A Wabi Sabi Plinth

If you find the perfect pair of urns do not worry about their height.

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Use a plinth if they must be higher.

Old urns, new to the site, with the perfect plinth, above.
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The Long Barn, above, was made of terra cotta squares decades ago.  A few were found.
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Sure, new plinths could have been bought or custom made for this site.  However, using the terra cotta squares is superior.  The best gardens have elements of the Poverty Cycle.  Put another way, wabi sabi must be included in every garden design.
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Then there is Mary Kistner's, "It's what we do with what we have.", life motto.  Whenever I include Mary I know I'm doing the right thing, and I'm getting a little visit from her.  Sometimes I go so far as to ask, "What would Mary do?"
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic taken at jobsite last month.
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Mary, an artist,  was childless & died a widow in her 80's.  Her memorial service was at a museum in the main, huge, gallery.  Standing room only.

Every Garden Needs the Tall Cone Shape

Every garden needs a tall cone shape to draw eyes to the sky.

Can't remember which symposium lecturer said this but knew immediately it was true.  And, more, how do you know WHERE to put this tall cone shape?

For years I asked other garden designers how they knew where to put this piece of magic.

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None could put it into words.

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Ironically, I do know where to put tall cone shapes now.

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Yet have no words to describe the process.

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Intuitive.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics at jobsite this month.  Italian cypress framing the Long Barn and pastures.

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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.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

The Proper Direction of Stewardship in a Garden

"We discover G*d's presence inside whenever we override our ego's pride and courageously put aside all that we hide."  Rabbi David Aaron

From the mailbox & gravel drive, above, my best work begins.  

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Getting here was decades.  Learning simplicity & the humility to let the site speak without reference to my 

skills.  Honestly, I wonder how Providence has time for anyone else, attention lavished upon my character defects never wains.
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Nor must I 'own' this site.  My pride/ego is rooted in the work.  A walled orchard is built, a gravel drive spread, potager planted and more, and with each, they are taken by the owner's hands before my feet leave the site.
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I'm in love with this site, and so is the owner.  It is very much the 3 of us.  That is how strongly we relate to these acres.  She is a good steward of her acres and in return I get to watch her acres in stewardship of her.
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Gifts of loving these acres arrive in many forms & layers.  Telling us we are doing the right thing/s.
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Tasha Tudor's favorite line of poetry, 'take joy', in action.  Joy is always there, but it must be taken.
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What does any of this have to do with you?  Stewardship.  Not your stewardship of the garden.  But the stewardship your garden has for you.  Do you have that in your life?  Are you in relationship with your garden?  Does it fill you with joy, enrich your spirit, give you energy just seeing it from the windows of your home?  Good news, it's not about acres & money.  It's putting the garden into relationship with your home & life with historic templates.
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This reads a bit like an altar call.  Ironic, she says her deep feeling with her garden is 'abiding', I feel 'atonement' in mine.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic at jobsite this month.  Silent Partner, I can see your face reading this and know you understand the metaphorical use of filthy lucre.
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My garden is one of my best friends, unconditionally loving, rich in narrative.  A language I can understand.  People?  No, easier to understand my garden.  
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1.  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.
   

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   Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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   Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

 

Using Color Restraint with Intensity

Intense restraint and another example of the color trinity green-brown-white.

Restraint so intense the terrace has become a proscenium for guests.
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Subtlety so rich the bluestone & granite become focal points.
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Humbling execution.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic Wendy Posard and Associates.  Definite teamwork between architect & owners.
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2 Tara Dillard questions a patio must answer, 'Is this patio so fabulous I must see inside the house?', 'Is this patio so incredible I must see the garden?'.  Yes & yes.

Simple Manipulations: How Many Do You See?

Do you see the manipulations, below?

Seating to create a gathering spot, figs for summer shade/winter sun over the benches, drystack stone wall cut into a slight slope forcing foot traffic into defined directions, formal boxwood framing pastoral views, tapering stone wall allowing only small machinery into the pasture from this direction, gravel terrace ready for men-trucks-heavy equipment, horses, or a catered soiree for 100.
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And, of course, it must all look a century old, be easy to maintain, and provide interest 24/7.
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When something appears simple, it rarely is.  Same is true of people.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic at a jobsite last week.
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Do you know the maximum pollinator habitat, above?  Seriously, can you verbalize what creates the best pollinator habitat above?  Answer at bottom.
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Being simple requires each of the decades I've been learning about gardens.  Better, being simple in a garden, takes me where Joseph Campbell says our eternity is.  Ironic, in this American life/era, to have found my bliss in work.
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1. Joseph Campbell - Wikiquote

   en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell‎

   Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own .... And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
2. More, being simple connects me to the message/life work of Wendell Berry & E.M. Forster.  

