When Front Door & Back Door are Aligned

This morning I'm expecting a couple of pics to arrive by text.  An out-of-state client sent pics of her interior & exterior via Dropbox.
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An axis of interior views wasn't directly shot, but it seems her front door is on axis with her back door.  Of course I called her, wanting to know if it's true.  'Mostly', she said.  Good enough for me !
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Cannot wait for those pics.  Drawing focal points on axis, at back door and front door, each to be seen from along that central axis, inside, of front door to back door.  From several windows too.


Pic, above, here.

I don't know what the 'power' is behind creating a double axis of focal points off a front door and a back door, but it's palpable.


Pic, above, here.
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Her land is suitable at front door & back door for creating a double axis, more, beyond the front yard is a road, and beyond the back yard is a neighbor's home.  I get to make them disappear.  In beauty, no less.  Not hide them, but, they will be gone.
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Pic, above, here.
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This is so fun.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Front Door: Vanishing Threshold

Vanishing threshold, below, garden light pouring inside.


Pic, above, here.

Our ca. 1900 house, below, is getting plenty of attention, but the list has its priorities.  Pic, above, gave me an idea for the Sheraton sideboard, below, plinth for potted plants.

 

Heart of pine floors, above/below, are original to the house.  Painting the central hall walls, on the list.
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Front door, original to the house, its bell still works.  Walls in the room, right, below, will remain their palest pink.  Would have never, ever, painted the room this color, which taught me something.  I love, adore, want to be in this room all the time.  It's a happy, happy, happier room.  More, the palest pink is warm in winter & cool in summer.  Pure magic.
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Painting in previous post, is exactly the painting I would like above the sideboard, below.



This is the fateful front door, above, 1st step over its threshold, I heard, "You have her way of walking around the house."  E.M. Forster, Howard's End.  More lines, and clear visuals, yet, how to appear calm, when every cell in my body lurched onto this house.  Events & feelings like this only occur in books or movies.  Irony, before 1st stepping foot into the house, I was angry with myself as the drive to see the house became longer & longer & longer, so long we were off any known map.  Who could ever live beyond the beyond?  Beloved was in his own truck, we had separate appointments, the smiling realtor awaiting at the front steps with her hand extended, the homeowner had arranged her schedule too.  How could I have made such a mistake?  Wasting my time, and theirs.
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We made an offer within 24 hours.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Interior Art is your Exterior Color Trinity

I adore this painting, below.  Selfishly, love the entire canvas.  Is it good art?  Don't know.  I do know, this painting would be my starting point for choosing exterior colors.  Shutters, trim, front door, patio cushions, furniture, stone, etc.  Color answers are in this painting.  


Pic, above, here.
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Every garden must have a color trinity chosen, green - brown - white is the classic.  Not mandatory, in the least.  Nor is choosing a color trinity limiting or cliche.  Instead, a Garden Design tool that has worked for centuries.  Within a color trinity are limitless selections of shade.  Making your choice of trinity, uniquely you, and more intensely you.
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Aging is never a bore.  Younger, I could not abide this style of art, above.  Now, love it.
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Not chosen a color trinity for your exterior?  Look inside your home, at your art.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Design: Changing Narrative

A 'simple' Garden Design, below, all the layers dramatically in place.  Starting at the top of the picture, now, in your mind, label each layer of the Garden Design, below.
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If you've come to Garden Design, age 50 up, this type of Garden Design holds significant charms vs. coming to Garden Design in your 20's.
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But I'm getting ahead of my story, most of us come to gardening, if we do come to gardening, as the song noted, 'In a heated rush'.  And, 'Seeing what you wanted to see'.
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Until Seth Godin a few days ago I taught garden design for beginners at the Atlanta Botanical Garden and local college, knowing my students needed to unlearn most of what they already knew about Garden Design, as beginners.
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Garden Design appears easy, we try it, and the results prove Garden Design has a lot of elements not readily apparent, though beautifully designed gardens hide nothing.  Excepting. how can you 'see' the process of designing a good garden, how can you 'see' what was left out of the beautiful Garden Design?  Time to switch the narrative from what you thought you knew about Garden Design, as rank novice, to learning the nuts/bolts of real Garden Design.
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Garden Design is not voodoo or feelings about what will work, it is science and art, a historical process, unchanged, since well before the birth of Christ.
 


