A Garden View: Economic

5 weeks without rain, happy to be working in mud, below, after Wednesday's showers. 

 Could not get pine straw wholesale yesterday.  No laborers to bale, they're picking onions.  The pinestraw available is filthy, and expensive.  Known for a year we've lost a segment of our population.  Do you know what it means, filthy/expensive pinestraw?  The native labor force is incompetent. 

 Blue stone is half the price of gray crab orchard stone.  Asphalt driveways are more expensive than concrete driveways.   Our materials costs are what we installed entire jobs for, less than a year ago.  Lewis Carroll facts.  All reality today.

Sourcing plants is changing my Landscape Designs.  Many common plants are unavailable.   Canopy hardwood trees across metro Atlanta are dying.  Densely shaded neighborhoods I've designed in for decades have expanses larger than several football fields of open blue sky.  Gone with their shade is pollinator habitat & watershed management. 
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Business is thriving.
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Due entirely to the human spirit.
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Clients the past 3-4 years have been engaged, seeking joy, beauty, and I think, grace.  Investing money intuitively knowing their home/garden renovation is a safe/enriching place for it, and more importantly their time. 
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Carl Jung said, "Our lives are about getting our outside to match our inside."
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken Wednesday at a jobsite.  Steep mud, 1 of the guys had to help me from slipping, falling, sinking.  I did all 3.

Using Subtlety

She is the Queen of Subtlety, but not.  Wish you could see the hints of her wall color, below, in her jewelry, clothes, lipstick. 

 I arrived in time, with the garden, to site the outdoor shower, below.

A private spot near the pool & just off their work-out room.  It merely had windows until I arrived, just in time, to make sure they were French doors.
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For obvious reasons I thought she would like pinkish flowers.
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NOT
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She likes white flowers.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Outdoor shower isn't complete, ceiling & floor still to do.  Talk-talk-talk with clients about their life/garden, listen, learn the lifestyle flow, joys/sorrows, traveling, hobbies, and there is always a sideways remark informing my Muse, "Ah, there's the direction, that's what we'll do."
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More interiors later, she's still moving in.  It was a major reno.  Met her co-interior decorator last week, want to introduce her to you properly soon.  They work as a team.
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Those French doors at the outdoor shower?  My guys laugh at me for doing this All-The-Time.  The poor husband's of the wives hiring me.  They think their biggest worry hiring a Landscape Designer is the expense in their garden !!  Quickly, they realize I mean business.  And I improve their property value and lifestyle. 

A Garden View From Her Kitchen

Inimitably her own style, in all she does.  A bit of her kitchen, below.

Before she bought her, ca. 1940, home it had a garden, obviously lovely at one point, but tired.  She hired me to tweak it several years ago.  Axis & entries were boldened, paths redefined, focal points placed, hedges tightened & etc.

She, & her Man, have had time to do their own tweaking.  Adding layers to their garden, listening to their muse within.
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This is their garden.  All theirs.
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We talked of this magic, the garden transitioning from my input and the previous owners.  Their tweaking.  Yet, somehow, it's the garden doing the magic.
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Lunch was served outside overlooking the garden.  Salmon salad over mixed greens, wine.  We would talk, but mostly were silent.  Looking at the garden.  Then ridiculously, like teenagers, laugh in joy. 
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara 
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Told her I was stopping by the thrift store on the way home.  Ha, she came with me and we went to the antique mall too.  Love a good Saturday !!  Her garden is on tour in May.

A New Carriage House

Her color theme was chosen long ago.

 Finally, her carriage house is being built. 

 Her dream is a garden seen throughout the years in magazines.

 Love that, easy for me to copy, below.

First day of digging they found a spring.  The elevation changed a bit.  Had to come back and tweak a short & low stone wall. 
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Using evergreens, tea olive & wax leaf ligustrum, to block the neighbor's house, 2nd pic. 
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Sent her an email every 6-8 months asking, "Started your carriage house yet?"  Honestly, you should have seen the Sanford & Son shed she was living with.  Past its prime, rotting, stuffed & with stuff sitting all around it. 
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Their home is historic & it was important to site the new carriage house 'as if' it had always been there.  I lined it exactly parallel with the house.  As they did centuries ago.  And, not too far or too close to her home.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics take earlier this month.  Her other color is black. 

Chair & Pool Color

I came to the project with the backyard.  House, gutted, had already begun its major renovation.

She wanted the new pool to be strong Caribbean blue.  We had several meetings about the coping,  pebbble tec & etc. 

New furnishings began arriving last week, top pic.

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Confirmation I got the pool right. 

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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara

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Fountain in the beach is perfect, not too loud.  Pool is saltwater.  Pool decking goes in this week, diving board too.  She was a gymnast in high school/college.

