, food.)
Kerry's book, above, is for gardeners in ANY zone/continent with myriad real-world-practical-helpful garden tips.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics by Kerry taken in her garden. I love/adore Kerry. There's only 1 problem, we live sooooooo far apart ! You know the type of speaker that motivates you into a garden center within 24 hours after hearing them? That's Kerry.

Working With The Earth

An allee of trees with triple axis, below, do you see? The Wild Wood remains, but with several paths entering. (Alert Poppets: This is perfect pollinator habitat with low density-high density & canopy-understory-groundcover, plus multiple seasons of bloom/berry/seed.)But first, below, an oval of turf. What's left, red clay, will become meadow (clover, fescue, bulbs, English daisy, ageratum, rudbeckia fulgida x fulgida, what the wind blows in & etc.)
Broad dry stone steps, below, taming the slope. Meadow, mown at 3 heights
will carpet these steps.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Will keep you posted on this garden, it's phasing in over the next year. I adore each process of creating a beautiful landscape. Wish you could smell what it's like. Churning up the soil, laying sod, placing stone & etc. Love how the earth releases it's myriad aromas during this phase, exotic-musky-ancient-clean, accepts what we do then calms itself. Leaving only memories of its exciting scent.

NYC Vanishing Threshold

Puppet Barbuda loves the horticultural humor, below. Vanishing Threshold with delicious hardscape. At the same NYC hotel, below, Puppet Barbuda loves the plantings,

container, and edge-of-chaos landscape style. Poppets, did you notice the chartreuse foliage matches the chartreuse stripe in the rug? Not an accident. These people get it!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics via Firmdale hotels.

Chinoiserie

Screen door, below, had a horrendous 'colonial' motif. Hired a carpenter to put in the Chinoiserie.Plant foxglove, above, they ALWAYS make you look like you know how to garden !
My front door, above, is Chinoiserie too. The painted pattern copied from artwork in a calendar I had moons ago.

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OVERDOSE YOUR THEME. French, Italian, Chinoiserie & etc. doesn't matter Poppets, overdose it.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from my garden. Love the blog, Chinoiserie Chic.

Playing Favorites

Sir Roy Strong, below, my favorite Landscape Designer. His garden, below, The Laskett.

Now you know how Laskett, my cat, got his name.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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I'm such a Landscape Design nerd I have Sir Roy Strong on my Google Alerts!! Sir Roy Strong has written many books, including a few landscape books. Hope you have them on your shelves.

Tables: Square or Rectangle

Still life, pot collection, flagstone terrace in dirt, groundcovers, vines, conifers, meadow, high & low density for maximum pollinator habitat, contrasting textures & colors(foliage), color of window trim, timelessness, Vanishing Threshold, rectangular table, & which continent is this..... (Did you really know so much was in this gorgeous pic?)Puppet Barbuda cannot abide round tables for terrace/patio/deck.
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Puppet Barbuda loves square or rectangular tables; they are so flexible. Pushed next to your home, a rail, edge of terrace, behind a bench.
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Puppet Barbuda loves the flexibility of 2 square tables; used separately or pushed together.
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Imagine the pic, above, with a round table. Ick.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Tara Question: Pic of your patio/deck should answer, "Is this so wonderful I must see the garden & is this so wonderful I must go inside & see the interiors?"
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Pic from Dana Gallagher. Puppet Barbuda knows there are exceptions to her round-table-disdain.

Mystery

My home & garden, below.Love the (FANTASY) world I've created within a cluster home subdivision. Living in the world but not of the world. (Note: western sun baked this area & winter's wind slammed into it. Not anymore. Tea olives/cleyeras stop the cold winds & crape myrtles shade me, dropping foliage for winter's sun to warm me & host song birds all year to sing & entertain me. Yes, Poppets, the workings of the universe/nature were created solely for my amusement. Lawn, above, belongs to my neighbor.)

Near Virginia Highland, above. Trees, wall, car have been exactly like this since I moved to Atlanta in 1982. Ooooooh, the mystery of that garden.
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Hedges & walls; great for creating mystery. Every garden needs Mystery.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Say Sab, recognize that car? Yes, it's a Buick Wildcat !!! Remember flinging me out of the car while you were still driving it???? Poppets, my grandmother gave a 1964, white with red leather interior, Buick Wildcat to my sister & me when we were teenagers. Pic, above, taken last month while sitting at a red light.