Pic, above, here.
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"Narrating our lives, the little play-by-play we can't help carrying around, that's a survival mechanism. But it also hotwires our feelings, changes our posture, limits our possibilities.

The narrative is useful as long as it's useful, helping you solve problems and move forward. But when it reinforces bad habits or makes things smaller, we can drop it and merely be present, right here, right now."  Seth Godin

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Exactly, the narrative we have as beginning gardeners, total novices, is our own narrative.  Limiting our possibilities, doesn't move us forward, literally makes our lives smaller.
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Every historic layer of Garden Design, thousands of years worth, is, above.  Though it appears quite modern.  Bless good Garden Design for that.  It allows playfulness with abandon.
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Thank you Seth Godin, now I know it's not the unlearning of our beginning Garden Design ideas we need to do, it's literally changing the narrative.  When we change the narrative, we change our lives.
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Live a smaller life, never move forward, limit possibilities?  What's not to like about changing the narrative?
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More than gaining a new narrative and ability to create an extraordinary Garden Design, the garden once built/planted will continually renew itself, with abandon.  What does that mean?  Once you've put the effort into building a beautiful Garden Design, the garden rewards you, no effort on your part, with a larger life, forward momentum, and limitless possibility.  And with some brownie points included, again without effort, raised property value, lower heating/cooling expense, easier maintenance & lifestyle.  Not bad, for changing your narrative about Garden Design.  
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So, have you named all the layers of the Garden Design, above?  Sky-ceiling, tall trees-canopy, small trees-understory, pruned hedge-walls, low meadow-floor, urn-focal point.  A garden room.  Plant it and you'll have a moat of grace around your home.  And life.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Simple is the Most Complicated

Centuries of story, below, in this French home/garden, wars, plagues, art, architecture, transportation, taxes, riches, poverty, gain, desire, love, grief, loss.  What remains?  Formality with agrarian.  The former, easily located, can you outline the agrarian parameters, and label them, below?
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Two things, below, never mentioned in my measly USA horticulture degree.  If you're a Garden Whisperer, they don't whisper, below, they shout, in tears of joy or Wendell Berry poetry.
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First, below, is the magic of Tara Turf.  Meadow with a mix of what the wind blows, choices that are planted, herbs, bulbs, etc.  Mowed at 1-4 heights creating formality, paths, guilds.  Just meadow, it has no name.  It's literally biblical.  Earth as Provider.  Pastures & meadows, hallowed ground for pollinators, increasing crop yields by 80% with zero extra effort.  Tara Turf is unique to each site.  There should be myriad Tara Turf's for sale.  Tara Turf Gulf Coast, Tara Turf Mid-Tennessee, Tara Turf North Georgia you get the idea.
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Back to the agrarian parameters, below.  They are, expanse of meadow, feeding both pollinators & livestock.  Tallish meadow lapping the tightly controlled pruning of the topiaries?  Pure metaphor.  I adore this phase of maintaining a historic garden, rich in stories.  Tallish meadow lapping the topiaries cannot stay as a permanent feature, it would defoliate the base of the topiaries.
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Second, the Poverty Cycle.  The landscape below is not a conceit designed in, it's organically evolved.  A thread the worlds best historic gardens each has, eras of deep poverty, due to wars or disease.  Touring those gardens I learned to design using elements of the Poverty Cycle.  With zero Poverty Cycle, below, the garden would be entire shrub beds in various forms/shapes with intricate pruning, paths, bulbs, annuals, a morass of boredom, expensively maintained.



Pic, above, here.
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Before studying historic gardens across Europe, I thought the gardens, above, seen on TV or in books were a bore-bore-bore.  Amusing to look back at that 'me'.  Those days were the 80's and I certainly had every perennial and gee-gaw.  As Zorba the Greek so well said, The full catastrophe.
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Where are you on the pendulum of the garden, above?  What do you see?  Do you like it?  Does the house intrigue you more than the grounds?  What is the metaphor of this garden, above, to you?  Why is this agrarian landscape better than HOA rules/restrictions subdivision?  Oops, a little book club question section.
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Best part, and proof for this garden, above?  Looks good, above, and would look good at a 1959 3b/1b ranchburger.

Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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A few more from Zorba:

• As I watched the seagulls, I thought: "That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust."
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• Tell me what you do with the food you eat, and I'll tell you what you are. Some turn their food into fat and manure, some into work and good humor, and others, I'm told, intoGod.
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• Is it possible to talk by dancing? And yet I dare swear that's how the gods and devils must talk to one another.
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• How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else. And all that is required to feelthat here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.
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• You must sometimes rejoice that the dark forces of destruction are so numerous and invincible: for thus your aim to live almost without hope becomes more heroic and yoursoul acquires a more tragic greatness.
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• In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls.
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• Action, dear inactive master, action: there is no other salvation

    

• The highest point a man can obtain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: SacredAwe!

Front Door: Changing a Few Things

'There you go again', said during a much earlier debate.  Architecture, below, with a big fat garage, teensy front door, and a room at the end to finish the story.  I lived in one of these homes for 30 years, the entire neighborhood stuffed with them.  Built in the 80's a few newer neighborhoods outlawed the style in their deed restrictions.  Why?  Not street friendly, not conducive to neighbors knowing their neighbors, hulking garages with their landing strips dominate the entire neighborhood, front doors entered from their service court, not thru the 'garden'.  Very little, friendly.
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No worries, all easy fixes.  Remember, I had 30 years of this particular game.
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First, bravo the style, below, of front door.  Using a ubiquitous 6 panel door would lower the roof height. The long bottom panel, below, heightens the space, then the windows add a warm welcome with a bit more height, wonderful.  Have changed many front doors this way thru the years.
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Beyond this point there be dragons, early map makers wrote at the edges of their maps.
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First dragon I will completely ignore, it is so obvious, the huge conifer.  If you say it must be kept, ok.  Move it closer to the house, and keep it a bonsai espalier against the wall.  Learn how to do it properly, and it will be a pleasant few minutes each year.
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Next dragon, faux stone pavers are designed much too narrowly.  Total function, zero form.  Add more faux stone pavers.  Left of the front path, between drive/front walk, add stone pavers entirely where there is now mulch and those ornamental grass looking things, from house to front step.  Add more faux stone pavers to the right of the path, from the second front step, to the front door.  Why?  Creates a wider foyer, instead of this pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey front door & path.  In addition, instead of a narrow rigid walking path to the front door you've opened up a large landing.  Incredibly affordable too, most big box stores sell these faux stone pavers, and unskilled labor, aka you, can install them nicely.  Hint, if you are doing faux stone pavers yourself, always pull a string.  Always.
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Dragon- of- flat is next.  How to 3-D the walls at the front door?  Add a bell to the wall, preferably to the right of the door.  Either historic or artisan, and scaled properly.  Example, at bottom.
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Dragon downspout, another common issue.  But whoa, the white downspout at left corner.  This situation a bit of an exception.  Normally, paint downspouts copper color.  Here, the white house trim, tight space is all encompassing.  A lot going on with horizontal and vertical white trim, a mosh pit.  Boldly creating an exception, I would only paint the section of downspout, copper color, fronting the brick wall.  Why?  The rest of that downspout is blending with white eve and white vertical trim.  Will include the electrical socket with this dragon, at the left of the front door in the brick, paint it copper color too.
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Dragons on the wall to left of the front door, below.  I cannot see clearly what the 2 white rectangle squares are.  Paint them same color as shakes, they recede, instead of jump forward, look-at-me-look-at-me.
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Dragon, lighting.  Cannot see a light for the front door.  To keep the space feeling large, perhaps a simple recessed lite, in the eve, above the front door or a matching light on the wall, to the left of the front door, matching the light, below, to the right of the garage door.
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Dragon, dead brown mulch.  And it must be replenished yearly.  Plant an evergreen groundcover, done.  Warm & lush vs. dead & brown.
    


