Are You Interesting?

From the garden, below, it's obvious I want to know this woman.Her details seduced me before she opened her frontdoor.
Indeed, CHANTEUSE exceeds expectation. Trim, tiny, well-dressed, deep sexy voice, wicked funny, athletic & in her earliest 60's, matriarch, with a true southern accent spewing intellectual bon mots, hardworking lawyer, she knows how to have fun, handle good scotch, & tell her husband, "This is my garden designer, I hired her, you can leave the room." (He did.)
After I said her fence looked stupid, painted white, CHANTEUSE fell in love with me.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Poppets, are you interesting from your garden views?

Still Life: Creating Effortless Beauty With Your Ephemera

Arriving at Pecan Orchard's home/garden a couple of weeks ago, below.Carrying landscape design paraphernalia my goal was to simply unload it from my arms. You know, the chaos of arrival.

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The pic isn't styled but it could be a catalog shot for: the chair, the boots, umbrella, baskets or perhaps a brick manufacturer.

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It would be fun to see a series of pics, taken throughout the year, at Pecan Orchard's iron chair. Without words the story of a family's life.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Poppets, did you notice my fabulous umbrella? My dear girlfriend brought it back from Spain for me. Alas, beloved girlfriend is moving to London at New Years. Proud of her professional successes but it stinks having her move so far.

Landscape Views

"The aim of an artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably, but to make people love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations." Leo Tolstoy The subdivision is tiny, my frontyard minuscule, above & below.

Ideas, field gathered in gardens across Europe, books, & friends gardens.My office ensorceled with a crenellated hedge, above.
View from my garage, above. Every window & door, the same choice; beauty. I didn't realize making a choice for beauty, from all views, would become a moat of grace around life. Affect how I design landscapes, interact with people, gain perspective.

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Choosing beauty is choosing grace.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Helen Mirren is Tolstoy's wife here, loved this movie. Poor PUPPET BARBUDA driving about town, exhausted at the views of homes & gardens with the worst possible choice, keeping the landscape the builder put in. It's not about getting rid of everything and starting over in a landscape. Plants can be moved & bedlines changed. Yes, PUPPET BARBUDA knows this would be a fabulous TV garden show. Using What You Have, & Rescue, Landscape Design !!!

1st Rules of Design

Yesterday I was accused, "If Susanne Hudson does it, you do it."WHAT AN HONOR !
#1 Rule of Garden Design: COPY
2nd First Rule of Garden Design: Keep It Simple Sweetie.

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If it's beautiful in someone elses garden it will be beautiful, and original, in yours.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic, Susanne Hudson's garden. Middle pic, my office. Bottom pic, a current client's garden.

Landscape Synesthesia

I see, exactly, the type of garden this bookshelf should have. Without trying.It's why I have to see interiors, Vanishing Threshold, to get a landscape design right.

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SYNESTHESIA is a blessing, gift, grace, muse in my life, in return I actively feed/respect the muse.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic found & saved because of my synesthesia, I adore the sensation of looking at this pic & seeing its garden. Alas, lost the credits for the photo in my selfishness.

Landscape Components

Susanne Hudson recently styled this porch. Recognize the magical component?The lamp. Poppets, that jewel stays ON.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Susanne Hudson sent me this pic 2-3 weeks ago.

Hepcat

Finally, met a HEPCAT, below.
My right hand on his dropleaf table at Scott Antique Market this month, he anticipated my intent, before I finished my sentence, he had grabbed my right hand & lowered to his knees. Firmly guiding my hand (me clueless) to a screw. They were loose on purpose.
Bought the Hungarian chest & too cute watering can, above, before I met my HEPCAT.
HEPCAT knew loose screws would make it quicker to get the legs off the table.
HEPCAT wanted $175 for the table, (me- intense eye contact), then he said $145? I said, "You think about that price while I wander the booths & come back." "$100?" "Sold, will you keep the table while I wander?" He grabbed my hand, "Let's shake."

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There was something intensely USA-of-my-childhood, real, true, honest, earnest, delightful, a light behind his eyes, spiritual, joyful, peaceful, warm, intelligent, been thru the fire & came out a phoenix within HEPCAT.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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HEPCAT, George, was at the location inside the perimeter & selling his wares outside on the sidewalk at the end of the building. Poppets, you do realize what these acquisitions are for? My new conservatory!!!

Change Of Color: Last Month & This Month

7 am last Tuesday, below, crape myrtles coloring; spreading to the walls of my office & casting their russet glow on my skin. Same view from my office last month, below.

Last Tuesday again, below.

And the same chair from above, 2 months ago, below.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Poppets wish I had more time to shoot my garden, but there is this little thing called a Day Job. Thankfully it is creating more of these views. Ha, many of my clients say I Tara'ize them. They're right.

Choices For Happiness Even In A Rental

Chandelier Chick chose to put a roof over her patio & screen it in.No, materials aren't top of the line, as expected living in a rental home. With a sense of style Chandelier Chick
chose a White Theme.

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What her covered porch shows? Pure optimism. Choices in a life about HOW TO LIVE.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last Saturday at Chandelier Chick's home. You should have seen her interiors. She made a fabulous New Orleans (her hometown) brunch for us then we flew off to Scott Antique Market....... Another fabulous place to make a girl (boy too) happy.

How Women Share Their 'Man'

Chandelier Chick's home had a previous tenant who scavenged anything/everything. Her 'Man' cleared, put in a fence, a pond, & etc. Chandelier Chick told her 'Man'where she needed her path, & how to lay its pattern of bricks, salvaged on site. "I told him......", began many sentences while touring her garden last Saturday.
Her 'Man' is obviously good with his hands, & cheap. Pure catnip to women of a certain age.
Many of my Lady clients share a 'Man' in their neighborhood. And that 'Man' is spoken of OFTEN within their circle.

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'Man' is shared only with like-minded women, & never beyond their organically formed Harem. 'Man' is paid what the Harem decides, 'Man' shares the Harem's tools/equipment amongst the Harem, Harem members pass along 'Man's' newest skill set, because of course, all Harem members will need those skills at some point. If a Harem member has something unexpected and needs 'Man' in an emergency other Harem members delightfully relinquish their planned day with 'Man'. 'Man' knows "Yes, ma'am" is a heady elixir for his Harem.

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Trying to find your 'Man' is as difficult as getting on the circuit of a fabulous mobile pet groomer.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Chandelier Chick's garden last Saturday. Top pic a centuries old garden.

Landscaping A Rental Home

Chandelier Chick, single with a fabulous career taking her across the continents, rents a tiny working-class ca. 1940's cottage, the last street of its kind in this section of Atlanta, enveloped by cluster mansions & located minutes from her job.At the terrace level by her back porch she sited a little garden & pond. White washed cinder blocks & the gravel? Yep, that's Chandelier Chick's touch, dancing in the Poverty Cycle with keen intellect.

Mornings with coffee, or evenings with wine, her bench,

pond, birds, plants, meadow, & views fill the spiritual well.

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Who wants to spend a lot of money on a rental house?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken last Saturday.

Choices

This oak tree made a choice.I am humbled.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken in a friend's garden last Saturday.