Lynn Coulter Interview & Lunch

Lynn Coulter, author, was squatting in a garden taking pics when I met her last month.  She asked to interview me for her Home Depot blog & was immediately asked to lunch in my Conservatory.  Tomato sandwiches, coleslaw & cantaloupe with lemonade.   

 We talked about pollinator habitat.  My discoveries of Italy & cottage gardens of England with their lush flowers not for beauty but, historically, for pollinator habitat.  Her article, here.  Important topic, yields can be almost doubled with increased pollinator habitat.

 How I never knew of her books is a mystery.

She enriches my library.  Pinch me, I'm in girl crush, she's my new friend. 
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Visit Lynn Coulter's site & about her books, here.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Lunch pic from our lunch.  Tomato sandwich with bacon & vidalia onion!

Garden Room

Romance of windows opening inward.

 Small, not even  8' x 12', it is perfection.  A nurturing space

 A place to draw, deeply & richly, inward into yourself.  Read, nap, lunch.

And the garden beckoning.  Palpable.  A room knowing what the soul needs.
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Garden & Be Well,              XO Tara
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Pics taken last month.

A Garden View

In their historic cottage is this huge morning glory.

 At least it seemed like one to me.

 Appropriately, the gramophone

has a garden view of the carriage house & perennial border.
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Have you already chosen this way to live?  Every view a garden view.  It's where a Landscape Design begins.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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Pics taken last month.  Yes, was able to poke around in the carriage house too! 

Love Gift: Chicken Coop

After major renovations to their home & garden her beloved

 built her this chicken coop.

 Of course their girls (roosters were sent to a rooster sanctuary) got the same front door color

as the house.

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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara

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Pics taken this week.  Love-love-love this story.  Married for decades, kids finally getting married or out of college and this sweet couple starting to be a couple again, not just mom & dad !  Was stunned when she said her beloved built the chicken coop.  He's got a huge career yet took the time to build this love gift for her.

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 !