How To Create 'Ancient' From New

The Ancient Orchard is new, its bricks are over a century old.

 4 sided, doors let you into each side.  Each door is custom, and

each door is different. 
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Doors decay, are damaged & replaced through the centuries.
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That is the narrative for this new Ancient Orchard.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Gates will be stained soon, this garden has a base trinity of colors.  Green, brown, white.  None in shades popular today. Each door a conversation of pics/ideas with owner, Magic Man, & me.  One of the walls has 2 gates, they will be iron.  And fabulous. 
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At this garden last week she told me a friend of hers was touching the wall, couldn't keep her hands off.  Of course my hands were on the wall while she told me.

Simplicity

Dare you?  This simple?
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Yes.
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Gravel to the walls, color theme, mix of stone-wood-iron, vine-on-house, evergreen cones in pots, round downspouts, beautiful views into the home, finials on the roof, custom shutters, 3-d lite over door.
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If you like it, break down the reasons.  Beauty in one spot can be translated into yours.
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House is the focal point.  House is the backdrop to the landscape.  Specifically, the front door.
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It's brutal to be this simple.  But POTENT.
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And low maintenance.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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pic via Things That Inspire .  Even a disastrous brick ranch ca. 1963 can be turned into a historic caretakers cottage.  This house , above, tells you how.  Have fun.  If you, indeed, live in the disaster.  Of course I can be this blunt.  Living in a brick 1986 box.

Copy. Price Is No Excuse.

Copy, it's one of the 1st & best rules of Landscape Design.

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It's not the price point, alone, creating this welcome.

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What can you copy?

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Lights on inside, door/walls with confidently chosen colors, urn on plinth so fabulous it can remain empty & a confidently chosen color, welcoming bench, fabulous light in maximum-3D over the door, metal boot scrape, wood mat, scoring of stone.

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Not having a welcoming entry because you don't have the money is not an excuse.

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Much to be rescued on garbage day, returned paint found cheaply at hardware store or really cheap at a thrift store, cheap pot with good shape smothered in ivy, faux paint scoring, and etc.

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Desire & intellect will provide your beautiful entry. 

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Don't have the courage to post drive-by-shootings of hi-end properties with ridiculous front door areas.

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You know, champagne budget , beer taste.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pic via Belgian Pearls.

Color On Your Doors

Typical red brick has too much orange.  True red brick is fired longer & costs more.

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 I chose Benjamin Moore, HC-136, Waterbury Green for my trim.

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French doors are a gift to myself this year.  It was easy to choose the color. 

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A Front Door should not be the trim color.  Instead, I like to choose an accent color flowing from interior art, walls, or fabrics.  AND, it works with your exterior colors.

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If you aren't confident choosing a Front Door color, Maria Killem posted 10 fabulous choices from Home Hardware.  Choose one!  

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Can't wait to finish the little stone terrace at my new French doors.

Tools At Your Door

Keep a pair of Felco pruners at your front door & back door.  Leverage yourself in the garden.
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In addition I have baskets & hats.
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This is the Stetson my dad wore working in his garden.  Now, the Stetson I wear working in my garden.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara    

Somethings Gotta Give A Secret Garden Path

Can you see the flagstone path below?

 This type of path is also good at making small lawns appear larger

 This house is perfectly the movie house, Somethings Gotta Give, except, below.

Front entry step is too narrow & out of scale with the home.

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This is what I've been hired for.  Their house is perfection in all other details.

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Did you observe this house was a 1950's ranch?  IT WAS.  Architect blew it up & out.  Will ask permission to get interior pics next time I'm on site. 

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last month.  Will change a few of the foundation plantings.  They were installed to help sell the house.  Over planted and need constant pruning otherwise they will mature bigger than the house.  Not a novel issue.   

Gardening For Children

I don't believe in Gardening For Children.  A fully formed adult, gardening from their heart will attract children.  Children of all ages, from 1-100 years old.

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What child doesn't want to peek thru this garden gate?

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Yesterday, a neighbor child, about 6 was in my garden, he didn't know I saw him.  He found my Secret Garden gate.  Promptly, he hit it with a stick several times and said, "Cool, a gate to nowhere."  Then he poked that stick at many plants, carefully, deeply perusing.

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Shazam, he ran back to his own garden.

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 This type of garden also affects grown women.  I've never had an open garden/tour without a woman, manipulating a private moment with me and she cries.  Hard.  Tears ending with our arms around each other. 

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I know where those tears come from.

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She's recognized I've let my 8 year old self out to play, with permission.  And she has buried hers.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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Pic taken in a client garden last week.  Another gate made by Magic Man.  Yes, you do want to go thru.