Bleachers

Bleachers were common in gardens 2-3 decades ago. Now? Not so much. Cinder blocks with 2" x 6" boards were typical. Pure, undiluted salvage also. Too stark? Stain your bleachers a faded green ,or some such color, from Benjamin Moore or Farrow & Ball.
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Garden & Be Well XO Tara
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These bleachers, above, are perfection. Terra cotta theme, vines, and resplendent rain butt. Lotta lush in teeny/tiny space. Found pic via WSJ Magazine.

Speaking in Stone

Miss Texas sent a pic of her home. Quickly, I noted her stone edging was too horizontal. Accentuating the many horizontal lines of her home. Contrast was needed. (Of course it didn't hurt that I've studied in Scotland, seeing master templates for dry stone work.)
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Miss Texas sent this delightful pic, above.
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It's obvious her son is an organic Stone Whisperer. Pulling stones aside while placing the 'right' stones perfectly. Did he realize the stones were speaking to him?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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When I coach DIY clients about their stone some look at me as if I were crazy high on drugs when I say, "Stone tells you where top, bottom, back, front are." Others TOTALLY understand. Are you a Stone Whisperer?

Great Dixter

Centuries old, reconditioned by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Great Dixter, below, became famous for its gardens thanks to Christopher Lloyd, below right. He lived his entire life here.

Fergus Garrett, above, continues, as planned, Great Dixter's garden, now open to the public.

When I saw this garden room, above, at Great Dixter I knew it was the most important garden room I'd ever visited. Almost 2 decades later, it still is.

Succession plantings are the style at Great Dixter. Something new always coming into bloom. Mulch is not needed the plantings are so layered & thick.

Each of Great Dixer's garden rooms is pure opera. But that's too easy. The opera changes daily. Hourly.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken from Great Dixter, and, Intercontinental Gardener blog. Christopher Lloyd wrote many books.............and you want them all. Alas, all my Great Dixter pics are still slides. Luckily I volunteered at a garden symposium and was able to spend time with Christopher Lloyd many moons ago.

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Classes & seminars are taught at Great Dixter.

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That incredible garden room? Did it speak to you too?

Talk About It

Garden Design Rule: Talk about what you want to do in your garden with friends. You'll be surprised how much FREE stuff you'll get.
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Plants, stone, furniture, wood, windows, iron, leftover paint, light fixtures, & etc..... What?
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Shipman said, "Take the windows I have", after I described the conservatory I want to build.
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Harbor an attitude of FREE. It works.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Shipman & I heard Fergus Garrett of Great Dixter at Atlanta Botanical Garden recently. Afterward we shared a bottle of champagne & selection of appetizers & deserts at www.EmpireStateSouth.com. Newly opened in downtown Atlanta, it's a Hugh Acheson restaurant. His other, 5&10, in Athens, GA is the top rated in the state.
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Fergus, ABG, Champagne, Shipman, & FREE WINDOWS........a Cinderella evening for this garden girl.
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Don't know Fergus Garrett or Great Dixter...........Christo????? Ok poppets, I'll fill you in tomorrow!
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Shipman rescued the circa 1940 windows, above, months ago from a huge dumpster as a nearby home was renovated. If I don't use all of them they will go to Susanne Hudson's barn......

Desert Dweller

At the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert are axis views of landscapes & gardens. Vanishing Threshold, seen-lived-designed-photographed by landscape architect, David Cristiani. Above & below, same line, 2 views, Double Axis.

Creating Double Axis, AND, the still life, below. David expands the world in each detail.

Walls, arbor, vine, sidewalks, neighbors, plant combinations, pots, colors, below, made me laugh in joy. Why? How often do you see SO much look so simple?

We know it's beyond simple. It's MAGIC.

From his laptop, above, another axis & more than magic. Grace.

A bedroom view, treated as a painting on the wall.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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All pics taken by David Cristiani.

David, I really do laugh out loud, & learn, seeing your landscapes & gardens. You are ANAL about Vanishing Threshold, Axis, Double Axis. Providence smiles in simplicity & grace within your work. Thank you for sharing your talents.