Quaint Trick to Nestle Your Focal Points

Why do most focal points look like projectiles from Mars that burned thru the atmosphere and landed  in someones yard?

Studying the best focal points in historic gardens across Europe for 20+ decades I noticed a quaint trick to nestle focal points into a garden.  I call it the rule of, just-let-it-touch.
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Had to smile when I discovered Martha Stewart doing it, above.
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Her pruner knows EXACTLY how to just-let-it-touch.
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Martha's blog has numerous slides with most posts that load quickly.  If you loved a good slide show, back in the day, her presentations are the closest I've seen.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Martha Stewart.   Heads-up to the 'bench' focal point.  Is it not level and facing traffic?  Obviously a pet p-e-a-v-e.

French Planter: Color

I put these planters across the front of a home last Saturday, though a bit larger.  

However, zero temerity for foundation plantings, plenty of gracious #89 granite gravel.

Not this big, above, but did put in this size for a home needing to hide garbage cans.
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Taxus x media 'Hicksii', pruned similar to Great Dixter's, is the plant choice.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic Old Long Island, bottom pic, Things That Inspire.  .
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Color.  Client house is gray, white trim, black shutters, apple green door.  Planters can be any of those but white.  A nice amount of space but not quite enough to handle the boldness of white.  Apple green is my choice but the gray or black are acceptable too.

Hiding Necessities

Hiding necessities.

Inside & outside.
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Quite a nice topic for a book.  Anyone?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Mod Vintage Life.  Looks like the patio was extended with 18" square concrete pavers.  Easy, affordable, unskilled labor.  The climbing hydrangea?  Amazing.

Specialty Fence

 Rabbit fence for the potager.

 Perfect for a chicken run  too.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic via Content in a Cottage.

Beware: These Pillows Need Worthy Backdrop

Few gardens could backdrop these pillows.  

Not the focus, yet complete dominance, this garden looks 'not done'.
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Heads-up, by the time a garden is this simple it is 'totally done'.
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Joseph W. Tyree did the landscaping.
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Perhaps the slipper shoes demand the pillows & garden as backdrop.  This man exudes something quite rare amongst his age group, happy self-confidence.
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More about man & house,  Architectural Digest.  Enjoy.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Beware, even, the cushion/pillow shelves at discount stores.  They may be cheap but they will steal your entire garden/deck/views.

Evergreen Bones: Before - After

Evergreen bones, below.  Not a first instinct.  No romance, flowers, wow factor.

Remember, evergreen bones will take you where you want to go.

Extreme gorgeous with low-maintenance, drought tolerance, no bugs is the destination.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pics 2 years apart.  Here's your garden design: evergreen bones, evergreen flowering shrubs, evergreen flowering groundcover, flowering understory trees, flowering shrubs.  More?  Sure, if you want more maintenance.  Contrast foliage types/color, bloom seasons.
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Choose plants from Extension Service listings as best/toughest for your zone.  Who wants to worry about watering, bugs, disease?  Don't like the list?  Get over it.
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My favorite clients have already done their own garden design.  Producing, 'horrible'.  A humbling experience, I know, I did it too.  Exactly what got me into college for a 2nd degree, horticulture.

Southern Vegetable Plate

Leftovers this week, Southern vegetable plate.

Bought at, Sherry's, the local vegetable stand in Tucker, GA.

Common, too, this dinner traveled its first nite.

Served on my girlfriend's inherited Wedgwood, below.

Sadly, both meals were inside.  Temps pleasant, rains abundant & mosquitoes in charge.
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Rethinking a screened porch addition.
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More than dinners, several weekend breakfasts have been inside when all was well outside, except the mosquitoes.
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Native honey bees thrive in my garden cannot bear the thought of spraying for mosquitoes.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken Sunday & Monday.  3 decades in this home, and this is the first summer mosquitoes are truly in charge.  Screened porch is in the 'talking' stage.  Missing meals outside has become more than I'm willing to do without.

Is Your Garden 'Art' on the Wall?

Every garden view should be 'art' on the wall.

2+ decades ago I visited a garden in Greensboro, NC with every window view taken into consideration.  Every window.
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Again, something learned from an 'uncredentialed' gardener changing the direction, forever, of how I design landscapes.  Not once during college did any instructor mention being inside a client's home to design a garden correctly.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Castles, Crowns & Cottages.

Garden Design & French Doors

All about conversation, comfort, nature, beauty, connection.

Though not enough lamps for someone who reads.
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You must do this with beautiful rooms.  Deconstruct them for your uses.
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French doors are a secret weapon in my arsenal of Garden Design.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Room by Billy Baldwin.

Copy Interior for Garden Design

This would be easy to work into a garden design.

Copy: colors (trinity: blue-brown-white), patterns, shapes.  And the table, in stone.  Bring 3 together, add a pair of chandeliers 'almost' exactly like, above.
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Obviously, hydrangeas would be in the garden.  This is Vanishing Threshold, house & garden are one.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic via House of Turquoise.  www.houseofturquoise.com

Billy Baldwin said, ".....

Billy Baldwin lived here for a bit.

"The grounds of the house fell sharply from a terrace, which had no railing, but the barrier was indicated by pots of blooming flowers.  Among his annual visitors were Igor Stravinsky and his wife, and one of the things that enchanted Igor about going to Stark's for the weekend was that he could hardly wait until after every meal to go to the edge of the terrace and piss over the precipice." from, Billy Baldwin an Autobiography
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic  via here.  House in the quote is not the house above.

Gardener's Kitchen

This, below, has already gone to my contractor.

A gardener's kitchen.

All about the garden view.
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Contractor's response, "You can't afford to lose cabinet space."
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Whatever.
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Sitting in the kitchen now, I'm imagining how much more garden I will see.  Wind, birds, blooms, snow, rains, fall foliage, exfoliating bark, berries....
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics via Cote de Texas.  Of course new counters & painting too.  Kitchen is almost 3 decades, my starter kitchen, a relief to discover its next chapter.