Easy Garden Furniture

Furniture in the garden has intrigued me from childhood.  Thankfully, my parents had a cool iron chair, I adored.  Bought new in the 60's, it had arms, tall back, detachable iron 'bonnet', separate foot rest, it turned 360, rocked, and had nice cushions.  I rocked, whirled, read books, and even napped, with my orange marmalade cat, Tigger, in that chair on the screened porch with deep overhangs, Galveston Bay always hot/humid.  Most memorable moment in the chair, awakened from a nap by a loud chorus of tree frogs.  Looking around, none visible.  Still, the chorus.  Found them, by the 100's, rimming the underside of the chair cushion.  Managed to hop out faster than an Olympian, without harming a single tree frog.  50 years later, I cannot see a tree frog without thinking of that chair.
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Time passed, mom gave the chair away.  I see those chairs occasionally in advertising, or at antique shop.  None, complete with bonnet & foot rest.  A good thing, I would probably buy the chair, if it were complete.
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Dad had the worst end of the deal with that iron chair.  Cleaning the patio, hosing it off, he had to move the chair at least once a month.  Maybe it was him, glad to give the chair away.
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Now, easily moved garden furniture is the hunt.  Aside from lightweight, it must have arms, a back tall enough to rest the head back, and nap.  More than the personal, garden furniture must leverage having friends in the garden.  Create a setting for conversation, laughter, lingering.  Especially after meals.


Pic, above, here.
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Have the good fortune of sourcing 3 of the wicker chairs, above.  Each for a song.
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Amusing to see Freud in a photo new to me, attracted by the outdoor furniture, round circle of iron in the railing contrasting so well with squares of the French doors, and those chows.  Freud.  Not my cup of tea, more Jungian.  Thankful for both.
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That balcony.  So much narrative, without a word, wisely playing backdrop.  Yet, take away the man/dogs, the backdrop narrative immediately jumps forward, owning the stage.
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These are the things I design in gardens.  Some, too rich, think it's all about a few bushes and a little garden furniture.  Those, are not my tribe.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Cluttered and Sparse

Notice the straw basket, below?  Used as accent inside, and in the garden.  Dropped a load at the thrift store last weekend, ending with the obligatory slow aisle walk.  Two incredible baskets, with eye dropping low prices, brought home.
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Cozy garden room, below, draws me in.  Makes me realize my garden materials yard should be merchandised a bit.  While our garden is undergoing macro work, I wander into the materials yard, about 2x/month, knowing it fills me with joy, and strength.  Surveying what remains of my 30 year garden, anticipating how it will all be used in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse garden.


Pic, above, here.


Pic, above, here.
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At the same time this garden room, above, has my heart.  Spare, all year interest, little maintenance.
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Will create both garden rooms, cluttered & sparse, yeah, providing joy to 2 parts of my brain.  Only dozens more to go, life is good.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Front Door Garden Design

One reason, below, I must see your home interior before being able to design its garden.
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Was it obvious, at first glance, below, the problem?
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A dark foyer.
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Many houses I've designed the 'matching' glass door.  We source the door to match the existing front door, and our carpenter cuts away the panels, replacing with glass.
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Have never tabulated a list, but so much about Garden Design does not involve plants.


Pic, above, here.
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Have had the opportunity to walk into several big box stores this fall, always going in via the Garden Center.  Vulgarians at the gate have won.  Literally.  Greetings via shelves, rows of shelves, dedicated to chemicals, and seemingly innocuous fertilizer.  Beware, n-p-k fertilizer is toxic to ground water, kills earthworms, kills mycorrhizal fungi on roots.
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Had a knowing laugh reading Schopenhauer yesterday, "When we read, another person thinks for us; we merely repeat his mental process.........read themselves stupid."  Yep.  Me.  At the front end of gardening I read myself stupid.  Realized popular garden writing wasn't for me, went back to college for horticulture degree, more stupid.  To the core of my DNA, knew it was stupid.  Thus began decades of studying historic gardens across Europe.  No more books, foot on Earth.
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Then to Machiavelli, "A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it."
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On to Seneca, "Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters but our guides."
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Further with Farnum Street, "We need to digest, synthesize & organize the thoughts of others if we are to understand....It's how we acquire wisdom.  How we acquire foundational knowledge.....Without this foundational knowledge we are unable to separate the signal from the noise."
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Vernacular Design

