Choosing Dishes & Joy

What is the fuss about cooking?  

The big event here is choosing dishes, napkins, silver.

 

Before dinner I took pics in the garden.  The light was soft.  Chinese snowball, above, is peeking.
.
Cannot imagine living in a home without a beautiful garden.  A moat of grace.  When the world is crazy my garden makes it sane again.  When life harbors great joy my garden increases it.  Potent.
.
The best selling book of all time is full of garden metaphors for living.
.
Never met Tasha Tudor but understand her favorite line of poetry, 'take joy'.  She's right, joy is always there.  
.
Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
.
Pics taken early yesterday evening.  Salad, chicken, field peas with snaps.....  Notice I had dishes with no food commentary?   But the garden wasn't left out !  I do have priorities.

The Perfect Flower Stand

Something new learned from something old, below.

A flower stand must be so fabulous......it needs no flowers!
.
Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
.
Pic taken last weekend in Colonial Williamsburg, VA.  This is from Bassett Hall, home of Abby Rockefeller.
.
Love the colors, slab of light, scale, calm, bricks with the redolence of .........     something I can't quite name.    A sweetness with harshness, a story.  

Keeping Quirky in a Landscape

A 1945 cottage guest room, using what the client has.

Its original landscape lost to history.   Awnings, below, will remain.  Delightfully quirky.

Quirkier are the azaleas, above, perhaps early 2000?
.
Other parts of the landscape design will be 'done'.  These azaleas are pure Folk Art.  Adore having elements of a landscape design that don't look 'done'.
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Pics taken last week at client project.  Have seen these shingles used on homes from New York to Georgia.

Everywhere: A Desk

 A desk in the bedroom.

Exactly what's missing in mine.

.

Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara

.

Pic last weekend, same home/garden as previous post.

American Farm House, Now

Farmhouse style with her own flair.

Between formal dining room & kitchen, below.

Few built-ins, below, in the kitchen.

And a surprise in the living room, below.

Braid rug.  Bold.  Been so long since I've seen one it was 'new' again.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pics taken last weekend, same home/garden as previous post.

Side Porch

The kitchen has a door to the side porch. 

Kitchen door, above.
.
Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
.
Amazing how few homes have a side door & porch.  Same home as previous post.  Painting by Christine Shockley.

Front Porch Questions

Every element sings together on this front porch.

Field gathered furniture swathed in the came color.

Porch questions.  Is the porch so wonderful I must go inside and see the home?  Is the porch so wonderful I must see the garden?
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Pics taken last weekend, same garden as previous post.

Front Porch

Subtle, original.

 A desk on the front porch.

I must know you from the exterior of your home, before ever knocking on the door.
.
Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
.
Pics from same home/garden as yesterday's post.

What To Put On Your House

Gertrude Jekyll wrote, "The first thing I consider when designing a garden is what to put on the house."

At no point during my college education did any instructor or book make this point.  Nor any symposium or lecture attended during 3 decades of seeking continuing education.

Outside of Athens, GA, this home is less than 15 years old.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pics taken last Saturday.  I use a lot of woody espalier plants on a home.  No trellis or wire needed.

Glass Awning

Never in USA, but there must be some, only in Europe

have I seen glass awnings over a door.
.
Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
.
Pic Slim Paley.  The glass awning I saw, in France, is a slide somewhere in the bowels of my archives.

Stupid Does Have a Price

Beware the landscape contractor, with one of my Garden Designs, "No, can't be done."

Stupid does have a price tag.
.
Fieldstone retaining wall, above, in dirt.  No concrete + mortar.  Italy has quite a few olive orchards, older than Christ, still holding proud their fieldstone in dirt terracing.
.
Stupid-does-have-a-price-tag, said fieldstone in dirt did not work, he wanted to make more money with concrete, mortar, chipped stone.  I don't use him anymore.  My jobs have grossed millions since then.  Do the math.
.
When I mention my Team it's from the heart & head.  They make my designs better.  Why did I fall for SDHAPT?  I met the author of Never Be Lied to Again, when I was the garden expert on NBC-TV morning show.  Zero awareness of those lying to me at that time.
.
Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
.
Pic Old Long Island.

How to Teach Children Gardening

 Children need a lawn to play?  Children need a place for imagination to play.

Schools across USA plant vegetable plots for children to learn 'gardening'.
.
That's not gardening, it's agriculture.
.
Who teaches children ornamental horticulture increases agriculture yields almost double?
.
Do you know how ornamental horticulture increases agricultural yields?
.
Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
.
Pic from Castles, Crowns & Cottages.  Lucky me, I've never stopped going into brambly gardens to play.  Luckier, I've had girlfriends to come with me.  Only once attracting a police chopper !  No, not caught.