Conservatory & Coop House

Working as a professional propagator for 2.5 years, moons ago, left its mark, deep & rich.  More than knowing how to propagate, I miss the work.  Literally, the physical work of propagation, and its 'time', its progression thru the seasons, from seed/cutting/plug, to plant for sale.  Early mornings, first arriving to the myriad greenhouses, end of the day, closing the myriad greenhouses for the nite.  Thru all weathers, the daily life of it.  Fragrance of the various soils, each green house with its unique smells thru the year, differing temperatures catering to myriad greenhouse crops.  And, of course, Kelvin, who taught me all he knew, by doing.  Working with him, side-by-side.  Hands/bodies laboring, conversation & laughter flowing.  He remains one of those friends never seen for years, then spying each other at a garden event, the big run to hug, and I feel tears of pure happiness, merely seeing Kelvin again.  
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Seeing this pic, below, recently, and realizing how badly I miss seeing our poinsettia crops growing from plugs to maturity.  Didn't know I missed that specific life experience until seeing the pic.  There must be a word for this, probably in French or Italian, American too paltry for such a word.
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Instantly this bit of color thru the Conservatory, below, got put onto my list.  Fourteen months in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse, we're getting a lot done on the 'list', but we're not to my Conservatory or Chicken Coop yet.  And, what a fabulous blessing.  Their architecture improves by the month, free of charge.  Smartly, I'm staying quiet about this private architectural joy with Beloved.  If he knew, he would have already built my Coop & Conservatory, square, historic, plain, good, done.  Poor thing, he said to me, not too long ago, "You get your mind set on something and nothing stops you."  It was in the tone of exasperation, my reply was quick and happy, "It's my best trait.  Your next point?"  Nope, he doesn't need to know about the architectural renderings, yet, for the Coop & Conservatory.


Pic, above, here.

We have a similar bank of windows, above, brought home from a house we renovated for a client recently.  Here's the odd fact, I like being near my chickens, hearing/seeing them, aside from calming I think they are hilarious, they make me laugh.  My chicken coop must have a bit of 'Conservatory/Shed' for me.  A place to be in all weathers/seasons, to read, have lunch with a friend, a glass of wine late on a Saturday afternoon with a new book that just arrived on the doorstep, happy rich solitude.

 
Pic, above, here.

From the house I want to see my chickens in their coop during winter, this wall of windows, below, perfect.

 
Pic, above, here.

Pic, above, here.

Nice roof, above, for my personal section of the Coop, especially in winter, all other roofing will be metal.

 
Pic, above, here.

More than the roosting rack, above, and stone steps, below, I get it about these painters.  Aside from major talent, they love chickens too.  Caring for my chickens is not work or a chore, instead, a delightful part of my days.

 
Pic, above, here.

She, below, is one of us, a Chicken Whisperer.  Have no clue why Providence put chickens into my life past age 50, but I'll take it, say thank you, and keep chickening on.


Pic, above, here.


Pic, above, here.

Best chicken run, above, ever.  Instantaneously with seeing it, onto the list it went.
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My Conservatory shed, with large lean-to metal roof at front, and at back, is already built and awaiting Beloved's barn to be built, his stuff is in my Conservatory shed.  Not far away is the temporary Chicken coop/run Beloved built in the shade of 2 century old pecan trees, it's chain link with a flat metal roof.  For months I've been having breakfast or lunch under the back lean-to roof at my shed, overlooking the coop, lake, woodland, meadow.  Poor Beloved, all that scope-for-the-imagination of Anne of Green Gables in action.  I hear Marilla Cuthbert, "Finest property on the north shore."
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Have no interest creating the finest Conservatory or Coop, only the finest Conservatory and a Coop, for me.  Now, this phase, vision questing, quite fine in its own merit.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Vertical Lawn

Vertical Lawn, below.
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Few houses can withstand a clinging vine, instead, I like to use espalier woody flowering shrubs.  No trellis, no wires.  Hydrangea or sasanqua most commonly, but that is my southern zone.


Pic, above, here.
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Vertical lawn, finial on the roof, and gravel lapping to the door.  Yep, love that trinity.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Danger: Front Yard Vegetable Garden

Several years ago a home near Susanne Hudson put a vegetable garden in their front yard.  It was amazing, stone edged beds, amended soil, extensive.  Passion was palpable.  Then came the front yard garden design police.  Their vegetable garden must go.  Appeals to zoning.  End of the story is awful.  Most of the huge chunks of stone edging, they removed.  Empty vegetable beds.  I should mention the home was older, and not in a subdivision.  The city front yard garden design police won, mean things were said to the offending vegetable garden front yard owners from several arenas.  They sold their home, moved.  Yes, I will make light mention of several homes on the same street with lawns not tended properly, for decades.
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Pinterest sends a weekly drum roll of my most popular pin.  Huge surprise, below, this week.  Saved recently, it made me smile.  The anger thing.  Joining Lois in her 12-step group for friends & family of alcoholics I learned something quite good about anger.  It will cool your jets, at least mine, when in the midst of personal mushroom cloud anger.  Forgiveness.  Personally asking forgiveness from someone else, for my own expression of anger.  Making amends.  Since having this arrow in my quiver, about anger & forgiveness, most expressions of anger never pass my lips.  Instead, blessedly, I think to myself, "You are absolutely not worth making an amend to."  How very nice to lose anger, know the person is dust beneath my feet, disengage, walk away.
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Secondarily to living this way, action steps about anger, is the reaction of others, and their anger.  Oh my, they keep going.  And going.  It's an amazing thing to have anger removed, completely, yet the other person is stuck in their anger, and you realize it could be you still behaving this way.  Yes, you'll even smile at the person still angry with you.  In thanks for not being that kind of person any more.  Warning, they won't like your calm smile.        


Pic, above, here.

If you are borderline zoning with the front yard garden design police, don't do a 'straight' vegetable garden.  Go historical.  More than aesthetics, you'll have greater pollination, producing up to 80% more fruit/vegetables.
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Orchard, below, historic, with guilds.  A gorgeous front yard, I think.


Pic, above, here.

Potager, below, mix of vegetables, herbs, flowers, shrubs.  Hedges & edging give all year structure for any down time the vegetables have.

 
Pic, above, here.

Another potager, below.

 
Pic, above, here.

My 30 year garden was in a subdivision with deed restrictions.  I chose the potager for my front yard, with herbs & espalier fruit trees.  Twice, a neighbor called police about my garden.  Uniformed, and with a gun.  No neighbor ever said anything to me about my garden, ever.  Instead, they called the police.  Yes, it made me angry.
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Both police officers, they were years apart in arriving, walked my garden with me, and apologized for having to knock on my door.  Told both officers no neighbor ever complained to me.  My garden passed the real police, and their guns.  My front yard potager, legal.
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Rich story, neighbors complained, police arrived, my gardening continued unabated, and officially police approved.
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Stories making national news about front yard vegetable gardens, and police becoming involved, immediately make me wish they had done a potager instead of a straight vegetable garden.  I get it about property value, and am a team player.
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'She had a potager in her front yard', would be fine on my tombstone.      
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT
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Anger at the front yard garden design police quite different than anger at a person.  Most front yard garden design police are allowed anonymity.  Let that anger go, and focus on achieving YOUR goals. Hence this little tale of potagers & orchards, historically correct and aesthetic.  Been there, done that, at the wrong end of a gun, got the badge.  Better, kept on gardening, my way.
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Keep Calm & Potager On

Dining Room: Garden Pop-Up Shop

How often do you use your dining room table?  Not much?  Perhaps it can be, below, a pop-up garden room.


Pic, above, here.

More commonly, dining rooms are libraries, below.


Pic, above, here.

I spy something, above, never thought I would need.  Ever.  Do you see it?  Hint, armadillos.
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We've not put in a lot of garden yet, but apparently enough.  They're here, in abundance.
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All my pack of local gardeners seem to dispatch about 30+/year.  At a spring Garden Festival this year I met up with a friend while she was buying several choice plants.  A few days ago, she asked if I remembered the large dwarf cut leaf Japanese maple, several hundred dollars.  Yes.  Armadillo lifted it out of ground, beautiful tree is dead.
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Don't know what they're shooting, above, but it must be a lot.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Why did I never think to do a pop-up dining room garden?  When I was the 1/week Garden Expert on NBC-TV, I brought various props for the shoots, little pop-up shops for the season/topic.  Only today with, top pic, am I realizing to do it for everyday life?  All these many years later?  Quite rich.
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Garden & Gun, indeed.

Choose the Classics: Add Your Character

This would be a fun Garden Show template, below.  All entrees must use a day bed, 2 wicker chairs, wicker coffee table, wicker end table, the same amount of space, but after that, no rules.  Color, cushions, accessories, free to choose.
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The classics with infinite variety.


Pic, above, here.
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Next to, above, I would like to see the entry belonging to modern cutting edge techno masculine.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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No budget for , above?  Hunt/gather furniture basics, paint all the same color, you're on your way.

Detail & Restraint

Vanishing threshold, below.  Amazing detail and restraint.
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Detail and restraint, something to ponder.  More, once achieved, it must clearly be who you are.


Pic, above, here.
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Home, above, is in Carmel by the Sea, complete house tour, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Inspiration for Front Door Color

Yes, your front door matters.  Whether you think so, or not.  Your front door can tell me who you are, or tell me you don't care, or more likely, I care but it's on the to-do list.
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Had to smile at this front door, below.  It's the most often color choice I make for front doors, and I don't mean the blue.  I search interiors for a recurring color in the house, important but not boastful.  Typically, it's found in several pieces of art on the walls.  Clients will say, "I didn't realize I had that color in all my art."  Of course the door color must work with exterior colors already chosen, it's rare not to have it work.
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When clients have a dark foyer, I like to put in the glass door, below.  Literally.  We buy a panel door, and have our carpenter replace the panels with glass.
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Ironically, a year in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse, I've not painted the front door, it remains the seller's blood red color.  Up front, total arrogance, I thought it must be painted quickly, MY color.  It's on the list.  Oddly, the arrogance has disappeared.  The blood red is working for me, until the time arrives and its list number has been reached.


Pic, above, here.

Look around your home, what color is 'popping' from the art?
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Does it scare you a bit, and excite you too, wanting to put it on the front door?  It's probably your color.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Footprint: Power of Color

Without the matching column, below, the house ends at the corner.  With the column's matching brick color, the house ends at the column.
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There should be a technical term, a word, describing this phenomenon.  It doesn't have to be matching materials, merely color.  The power of color.
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Using color to expand the footprint of the home, the shutters, front door, siding/trim, are all fair game choices.  Each situation dictates a more-correct choice from the trinity of choices.


Pic, above, here.
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Brick column, above, seems newer than the home, the brick is smoother than brick on the home.
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Perfect choice for stone step, above, its color melding into the garden, and rough hewn edge adding welcome/warmth verses a saw cut edge, in this situation.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Off topic, below.


Pic, above, here.

Found this, above, a few days ago.  How could I not think of my best ever older boyfriend, by decades, crush.  Studying historic gardens across Scotland for 2 weeks, our group of 23 stayed in small hotels, most had been a hunting lodge, or some other interesting thing a century or 2 ago.   Since it was Scotland I had bought a bottle of Laphroaig.  After touring all day, our group would retire to fluff & puff for dinner, meeting in the parlor before dinner for socializing a bit, before the splintering off to our tables.  First, I must mention my best ever older boyfriend was quite married, and his wife, and her sister, were in our group.  Adored them too, his wife adored me for taking her husband off her hands for a few minutes at breakfast and dinner.  Heading to the parlor before dinner, my roommate & I would be carrying a tea cup.  
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Sitting on the sofa, in the parlor, talking with friends, I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders from behind, then best ever older boyfriend dipped his head low over me.  He squeezed my shoulders quite tight, whispering into my ear, "Tara you're alright, you're just alright."
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Best ever older boyfriend had an instinct.  Doubting my tea drinking, he was leaning in to smell my tea cup, and definitely got the mystery solved.  The color of strong tea, it was, of course, Laphroaig, neat.
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Seeing the quote, above, brought back those halcyon days with best ever older boyfriend.

Naked Ladies: Harbinger of Autumn

Naked Ladies, below.  Bulbs planted in spring, come up in August, after a rain.  Harbingers of change, late summer into the earliest autumn.  


Pic, above, P. Allen Smith, Amaryllis belladonna.  More planting details, here.

Their stalks arise, almost entire, overnite, crowned with buds, and quickly the flowers.  Delicate in looks, tough in reality.
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Pic, above, Brent & Becky's Bulbs, have ordered from them for years.
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Both pink and red Naked Ladies are in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse garden.  Telling stories, mystery tales.  Lots of them, they are in the oddest places, erratically, and some geometric.  I know I want more.
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First order of bulbs for my new garden, daffodils, naked ladies, blue grape hyacinths.  Several types of each.
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Here's what I know about bulb orders, when you are ordering tough, long lived bulbs.  Scare yourself, a bit, order more than you should.  Go over budget.  You won't regret it, unless it's regretting not having spent more.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T  

Good Looking Green Meatballs

This exception, below, was too many years arriving.  Good looking, year round interest, not too much maintenance.
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What's the exception?  These are green meatballs that look great, have an intellect, and finally proved me wrong about how horrible green meatballs are.
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Most often green meatballs evolve in default.  Perhaps you have some now, maybe you can look at them thru this prism, below.  Poof, voila, create good green meatballs from bad.


Pic, above, here.


Pic, above, here.
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Who knew even ugly green meatballs could have new life chapters?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

A Garden of the Mind: Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe

Immediately made me smile, the pun, below.  Then, more closely, I marveled at the contouring.  Please tell me you see the pun too.
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It's in the filled space vs. open space, the stone bridge.  Wicked good.  What a devious mind.
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Back to the contouring.  Who knows what this site began with.  I do know the equipment & men to create it.  I know the sound of the caterpillar, men's voices, shovels.  Time.  Finally, I know the sound of shovels stopping when I arrive, all those men's eyes, totally on my body language.  My job is the finished garden, their job is getting it there.  My boss is the client, their boss is Beloved.  Even Beloved does that little 'freeze' thing, focused on my seeing the nearly completed project.  The men know up front, it takes Beloved a bit longer, when I speak, I mean it.  "The front right corner needs to be raised 3", and what's going on with the mid section of the upper rill to the left, didn't you pull a string on that, good job on the wonky tree, but why did you place the entire rill/pond/waterfall further up, I told you earlier the upper waterfall would need faux geometry..... ?", for starters.  Each concern has a detailed answer.  Sometimes Nature cannot be manipulated, I give in, other times a new solution must be found, while looking the same, other times, I am adamant.  My job, at this critical juncture, is to be fierce.  The men love the theatrics of this phase.  Beloved with his 30 years experience, me with my 30 years experience, in discussions.  Beloved's boss is the cash register.  Tick-tock with men, equipment, materials, ring-ring goes the cash register.  Hundreds of dollars/hour, every hour, just to be on site.  Once all of the, above, has occurred there is another sound, men & shovels & caterpillar back to work, sweet.  Sweeter still, a completed garden.    


Pic, above, here.
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Another bite of humor, above, squares & straight lines.  In college is was all the incurves/outcurves blah-ti-bla-ti-nightmare to the 29th power.
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I liked this garden, above, so much I had to follow the links, hoping to discover the designer.  Great answer, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe.  Alas, having met and been able to spend time with Christopher Lloyd & Rosemary Verey, Sir Geoffrey got past me.  A friend, director of Atlanta History Center, many years ago, hired Sir Geoffrey to pull together a master plan/vision statement for the center.  Didn't learn of the visit till well past the event.  So close....so close.
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Pic, above, and to order, here.

Great title, above, exactly what Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe's gardens do to me, get in my mind, and stick.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Expense for labor, travel, materials, regulations, insurance, layers of government Atlas Shrugged, make operations needle sharp.  For decades if a client pulled men off our work in the bid to clear a patch of kudzu or haul away a pile of debris, not in the bid, we could absorb.  Now, the men are only allowed work within the bid.  What seems merely a few guys spending an hour on weeds, is now several hundred dollars plus, at times, pushing travel into rush hour traffic, adding hundreds more dollars, toss in rain, delaying a day.  The amount of money 1 hour of work outside the bid adds is outrageous.  Then, the ridiculous expense of adding a 'tree'.  The extra tree has its own pricing without reductions for quantity , from the nursery from the original bid, delivery overhead, and voila, that extra tree, costs as much as several of the original trees.  Wildly crazy, but true economics of today's business model.  Now, it's a change order for that pile of debris or pulling out kudzu.  Never thought my industry would become like this.
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Some neighborhoods have a fee for using their roads.  One client, a large job, told us a few days into the work he did not want us working past 5pm.  The bid was priced on work from sunrise/sunset.  We lost, aka, added 3 days time to the work.  Not listed in our bid, we absorbed the loss.  Yep, pricing from sunrise/sunset now in the bid, change quitting time to 5pm, not a problem, change order.
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Early this summer we filed for a work permit in the city of Atlanta.  At the front end of the process we saw a local newscast, the city of Atlanta had fired most of its building permitting office including the director, corruption.  Cost us almost a month of waiting, and other jobs were on a timeline with signed contracts.  It gets worse, but all is done now, 97% done, we are so close to fall, their fescue backyard should wait, then all is 100% complete.  I think of these things as getting another MBA.

Getting the Smallest Detail Right

The smallest detail, below, exposes the confident knowledge of historic Garden Design rules.


Pic, above, here.
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Do you know what the smallest detail is, above?  Should I wait till tomorrow for the answer?  Perhaps natter on, giving you time.  Lanterns, above, are an odd move, but perhaps they truly needed the light or yet another ubiquitous stylist input.  The water, above, is a mirror and slow mesmerizing burble.  Reminds me of Sir Roy Strong mentioning every garden needs a mirror of the sky.
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Smallest detail they got right, above?  Gravel lapping to the tree, no border edging.  Of course, if this were my garden ahead of having a fabulous photographer I would brush the gravel with my fingers, slightly away from the trunks, more of an illusion the trunks are 'arising' instead of looking so 'plopped' in.
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Exactly the types of things discussed in depth with my Garden Design friends.  Someone must live this type of life, and it's us!
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What's not to adore about peers putting their spin on it?
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Your spin on the garden, above?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Garden Design Rule for the lapping gravel?  Contrast.  Plenty of formality with coping around gravel and styling, going rustic with the lapping gravel is the contrast.