Ralph Lauren, below, more vernacular than the locals.
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Vernacular, single biggest surprise moving into our ca. 1900 American farmhouse.  Moving from a Cottage garden, 30 years there, knew it would be different.  Though correct, missed 'how' different by leagues.
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What does that mean?  Most of what I brought from my Cottage Garden to our ca. 1900 American Farmhouse garden, looked s-t-u-p-i-d.  Two truckloads of Cottage Garden went to the local thrift store.
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Did you see Leonard Cohen's obit in NYTimes today?  His song lyrics vernacular to the human condition.  He gives to his readers/listeners more of their own DNA.  What he gives to other singers of his songs?  Too wild.  It IS their song.  And, that is art.  Leonard's special art, beyond his writing.
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No, your garden doesn't have to solely choose the vernacular of your home's architecture, if you have a deep vernacular within yourself.  What does that mean?  You like all things French, overdose on your French theme.  Overdose.  Timidity shows.  Better to wear your heart on your sleeve than expose a lack of resolve.
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So, Garden Design rules.  Most, simply excuse them into oblivion.  Drive thru any neighborhood, no matter the price point, proof, rest my case there.  Using historic Garden Design rules, liberates you into your own vernacular.
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Is this easy?  No.  You must be broken to bits, and put back together, before you understand, it's easy.  Only then, has the vernacular of your DNA been allowed to surface.  


Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Garden Design: Design in the Silence

Garden Room, below, designed around the Grace of silence, speaking volumes.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Many compulstions to have in a garden.  The best compulsion?  Simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well,     XOT

Garden Design Course: In a Photo

More a Garden Design course, below, than simply another garden.  What can you label, below, as the Garden Design 'rules' followed?  Decades I've taught at the local college and Atlanta Botanical Garden.  Never, ever, tire of this phase of Garden Design.  Name it to claim it.  If you know what you are looking at, and can name it.  YOU can do it.
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Color, contrast, flow, layers, mystery, expanse, minutia, shapes.
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Color, did you know green gardens are the 'fastest' to look like something?  Green gardens are also calm, less drama, perhaps best said, more of the right drama.  Then, within the green are myriad greens.
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Contrast, big leaves next to small leaves, rounded shapes next to cone shapes, woody plants next to herbaceous.
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Flow, the pathway has me, feet want to travel, finding what's around the curve, mystery.
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Layers, all checked, pocket of open sky, canopy trees, understory trees, walls of tall bushes, wainscoting of medium bushes, low bushes/groundcovers are flooring & carpet.
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Space too large, 100's of acres, a garden room similar, below, nearish your house will warm & own the expanse.  Space to small, neighbors homes jutting into your face, a garden room similar, below, around your home, creates a huge landscape, eyes drawn to the expanse of canopy trees and sky, which is infinite.
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Minutia of hair like foliage, velvet like moss on the trees, chartreus with dark greens and etc.  Drama change for winter, the garden, below, holds together in all seasons.


Pic, above, here.

Understanding the Garden Design 'rules' and principles, above, please tell me this makes you laugh, below, in the 'knowing' what they've done, below.  Well done, dramatic pairing, fun drama with Garden Design 'rules'.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, I shot yesterday in our garden.
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Yesterday, my harvest table was finally unloaded from the truck.  Temporary location while 'macro' garden construction is completed, you know, drilling a well, graveling drives, renovating sheds, adding a porch, and too much other garden infrastructure keeping me away from my beloved 'micro' gardening.
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Laskett immediately on top of harvest table, owning it.  Behind him, the materials yard awaiting its new barn.  Yes, chaos of materials yard getting on my last nerve.  Alas, at least another full year before it's cleared.
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Harvest table denotes 1st move into my shed, Beloved using my shed until his barn built.  "Where is the Gator going if you put your harvest table there?", Beloved asks.  "No, they both won't fit there.", he responds to my answer.  I smile in return, thinking, "Go away, I've got this."  Poof Beloved's gone, I arrange table, Laskett & I do what we do so well together, bask in each other's adoring presence, Laskett affirms every thought in my head.  Sitting a moment to shoot table/Laskett/setting sun, I glance at the open space for the Gator, with a smile.
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With great pleasure, I walk to the gravel drive where the Gator is parked, crank it up, pull it into it's new space, 2' to spare, turn the Gator off, pull the brake lever up enjoying its sound, surveying the Gator's new domain.  Beloved still working in back at the pond, Laskett & I walk to the house, gardening day done.
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Best irony about my shed, it's a century old, Beloved moved it last year, renovated it, new walls, new window, new door, new floor, added a tin roof to two sides, and it's my shed.  We knew up front he had to use my shed for many of his things, many, until his barn is built.  Has been a great chapter getting here, I'm not in that chapter anymore.    You've already noticed this new chapter title, My Shed.
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Thought you would appreciate a little raw reality gardening.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T

