You Must Create Complexity Into Simplicity

Only the tree was here when we began. No gravel road, walled garden, bushes, gate.

How do you create complexity into simplicity?  Expose yourself to the best gardens, burn their DNA into your brain cells.

Christopher Lloyd's , Great Dixter, below, inspired the topiaries in Tara Turf, above.

 Soon we can choose shapes.  Each yew will be allowed to speak.
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My reservoir is deep, understanding Themistocles, "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city."
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Have had the good fortune of meeting Christopher Lloyd in USA, we had lunch and toured several gardens. Met him again in his garden, Great Dixter.  Have no books by Lloyd?  You are not a serious gardener, yet.
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Same garden as previous several posts.

Front Porch Views

Common once-upon-a-time the cabin.

Built on acreage outside Athens, GA this 1 room cabin was 'home' for many years as monies were saved to build the main house.

Keeping some views pristine from the cabin's front porch honors its past.

 View, above, sitting in the rocking chair, below.  Daffodils were planted last year to look 'as if' they had always been there.  Georgia red clay, above, isn't a problem it's Providence.

Keeping the original pilings, above, was paramount.

Not far away is the home, already a century old, the family in the cabin dreamed, worked & saved to build.
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This story was common, once-upon-a-time in USA.  Hard work, saving, doing without, no security net, fortitude.  Plan B when Plan A fizzled?  Hard work, saving, doing without, no security net, fortitude.
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And the man who built the cabin?  I would be proud to walk 'his' grounds and show him my work as he told me stories of its past.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week, same jobsite as previous several posts.  This project is using everything I've learned in 3 decades, and teaching new lessons.  Adoring the drama of directing the eye, foot, tire, spirit.

Poverty Cycle Into the Music Room

The library across the hall, previous post, is moody with northeastern light.  The music room, below, hums in southeastern light.

Eastern light, below, in the mirror, southern light, window above.

The garden view, below, is one of my proudest achievements.

I took the garden, a century old, to its Southern roots in time & place.  Using the Poverty Cycle.  Looking in the window, below, seen, above.

Tara Turf to the foundation, granite curbstone step instead of green-meatball-foundation-plantings, drifts of daffodils as-if-they-were-always-there.
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Plenty of areas to play & show off in this garden, and I have, but without using the Poverty Cycle the garden would lack soul, character, integrity, & have too-much-uneducated-ego.  Of course you've deduced, this is my ego, above.  This is a portion of the front porch, hence, double ego!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at jobsite.  Same garden as previous several posts.
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Ego for doing-the-right-thing makes me unemployable to the largest design/install companies across USA.  Why?  It's all about sales.  Are you beginning to understand the prevalence of green meatballs & foundation plantings and, and, and?
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Oh my, a little Puppet Barbuda this morning.  Uneducated ego?  Testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch-get in fast-get out fast-sign my contract-pay me every month.  Sad, you'll pay later in lower house value, higher HVAC, increase maintenance expenses, poison  ground water with fertilizer, destroy pollinator habitat, and worse, harm your spirit with ugliness.  

Design Interiors From Outside

Front porch, below.

 Lamp seen from the front porch, above, and from inside, below.

Further to the left of the lamp, below.

You do know this already?  Interiors must be gorgeous from every garden view.
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Your home is the focal point of the garden.
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Walking with new clients, around their garden, seeing an ugly interior view I will turn my head, look into their eyes and my right eyebrow goes up.  Enough said.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Same home as previous several posts.

What To Do With A Bad View

Of course the dining room, below, has an awkward view. 

Swag of curtain, below, in the downstairs window is the dining room.

Same swag of curtain, below, in the dining room.

Do you see the triple air-conditioners?  Do you see the industrial generator?  Do you see anything fussy to maintain?
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No.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Dining room opens into central hall of previous 3 posts.

A Central Hallway

 Over a century old, the home has a long & wide central hallway copying the dogtrots of old.  Back-in-the-day it was 'air-conditioning'.

Now, it's a place for extra chairs.  Easy to grab for gatherings in other parts of her home.

Cannot imagine the first matriarch of this acreage outside Athens, Ga.  Summertime with no cooling, cooking dinner, and breakfast, daily.  No cell phone, internet.  Only her man, children & workers for interaction.  Laundry, with clothesline, a great effort + time.  Harvesting the kitchen garden, canning.

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Epiphany.  No wonder rural Southerners were tightly bound to their church.

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Women taking the edge off.  Meet & greet comrades in life, unload frustrations, share joys.  Get the gossip, trade successes/failures on life topics.  Hopefully get a good sermon.  Enough to manage another week.

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All this from a dogtrot.    

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken last week at jobsite.  Same foyer as previous 2 posts.

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Women In History was an elective I took for my engineering degree.  It ignored physical discomfort & religion.    

A Foyer View

Doorways, rooms, and an upstairs landing, a myriad of garden views, flood natural lite into the foyer.

I must get each of those garden pictures, from the foyer, next time at this jobsite.
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Garden views from this foyer are enough for a garden design book.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken last week at jobsite.  Same home/garden as yesterday's post.

Foyer & Front Porch

Foyer, below, with garden light.

Window, above, from the front porch, below.

It's my job, vanishing threshold, getting it right.
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This project  uses my entire team: interior decorator, general contractor, foreman, crew team & equipment, carpenter + team, mason+team, pruner+team & of course the homeowner.  We are 3 centuries of experience.
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With no weak links.  Communication flows.  Every ego wanting to know what is not right or not working, how else to get it right?
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And we all love getting dirty.  Homeowner too.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken at jobsite yesterday.

Contrast

Contrast shapes.

Shrubs, trees & flowers.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic My French Country Home.  What is better than contrasting foxgloves with mophead hydrangeas?  Several Italian cypress are going in a garden today.  The gravel courtyard is round and the nearby crape myrtles arc in silhouette.
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Hosta, fern & hellebore are my shade trinity and contrast to extreme.  Tara's Trinity of the Southern Garden: Azalea, Camellia, Hydrangea.  Contrast AND keeps something in bloom every day of the year in your garden.

Potent Across Genres

Ranking with simplicity, and copying is 

repetition.
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Hodge Podge Lodge is easy, repetition engages the intellect.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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30 years of clients and they all say, "It must be affordable & easy to maintain."  Repetition is a potent tool in your arsenal of skills.
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Pic Paris Through My Lens.

Use a Plinth

Not the bird.

The plinth is divine.
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When the perfect focal point is not the right height, use a plinth.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic Content in a Cottage.   Waiting at airports or restaurants Content in a Cottage is my go-to on the cell phone.  Love her pics and links.

The Best Time To Design

Design your garden for deep winter.

It will be pretty all year.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Belgian Pearls.
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Rosemary Verey wrote the best garden design book, The Garden In Winter.