3. Wendell Berry Earns Highest Humanities Award, Lectures on ...

   sojo.net/.../wendell-berry-earns-highest-humanities-award-lectures-econo...‎

   Apr 24, 2012 - On Monday evening, Wendell Berry delivered the 41st annual ... The title hinges on E.M. Forster's 1910 novel Howards End, which Berry said, ...
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5.  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.
6. Answer to question, above,  High density/low density, open meadow/dense woodland.

Refreshing: Interior Plants Do Not Look Store Bought

Notice something extraordinarily different about the plants styling the dining room, below?

They look as if they came from the conservatory on site.
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Quite rare to see this attention to detail, though saucers should be included with the coleus & orchid for a complete narrative.  (I have clients on tours, in magazines, TV, so, yes, I'm paid to be this particular!)
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And that doesn't begin to mention the delicious focal point on axis with the vanishing threshold.
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Nice, indeed.  Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Architectural Digest.  Cote de Texas had the pic on a post about wall paper recently.
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  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.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Daffodils: Ordering, Siting, Planting

Abiding in the Rustic Barn until the coyote roundup is complete, Jefferson, below, was totally enthralled with our entry for the daffodil bulbs.  

Thousands of bulbs, below.

Once sited thousands seemed like two, maybe three.

A century old the home had no daffodils.  I'm siting them to look as if they have been there longer than a century.  Great billowy drifts.
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These daffodil bulbs, above, will drift thru the fence as if the fence came later.
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Humbling to watch my team plant the bulbs.  On their knees, each bulb hand planted with a small miner's pick.

They start planting at the middle of the drifts, facing each other, on their knees, then moving outward.  All the while bantering amongst themselves.  Teamwork.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Bulbs ordered from Brent & Becky's Bulbs.  Mostly 'Carlton' daffodils.
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Pics this week at jobsite.  Isn't the top pic purrfectly catalicious?  Jefferson was not about to admit interest in our activities.
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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.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Stained Concrete

Technically this should be a 'cold' space.  Concrete, glass, iron.

Instead, with staining of the concrete, there is warmth & invitation.
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Pressure wash?  Never.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic via La Maison Fou.
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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.

Aerin Lauder: Color Choices

What is the most obvious fact, below?

Green-Brown-White is the top color trinity, again.
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Choose a color trinity for your garden, and it should flow from your interiors, then stay true.
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What is your color trinity?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic Aerin Lauder.
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Aerin Lauder must be an old soul.  She's kept, yet made her mother's garden/house her own.  Building upon good existing layers.  No ego about starting from scratch, just because she can.  The garden, above, is a garden design class in a single pic.  More than pretty, it didn't cost much to create nor will it cost much to maintain.  Aerin's Effortless Style is no sales gimmick in the garden.

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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.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Copy from those at the Peak of their Game

You do a thing in the garden with your full IQ, passion, energy, wallet, time.  Influenced by era.

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At my front door, above, if you know the 80's, you're seeing Horticulture magazine, covers of Smith & Hawken catalog, and articles, pages long, from House & Garden magazine.

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So, where do you think I'm going with this?

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History.

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That trinity of resources, above, was from the best brains at the peak of their game.

  Drenched in the poverty cycle of the Great Depression & rusticities of turn-of-the-century Lutyens/Jekyll with generous splashes remaining of the Belle Epoque.

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So, when asked what plant should go in a certain spot or what is wrong with their lawn.  I pause, long.

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Themistocles comes to mind, " "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city."

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So, when I'm told, "I want a garden but I don't have a lot of money."

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Winston Churchill comes to mind, "....when he was asked to cut arts funding in favor of the war effort, he simply replied, "Then what are we fighting for?"

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The best thing I've ever done in my life was to say, Yes, when my soul told me to have a garden. 

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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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.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Element of Ranchburger Vile

Iron panels grace ranchburgers across USA.

Reading the English  Telegraph I see, above.
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And I think, Come on USA you can do so much better.  We have the same iron panels to work with yet they are vile.
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Adore getting every new ranchburger client.  Too easy to create charm from vile.  Toss in the builder's ranchburger landscaping & I can barely drive without carefully wearing my imaginary Ranchburger Blinders.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Ranchburger?  Me?  I live in a Guppy ca. 1985.  You know, gaping garage + drive facing the street with a teensy front door.  So bad, some neighborhoods were built with deed restrictions against them.  Go team !
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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.

Sweet Serendipity: Tuteurs + Lights

A picture note for the garden.

Shopping list: lights.  Prefer to make my own tuteurs.
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Twigs/wood can be found easily.
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Why have I not done this sooner?  Must get it done during this season of early nightfalls.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, lost provenance.