Designing Redolence

Not only historic, I want my garden designs to be redolent of having read, and adored, E.M.Forster.  Jane Austen, Wendell Berry, my grandmother, you get the message.

A garden must be more than 'there', it must take me somewhere.
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For decades I've known, I travel farthest in my garden.
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The owner of this garden, above, discovered me in my gown getting pics at 6am.  I knew it was she who created the magic.  As I walked barefoot in the dewy grass we meandered while she told me her garden's story.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Piper's Cove, Jamaica.  The resort was built in the early 90's and she could only afford tiny plants.  I know exactly how she feels about each one.

Historic World Pivot Point: Rarely Captured in a Garden

Remnants of historic gardens, from garden design studies across the globe for decades, create a trinity: woodland, low meadow, stone focal point.

You are looking at, above, when-the-music-stopped.
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A concrete terrace built during the 20's for evening dances, think Gatsby, was topped with a stone fountain during the 30's.
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It is rare to see, in concrete, when the world shifted.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic Shaw Gardens, Jamaica.  Had quite a 'moment' when I saw this, of course my friends were happily obliviously walking past fast, before I told yet another garden 'thang'.  Poor dears, they had to tolerate my 1 track mind.
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Know what else you are seeing above?  Maximum pollinator habitat: high density with low density + water.

Vanishing Threshold: Dining Room + Landscape

Where, below, do your eyes land?

Mine went straight to the urn outside and its placement dead-center on the French doors, vanishing threshold.
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No accident the photographer caught it.  Douglas Newby has quite a nice day job !  We know the truth about easy day jobs, they require work.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Douglas Newby.   Photographers & interior designers rarely pay attention to Vanishing Threshold.  I START every Landscape Design at the Vanishing Threshold.

A Real Man Cave

From our lunch table overlooking the Caribbean the Cave Man stories intensified, Do you want to see the man who lives in the cave?  I did see him, he's 2 feet behind his fishing net, below.    

With every intention of shooting him, once I saw him, I could not.  He possessed nothing but his dignity.
 

From our lunch table, above/below, the Cave Man's sanctuary.

Haven't we all had I'll-go-live-in-a-cave Robinson Crusoe thoughts?  The Cave Man's foyer, below.

Coming face-to-face with a person who is living that life I saw the poverty surrounding his choices and his deep courage in retaining his integrity & spirit, though the choices take him to death.  He is free, burdening no one.
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No, I could not take his picture.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Again my love of seeing gardens across the globe stuns with epiphany.

Landscape Design Rule: Repetition

When space is limited use repetition to make it appear larger.

Seems so right, above, hard to believe it's a landscape design 'rule' in action.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Shaw Park Gardens & Waterfall.

Shaw Gardens: Tea Terrace + Cannon

A proper Tea Terrace, below.  Unchanged for a century.  Must I tell you what a Tea Terrace becomes in the evening?  Wine & canapes on the terrace, of course.

When I asked about the cannon, below, Mr. Adams said, It's never been fired.  Where did it come from?  He said, Oh it came from up above.  How did it get up there?  The Spaniards carried it up there, he said.  (You realize he means the Spaniards contemporary with Christopher Columbus.  I hear, George S. Patton, Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of Man.)  FYI, Mick Jagger has a gorgeous estate where the cannon was rescued.    

Mr. Adams, below, of Shaw Gardens.  More than love his job, he loves Shaw Gardens & showing it off.
He said, Take it easy, dozens of times as we traversed steep grades.  Before arriving at the best views he would say, Look where you are going or you will go where you are looking.

Today, mostly, I wanted you to meet Mr. Adams, above.  And know his wisdom, Take it easy.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Cannot imagine the misery of getting that cannon up the volcano !  Worse, the misery of Mr. Adams ancestor at arrival in Jamaica.

Faux Bois: Shaw Park

At a century old the faux bois lamp post, below,

in Shaw Park Botanical Garden, Jamaica, is perfection.
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Walk too fast & you would think it was a tree.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Stephen Sills: On Acquiring Objects

"It's funny with objects.  If you're really passionate, and you really understand your sensibility, and you're patient, they will come to you..."

"That's what I love about the magic of objects.  You never really own anything in this world, but you can be lucky enough to possess something for a time, and enjoy it, and then it goes on to another person to enjoy.",

Stephen Sills in Town & Country, Oct. 2013.
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His simple gardens in the city are caressing arms.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics via Elle Decor.

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?

Remember Gertrude Jekyll's "....the first thing I consider, when planning a garden, is what to put on the house."
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For ease of maintenance I prefer espaliered woody shrubs.  No wires, no trellis.
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House & terrace, above, are vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Half Pudding Half Sauce.

Darrel Morrison: Native Habitat - Designed

Immersion in native habitat for designed habitat.  Left brain, right brain.

Darrel Morrison made it a science.  Creating grids from native habitat, similar to archaeology, to create designed habitat.  And he does not neglect 'spirit'.

With expectation of 'professional' enrichment Nature's landscapes are my favorite vacation zones.  Intuitive learning.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics from web.  Have only heard Darrell Morrison speak once, decades ago, a man ahead of his time.

Garden Design: Airstrip Neighborhood

The brilliant 'Urn Idea' atop their low columns was nixed immediately.

Instead, we'll hunt for these caps, above.
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Brain dropsy, I had forgotten airplane wings must easily navigate the driveway.
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Every home in their neighborhood has a hangar + plane.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Used portions of the gate, above, for another client.  Hers had to be chicken/rabbit proof at the bottom.  It's obvious I have the best job within the galaxy.
 

Charles Faudree: Creating Relationship with Opposites

"Establishing a relationship between unlike objects adds to the interest of a tablescape.

An antique French figurine is a three-dimensional companion to the painted figures

on the English foot tub."  Charles Faudree

Contrast.  The Arts cross-pollinate.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic from Details, by Charles Faudree & Francesanne Tucker.
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For inspiration in the garden I have been going to interior design writers for decades.