Pic, above, here.
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Your turn.  What dragons, above, did you see, that I missed?  How would you change the dragons I did mention?  Please note, I've used affordable changes.  Of course I have changes for a different price point.  This home is lovely, I would truly like to see a stone path/steps.  And, I would add another bonsai espalier conifer, a dwarf conifer, to the left of the front path too.  A tighter espalier than the conifer at right of the path.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T


Pic, above, here.

Be Like The Fox

"Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction."  Wendell Berry
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Fourteen mos. in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse, my library is still boxed.  If you know anything about anyone with a library, as a necessity to living/breathing, you know books in my office were packed separately and on their shelves.  Nor have I stopped ordering new books.  Cell phones/computers have changed lives greatly, but nothing has changed the thrill of a new book arrived in the mail, awaiting on the doorstep.  Back to the cell phone, my bad, should be labeled a drug-of-choice when it comes to ordering books.
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Who knew my library made me like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction?



Pic, above, here.
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Lived in my previous garden 30 years, built the house/garden from bare land, it was in magazines, books, and on TV.  Often, gardening there, my mind would wander to time.  Knowing if I lived actively on the same spot, 500 years might get me somewhere with it.  Without ever becoming bored.  Ever.
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Who knew my garden made me like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction?
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Pic, above, here.
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Have made it as far as talking with our carpenter about building library shelves.  Location & dimensions. Life is good.
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"Practice resurrection."  Wendell Berry
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Something Cicero knew about gardens & libraries, each are resurrection factories.

Garden & Be Well,   XO T



Pic, above, here.
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Library bombed by the Luftwaffe during WWII, above.  My tribe.

 
Pic, above, here.
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My mom, above.  Without divulging her story I can mention her tiny wail of defense, It's my only vice.  Go mom!  She pulls sister/me into aiding her, every trip to mom's, the library.  Even Beloved knows deeply my mom & her library.
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Went to mom's library, 1st time, about age 6, it was in a portable building in Clear Lake City, TX,  Freeman Memorial Library, named in honor of a neighbor, Ted Freeman, below, a man my dad was working with, he had recently been assigned to my dad for training to fly new equipment dad's team was designing.  The new equipment had Saturn V booster engines with flight capabilities into space, aka Apollo rocket.  The pair of men who found Mr. Freeman lived in our neighborhood too, and were in Apollo flight training with dad.  Our neighborhood is not far from the crash site at Ellington Field.   Freeman Memorial Library moved across the street from its beginnings, and is now a huge complex, perfect for mom's 'vice'.

Ted Freeman

10/31/64: Crashed his T-38 jet when a goose smashed into the cockpit

By Jeffrey KlugerJan. 31, 2013

NASA

Jim Lovell and Pete Conrad, a pair of young astronauts who had not yet flown, were returning from a day of goose hunting near Ellington Air Force Base in Houston one day in 1964 when they saw a crowd surrounding what appeared to be the wreckage of a T-38 jet. They jumped out of the car, ran through the grass and asked who the pilot had been. Ted Freeman, they were told, a rookie astronaut who had entered the program a year after they did. Something had caused his plane to go into a powerless plunge as he was trying to land; he bailed out, but too late for his chute to open. Lovell, as first on the scene, was assigned to investigate the cause of the crash. With the help of the jet’s surviving instruments, he was able to determine the exact moment it lost power, which led him to almost the exact of area of Texas brush over which it was flying when the fatal breakdown occurred. Scouring the area, he found two things: The shattered windshield of the plane and the bloody remains of a Canada snow goose. The bird, clearly, had collided with the plane, instantly killing itself and, a few seconds later, the human being at the controls. History did not record how many geese Lovell and Conrad bagged that day, but both men likely wished they’d shot one more.

Pic, above, here. 

