Front Porch

A disintegrating brick, too small, front stoop when I arrived.

Covered, lighting, doors, stone terrace, new paint colors, columns, iron rail, ceiling fans, furniture.

   The view, below, has been there, ignored, for over 3 decades.

Now it's honored, and lived in.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken this week at a past client.  Her house & garden the most perfect HORRENDOUS before.  Of course she's going to be a before/after story.  Best part is how it's changed their lives.  Literally.  House is amongst many in a subdivision near town, yet it lives like Piedmont forest. 

Outdoor Kitchen Planning

At the pool an outdoor kitchen is planned under the new room addition.

 Yesterday's meeting included lighting choices. 

 And space planning.

 Kitchen island, yes you're sensing the presence of Magic Man again, will be on wheels & made of teak to match the cabinets.  A stone banquette in the corner will have her signature custom cushions with Magic Man making the table to her exact dimensions.

Outdoor kitchen yesterday morning!
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Client is an interior decorator with a specialty in space planning.  Quietly successful, she's word-of-mouth only. 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite yesterday morning. 

Cottage Awning

Built during a poverty cycle, ca. 1930, this awning is wood. 

Yes, steps/terrace are bluestone.

 When the cottage was built, a century ago, this was the afternoon sun porch.

In love with the proportions (of all parts of this cottage).  They reek of age & fabulous.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Took the pics last month.

Speaking With Boxwoods & Paths

Pair of boxwood, below, say, "Come this way."

 There is more to the garden & a path continues the conversation begun by the boxwoods.

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Bluestone stepping stones with rough hewn edges, 18" square.  Placed on diamond, copying wood detailing in the kitchen.  Zoysia lawn, pine mulch soon to be unseen as the Southern indica azaleas fill in.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Perhaps one of the nerdiest things I like to do, 'speak' via paths & pairs of evergreens.  Pics taken this month in a client garden.

Working With Problems: Parking

Backdrop hedge to a portion of the flowering shrub border, below, at the back of the home.

 Yet, totally focused on the problem of seeing the cars & gator.

Trying to hide something most often attracts attention.
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I get to do a lot of fun things with Landscape Design but I know parking, meters, air-conditioners, generators & etc. are all part of my job.  That job is to leave no area undone.
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Must make sure Jane Austen would approve of any garden I plan.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken in a client garden this month.

Outdoor Shower +

French doors from the exercise room open to the outdoor shower,

 and

more exercise equipment by the pool.
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Garden & Be Well,               XO Tara.
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Pics taken at a jobsite last week.  Notice staking at the evergreen shrubs?  Behind those shrubs a STEEP cliff.  Observe gravel leading to checkerboard?  Fine line of sun to shade.

Patio & Folding Tables

Patio tables should be square.  Buy a pair & use them apart or pulled together.

 Buying folding tables?

Round tables, 36" diameter are best.  Seat 5, don't need a huge centerpiece, and conversation flows easily without breaking into 2 groups. 
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pics taken at client jobsites last week.  Been doing the square patio table thing for decades.  The 36" folding table idea is pure magic from Susanne Hudson.

Vertical Lawn with Confederate Jasmine

Need more lush & it's coming soon.  Evergreen Confederate Jasmine is growing up the posts.

Eyehooks & wire will hold the twining vine.  It will go over the arches too.
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A friend's quote comes to mind, "Grow damn you grow."
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic taken last week.  Creeping fig, espalier sasanqua are favorite 'vertical lawn' plants too.  Of course I'm showing off my zone a bit with those 2 !

Design Without Photo Styling

Heirloom chickens, large potager, flowers & more, she is always

harvesting for her family & to give away.
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Sure, this picture could be better.  But that is not the point. 
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The picture is a document of life.  No styling.
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That is how I Landscape Design.  Forever-more-&-a-day pure still life. 
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It's grace tapping into Providence. 
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic taken last week at a client's garden.  Yes, came home with heirloom colored eggs & fresh fig jam.

Checkerboard In Zoysia

Another checkerboard is born.  He wanted zoysia lawn around the entire new pool.

She wanted the diving board, a Caribbean blue color, and rectangular shape.  I did the arc, matching an arc of marble on the kitchen island.
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Especially pleased with how 'old' their new pool already seems.
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Her interior lighting budget was X.  First chandelier was X.  And you know she didn't stop there.  Where do you think he took the money from?  Always the same story, take-take-take from the garden budget. 
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Of course I've learned to Landscape Design within this crazy scenario.  And still make it look fabulous.  Their story is not unique, again, I know the game.
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And love it.  Great challenge.  Happy with this backyard. 
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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pic taken last week.

Power Of Silhouette: Audrey Hepburn

Perusing quickly I immediately knew this silhouette, below.

Impact was immense.  Silhouettes are a huge Landscape Design tool.  Trees, buildings, shrubs, & etc.  A fresh reminder.
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And it's chiaroscuro too, my favorite time, the gloaming.
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Use silhouettes as a tool in your landscape.  Love what a mature crape myrtle can do with many roof lines.  Perhaps the armillary sundial on plinth?  Patch of rectangular lawn at a huge palladian window.  Pair of round boxwood at a doorway.  You get it.  Constrast the forms.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pic from Habitually Chic. 

Edison Marshall His Garden & Home

Saw my first good garden age 7 in Augusta, GA.  Home of the author Edison Marshall.  This, below, hooked me.  Views from windows & doors into a garden.  Pic via.

A pair of tigers were at either side of the walk-in fireplace in the formal dining room where luncheon was served.  Heads stuffed & setting on tall wood stools with the entire body skin draping down.   (I remember each paw being as large as my head.)

A pair of Galapagos turtles, still alive, had their own garden room.

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It's been said we try to recreate the interiors that first impressed us as a child.  Of course I've lived that cliche AND included the garden.

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Ironically, now this moment, getting a link for you of Edison Marshall, I've seen my first pic of Edison Marshall, and I think the 2nd time I've seen this tiger, below.

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Marshall had recently died.  It was a somber luncheon but joyful too.  We were meeting my grandmother's friend, Helena Mendocino, a doctor & recent Cuban boatlift participant, who had just married Edison Marshall Jr.

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Helena put her beloved Edison on tea.  He was an alcoholic that stopped drinking for the love of his life.  He told  the charming story of going to a grocery store, for the first time in his life, the previous month.  He loved the conveyor belt. 

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The Marshall house had a ghost.  We were dutifully shown the room it occupied.

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Staff answered the door, served luncheon & totally enchanted me.

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Edison Marshall Jr. carried a large Coleman thermos full of tea with him the rest of his days.

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When Mrs. Marshall senior passed she left her collection of gloves to my grandmother, their hands small.  When grandma died I got the gloves, they are in my closet now, my hands their size.

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Edison & Helena continued in my life till they passed.  Their friendship a great joy to my grandparents.

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More to the story but even in death I feel honor bound to my grandma to only tell you, at most, the above.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara