How to Design the Best Landscape is Not What You Think: It's Easier

Design your garden for winter, it will be pretty all year.

Spring, roses, hydrangeas, foxgloves & etc. get all the calendar shots, yet the true test remains, winter.
.
Rosemary Verey's, The Garden in Winter, is the garden design book you want.  Garden design facts are counterintuitive.
.
Another counterintuitive garden design rule?  Copy.  If it's beautiful in another garden it will be beautiful in yours, and original.  
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic Belgian Pearls.  A wonderful resource taken from Belgian Pearls, here.
.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Simple Complexities

More than pretty, easy to maintain.

This is great pollinator habitat.  High density mixed with low density.
.
Focal point on axis with the front door is also on view from every front window of the home.
.
The more axis a focal point has the better the design.
.
 Sir Roy Strong says gardens must have a sky mirror.
.
Of course there is more detail, it's almost a Landscape Design course in a single pic.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic I Love Your Style.
.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Double Axis: Consider Both Directions

Outside, at the tiered fountain looking into the window, I wonder if the wreath is double sided.

Double Axis, if a view is pretty in 1 direction it must be pretty in the opposite direction.

.

Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

,

Pic Habitually Chic.

.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

How to Arrange Furniture 101: Outside

Interior furniture arrangements tell me exactly how to arrange exterior furniture.

And the colors to choose, style range, flow, forms, ambiance.
.
Aside from liking this room, above, it takes my mind into overdrive thinking of resources available to recreate it outside.
.
Not a problem if budget isn't a problem.
.
If time is not an issue even a tight budget can get this room, outside.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
A few years ago a client with an amoeba shaped sofa LOVED how I designed her front lawn.  Yes, it was exactly her sofa shape.  And she thought I was brilliant.  Now, go be brilliant for yourself !
.
Pic Cote de Texas.
.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Layers of Green are Best in Garden Design

Layers of green always work.

.
Flowers.  Give-me-flowers-or-give-me-ugly seems to be the starter gardener mindset.
.
Layers of green are pretty all year vs. a season.  Layers of green emit ion exchanges of serenity.
.
I can assure you choosing layers of green vs. flowers is, "The spreading wide of narrow Hands To gather Paradise—", "I dwell in Possibility..." by Emily Dickinson.

.

Odd how most of Garden Design is counterintuitive.

.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

.

How do I know these things?  Queen of the flower method of garden design 12-step program.  No, I will not enable you.  My goal is to help you get rid of those pink elephants in your landscape.

.

pic via Pinterest.

.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Garden Gates are Meant to be Read

  Do you know why the gate, below, has its styling?

.

 Think chickens.  

.

This gate was designed to keep chickens from wandering away.

.

.

Several times I've been hired to open a hedge at the front of a woman's garden.  In each instance a couple of plants were removed, a gate installed, a path added, creating a new entry to the front of the home.  Flow, open, welcome, beauty where there had been a hedge saying, 'Keep Away'.

.

Welcome vs. Keep Away

.

Most often, when I'm hired, the metaphors in the client's life/garden are dripping significance.  I'll say the obvious and get back, How did you know?

.

You know exactly how I know.  Easy to see another's life metaphors.  It's our own dancing behind clouds.

.

Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Ridiculous Fun vs. Doing-the-Right-Thing

Tell me again why Americans are so wedded to green meatball foundation plantings.

.

Proof, below, you can still have those green meatballs at the foundation.

Today's assignment: In your mind, take away your foundation plantings, replace with furnishings-gravel-urns-plinths, from above, in any permutation that is ridiculous fun & fabulous.  Really, do this, complete the assignment.  You have the rest of the day.
.
Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

.

Pic via Pinterest.

Want Elegance? Espalier

No room for 'lawn'?  Little space to landscape?

.

Go vertical.

.

Woody shrubs with medium or slow growth are best.  No wires or trellis needed.

.

Merely espalier.

.

Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

.

Please add ESPALIER to your quiver of garden tools.

.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

.

pic via Tumblr

How to Design a Grill so it's not an Eyesore

Movable grills are awkward, not aesthetic, & do not 'fade away' into the backdrop.  Mostly, movable grills are an eyesore.  

.

If a movable grill is on your buy-list study the exterior design, above.

.

This is an expertly executed exterior design.  

.

Obviously a styled photo I can still smell what's cooking.  And we 'know' there was no cooking going-on for the shoot !

.

Why does this movable grill look good?  Props: comfort chairs-pillows-table-umbrella-mood, a color trinity was chosen/green-gray-stainless, simplicity, focal point (if you have an eyesore place a focal point nearby), contrast of many square shapes vs. round armillary sundial, formal landscape choices contrasted with informal plantings, repetition of flooring from dining area to garden area, an easy to maintain garden lets you focus on LIVING in the garden.  Simply.

.

Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

.

Pic via 5th and State.  No excuses about the house, above.  If it's beautiful at a historic estate, it will be beautiful in your landscape.

.

If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Garden Design: Bedroom Axis

Try this for your interior tabletop design.  The largest piece...outside.

If there is another window in the room, I swoon.
.
You do know about rooms with windows on 2 walls?  We are hardwired for them in our DNA.  Christopher Alexander,    A Pattern Language, describes the architecture our souls desire & thrive best with.  
.
Ginger Barber, above, decorating.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic Ginger Barber found at Cote de Texas.

Where to Site a Garden Focal Point

In the garden, your house is the main focal point.

.

For centuries, this, below, has worked.

.

If something has worked for centuries, there is a reason.

.

And, it will work for you.

.

Urn on plinth.

.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

.

Never had a college instructor or seminar speaker say, In the garden your home is the focal point.

.

Why?

.

What did those 'experts' miss?  Paint colors on the home, lighting, hardware, views into windows, style choices, where to correctly site exterior focal points.  For starters.

.

Most common question I receive, Where should I put this plant?

.

If only that were the question.

.

Garden design is about where to put a plant?

.

Hardly.

.

Pic via Jennings & Gates: Notes from a Virginia Country House.  

Inspiration: It's ALWAYS There

She only asked that her landscape be, Updated.

Not much had been done since construction over a decade ago.

.

Yet, behind the garage was a shabby whisky barrel stuffed with tired herbs.

.

The merest sign of DESIRE !

Of course I put an herb garden into her 'UPDATE'.  Thyme & rosemary going in this month, above.
.
Are you ignoring something in your garden that would make you HAPPY ?
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Pics in a client garden.  And she thought the herb garden was a good idea of 'mine'.  Instead, I feel like my Garden Design gave her 'permission' to fully deeply wildly joyfully have herbs.