Still Life: Put it in Your Mission Statement

Lecturing in Greensboro, NC many years ago, I had the privilege of touring a private garden.  In the audience, after the lecture, a woman chatted with me and I knew, I must see her garden.  Don't know if she invited me to her garden, or I invited myself.  With facts this bare, we know, I invited myself.
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High summer in Greensboro, NC is not for the faint of heart, heat/humidity rule.  Walking our small group into her home, she casually asked if we'd like lemonade.  You know we did, pure drama and story line, We- had- a- tart- glass- of- lemonade- before- walking- her- garden.
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Blessedly we wanted the drama of the lemonade.  After bringing out her pitcher/glasses, and pouring a round, she set the pitcher onto a small table in her kitchen.  
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Poof.  A new element to my personal Garden Mission Statement.  Can you guess what it is?  Alas, this garden visit was well before cell phones or even the desk top large computers.  No photo of this fateful moment.
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My life, inside my home, and in my garden, must look like a still life, not fake, but a life lived, and in the living, the calm of still life views, reign.
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A small moment, below.  Still life.


Pic, above, here.

Vanishing threshold, below, with still life views.

 
Pic, above, here.

Antiquing with a friend in Florida last week during vacation, she surprised me with this wire egg holder, below.  She knows my chics aren't producing a lot, but this was home 2 days, and 2 eggs, snapped the pic and sent it to her.  Table/chairs ready still life props.
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Moving beyond the still life mission statement, is what I've learned, living this way.  My surroundings leverage my life.  Friends for lunch?  More than easy.  I can ask, Do you want to eat on the front porch, in the dining room or kitchen, maybe in the garden near the chicken coop?  Living here only 14 months, more destinations are on the list.  Not just for guests, but still life spaces for everyday, me alone.  Lunch arrives with the question, Where do I want to eat?  Seasons dictate, work dictates, many lunches in my office, and within my office there are several places to sit with still life views, and eat.
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Keeping boredom at bay with static still life views, I change the details, T R Boote , ca. 1880 'Summer Time' tureen on the table, below, will soon go into the china closet, a fall tureen replacing it.  The table topper changes at least 6x/year, so far.  Working at my first retail garden center, in the mid-80's, we changed displays seasonally, pure luxury with so many flowering plants plus the seasonal merchandise, and it made me aware, the seasonal displays, each, a gift of thanks.  Thank you for being alive another season, another Valentines, another Easter, another Memorial Day, Christmas.  Exactly how I feel in the garden when the akebia blooms, the oakleaf hydrangea, the azaleas, tea olive, thank you, alive another year, taking in the scent of daphne....
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Sure, all of this seems small, unimportant, but how can the days of anyone's life be unimportant?  After touring the Greensboro, NC garden we came inside to her 'garden room', 3 walls entirely windows, French doors to the garden, her library, desk, and seating area were here.  On the desk, a book, Living A Beautiful Life, by Alexandra Stoddard.  Thumbed thru it, and ordered it when I came home.  Have since given it as a gift many times.
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To this day, that Greensboro, NC garden is one of the best I've ever walked in.  I learned more of its story, later, from a friend of hers.  Diagnosed with severe Lupus, she had hired a garden designer, then, before her husband would leave for work, she had him carry her into the garden and set her down in a spot to work.  His office not far away he would come home to move her in the garden several times a day.  That was the start of her garden.
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I came into her story after she had worked for many years in her garden across good days and painful days.  The day we toured her garden, zero sign of Lupus.  What a victory for her, deep, soul satisfying.        


Pic, above, in our kitchen last nite.

It's amazing the dichotomy of still life spaces.  Once filled with your life, alone or with friends, inside or in the garden, you'll long remember the voices, laughter, conversations, how they made you feel.  Rich.


Pic, above, here.

Without knowing, adding still life spaces to my mission statement brought me to, below.

 
Pic, above, here.

Receiving the 'more' is both material and metaphorical.  Significantly weighted, in deep grace, to metaphorical.
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Designing beautiful gardens for clients is a joy as their plantings mature, better, are the phone calls, notes, or texts, clients letting me know of the metaphorical riches, aka stories from their lives, their gardens are bringing them, their family/friends.  So, more than adding still life to my personal mission statement, it seamlessly slipped into my professional mission statement.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Contrast Makes Your Garden Pop

Contrast is the basic ingredient of Garden design.  Both pics, below, use the same type of contrast.  Can you label it?
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I grew up, as most Americans, without a vocabulary for gardens.  Worse, after receiving a horticulture degree, I still had no proper, historic, of the ages, vocabulary for Garden Design.  Garden Design and horticulture are 2 different professions.  Toss in Agriculture, and you have 3 professions.
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That's another rabbit hole of conversation, so, back to labeling the contrast technique used in the pics, below.
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I've taught horticulture and Garden Design for over 20 years at a local college, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  One of my favorite teaching tools is adding proper vocabulary to Garden Design photos.  Name it to claim it.  Never more be moved by beautiful garden photos, yet unaware how to describe them in detail.
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Of course there is an entire TV industry of garden shows thriving on viewers lack of knowledge.  Most often the ambush garden show, with fast before/after, are comedies of the wrong sort, dark comedy.  If you know horticulture, aka plant care/culture/habit, you know how quickly the 'after' garden will fail.  Discussing merit of those Garden Designs, mostly what I learned in college, incurves and outcurves, planting beds, drifts, accent plants, landscaping, all well represented.  If you want any of that stuff, don't hire me.  I won't do it.  Historic, of  the ages, that's my venue.
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Beyond beautiful, below, it's historic Garden Design, and the plantings show deep knowledge of planting materials, aka horticulture.  What is the contrast, below?  The main contrast is spikey with rounded, followed with contrasting color of foliage, and contrasting foliage sizes, and contrasting layers of height.  Four more elements, huge, below.  You know horticulture well if you have already labeled the last 4 elements.
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Drought tolerant plantings, below.  Deer proof plantings, below.  Disease resistant plantings, below.  Insect resistant plantings, below.  The last asset, below?  All year interest, plenty of structure left for winter interest.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Same Garden Design conceit, above, but the plantings, aka horticulture, could be either fabulous or problematic depending upon your location/zone/elevation.  Peonies & foxglove, classic spike/round combination.
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In the deep south peonies can do well, but not the lush abundance of northern climates, and a dry, hot, southern spring/summer, will invite spider mites to the foxglove, and irrigation will be needed.  Also, above, this section of the garden will be bare, empty, with so many herbaceous plantings during winter.
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A lot to consider, above, about Garden Design, and personal choices of what you wish to look at in winter.  And, excellent examples of using spike/round contrast.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Most Common Mistake at a Front Door

Garden rooms, you must create garden rooms.  That's the mantra, across centuries of Garden Design, but what does it mean, below, in the present era ?
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Most common fail I see at front doors?  Below.
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Best part of this 'fail' ?  Easily remedied.
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What to do, below, to create a garden room?
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Rules abound, below, this neighorhood reeks of Home-Owners-Association.  Must stay within the rules, no one likes that Nasty Gram in their mailbox.
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Reaching the front door, below at left, there is no here, here.  Create a garden room, voila, you are in their world, plenty of scope for the imagination and an elegant welcome/departure.
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Your turn, Garden Design the fix, below, creating a garden room for the front door at left.
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Giving you more time, notice the white downspout, below, house at right.  Really?  Paint the downspout copper color, voila, downspout no longer behaves as a 'column' almost disappears.  Paint the gutters copper color and the house grows taller, copper gutters reach up into the roof.  But this gutter/downspout exercise is merely to give you more time, figuring out how to create a garden room, below, at the front door to the house at left.  While your designing that garden room, lets take out a few bushes at the base of the arched window, below, and place a custom stone step.  Very nice.  It's never a good thing when I'm hearing Cole Porter, Don't Fence Me In, at a garden.
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Done?  Designed your garden room?


Pic, above, here.

Grow the existing short hedge, at the far right property line, to 7'.  If budget allows, take out the existing hedge, plant a 7' evergreen hedge.  Done.
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You've created a garden room, and private world at the front door, no visible axis into the neighbor's world.
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Must mention, I love this garden design, above, house at left.  Lean, green, serene.  Easy to maintain with unskilled labor.  Green all year, no down time.  Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Garden Design Class in a Pair of Pics

Attracted to the marvelous sliding doors, below, the wood stoop and small planters had me send this fabulous home & garden to my Pinterest Changes board.  Lastly, a 3rd issue from garden to kitchen for the Changes board.  Especially a home with young'ish children and these gorgeous interior wood floors.  
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A mini Garden Design course in 2 photos.
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Do you see all 3 changes immediately?
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I'll give you a moment to look at both pics carefully.  There is an easy inexpensive solution for the stoop, and a better, not inexpensive solution for the stoop.  At the open sliding door threshold is a minor 4th issue.  See the easy fix for issue 4?
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Classic mistakes, below.  Human nature !  At the front end, before getting a Horticulture degree, then traipsing Europe for 2+ decades studying historic gardens I made the same mistakes too.  Once you know what the Garden Design mistakes are, your eye is trained to see them, correct them, easily, every time.
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Of course there may be zero mistakes, below, solutions could already be designed, just not installed.  A likely scenario if you take a tour of the interior, here.
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Look at the pair of pics, below, again.  Got your Garden Design solutions?





Pics, above, here.
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Change #4, the door mats inside & outside should match.  The tight space will enlarge, flow, and become more of a 'foyer' between inside/outside instead of the current abrupt divide.  My choice would be a pair of door mats, large, similar in looks to the existing mat inside the home already.
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Change #3, transition from beautiful stone terrace to gravel to wood stoop to interior of home.  This change makes me smile, I made the same mistake as a garden designer in my 20's.  Matching stone from the terrace should be installed into the gravel transitioning to the wood stoop.  Why?  Significantly reduces amount of gravel stuck in shoes, or paws, to be tracked inside, and gouging/scratching that beautiful wood floor.
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Change #2, Dinky is Stinky, need much larger pots at those sliding doors, and wider apart, setting them left/right off the wood stoop.  Remove 2 bushes at right of wood stoop, replace their planting bed with more gravel.
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Change #1, will start with cheap/easy do it today.  Stain the wood stoop same color as sliding doors.  The house is much too elegant for this wood stoop left over from the set of F Troop.  A more expensive change to the wood stoop, replace it with a single slab of stone, custom cut the same or a bit deeper.  Wood stoop vs. stone landing.  Already the verbage is a nicer story.
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Again, seeing the interior of this home, I think the 'Change' layers I've mentioned are already on their to-do list.  Their attention to detail quite wonderful.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Put that green extension cord under the gravel.  I know you already thought that.  A funny thing about gardening, the small victories.  Just getting the cord buried is a big deal, having the door mats match.....

On the Deck: Privacy, Wind, Rain

Our ca. 1900 farmhouse is true to its year.  The house sits near the road, and near the north property line.  Next door sits a ca. 1890 farmhouse, same arrangement.  Living rural, after leaving the big city, a great irony, needing to create privacy.
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There is no having breakfast on the back deck in my gown.  Views from the deck include a meadow, woods, lake, and amazing amounts of sky framed by a few century old pecan trees.  Shutters, below, are our solution.  Sourcing shutters in earnest this week.  Farmhouse is white, shutters will be white.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

In addition to privacy, I'm sourcing old windows this week to create a spot, above, for the cats to be out of the elements at the back door, a small roof already exists there.
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Beloved built us an incredible party deck, and it has gotten on my last nerve not having it operate with the basic functions of living, and aesthetics.  Too generous, that last nerve snapped over the weekend.
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Treated Beloved like a client, verbally described a choice of solutions, then showed him pinterest pics.  He bit.  Only add this last morsel of information, because it's something I do at a lot of jobsites with 'Wife', Husband Coaching.  Most common Husband Coaching I do is choosing the most correct garden thing Wife must allow Husband to do, that she has been adamantly 'NO' for ages.  Paced correctly this Husband Coaching allows Wife, in the end, everything she wanted.  He's happy, she's happy, both think they won.  Cheshire cat knows who won.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Yes, it's going in reverse too, Wife Coaching with Husband.  I'm in the catbird seat, wanting the garden to be their best garden, more intensely them, than they ever dared dream, and in the greatest of simplicity.