  
    

Reducing Electric Bill Summer/Winter: Trees

"The loss of trees in the planet's water cycle is critical to the advancement of climate change.  their removal exposes land to the drying effects of the sun.  Trees also play an important role in absorbing greenhouse gases."  NASA
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Trees are pollinator hosts, and feeders.  How much of our beneficial gut biome is dependent upon bacterias dependent upon trees further up their life stream?  Watershed management from trees in incalculable.  
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This isn't about climate change, here, trees are about money.  
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Early in Obama's tenure, he said in a speach I saw, not something I read, Americans should be paying more, a lot more, for energy.  Almost double.  He got my attention.  That fall, I planted 2 more deciduous trees, deftly targeted, and not small, they arrived in their 35 gallon pots, about 8' tall.  Years earlier trees were planted to shade my home from the afternoon thru setting sun, deciduous, once leaves fall bright sunshine helped heating.     
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Once the threshold of 'affordable' energy was threatened, I was more than willing to shade my beloved mid-morning sun.  
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In our new house, ca. 1900 American farmhouse, it is a classic of energy use for its era. Coal.  We have 4 coal fireplaces, none working.  More, it's a central hall design, 9' wide X 50' long, 11' ceilings.  Rooms along each side 'had' a door leading into another room.  Odd, yes?  Each door into the central hall has its original thick, tight fitting door threshold at bottom.  Not something I wondered about, until living through our first winter.  Flash, epiphany.  Our home was designed for all the central hall doors to remain closed in winter, the central hall was not heated.  Passing from room to room, via their interior doors.
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In summer, the central hall, aka dogtrot, pulled the breeze, cooling the house.  Several century old pecan trees remain, none properly sited for cooling in summer.  An evergreen magnolia was planted at a western flank within the past 2 decades.  Oh no.  Plenty of blocking against summer sun, alas, blocking the winter sun too.  How we wish that magnolia were an oak.  Money in the bank if it was.  
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Trees.  It's really all about trees.  How trees aid water in the forest vs. suburbs, here.  Including how trees remove toxins & metals too.  I know you're busy, save to read the link later, it's that interesting.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Gingko tree, above, commonly lose their leaves in a day.  And that day has the fragrance of cooking sugar.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Jekyll Island, Driftwood Beach, above.  Have never been to Jekyll Island and not seen a bride/groom/photographer coming/going from Driftwood Beach.  Finally, walked Driftwood Beach this year, 1st time.  Only one word comes to mind, to describe being on Driftwood Beach, Sacred.
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Trees.

Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Small Space or Budget: Best Garden Table Shape

When space or funds are limited there is, indeed, a best table shape for your garden.  Choices.  I believe in creating life choices.  Trickle down theory, you must choose a garden table giving you choices.
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This seems a small point, it's not.  "Try not to THINK so much!", Doctor Rawlins told Jim in, Empire of the Sun.  Lucky me, all things garden, it's my job to think so much.
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When funds or space are tight in your garden, choose, below, a square or rectangular table.  Easily pushed next to your house, deck rail, a fence or wall.  Buy 2+ and place them end/end for a harvest table.  Choices.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Often, a client will have a round table when 2 rectangles will be better.  Most often the 'left over' round table, is used next to a garden bench, adding a couple of chairs and coffee table.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Love the round table, above. see lots of CHOICES with it !

Why Fall Planting is Best

Fall is for planting.  A longer window too.  In my zone, 8-7B, have not lost plantings from late September through Christmas, bought from nursery.  Beware nursery bought plants after Christmas, they have residual fertilizer activity and not hardened against the cold.
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Beware, too, camellias kept in covered greenhouses.  Nurseries keeping the blossoms 'pretty' for sale, yet weakening them to cold.  Won't kill them, typically, to the ground, yet camellias bought in fall from a covered greenhouse, then planted ahead of a hard freeze will burn significantly.
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Story line changes for fall & winter planting for plants already growing in your landscape.  Acclimated, I move them in winter.
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Another fall-is-for-planting fact.  Best plant sales of the year are ahead of Thanksgiving, clearing space for Christmas trees.
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Roots grow better in cool weather, better at getting established, versus roots being the workhorse for water transport to foliage during spring & summer.


Pic, above, here.
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I know, it's counter intuitive, fall-is-for-planting.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Monty Don: Innocence Has Been Sold

Garden tours in Atlanta became dicey about the 90's.  Not that gardens chosen were bad, inferior, worthy of complaint.  Yet, Garden Whisperers 'knew'.  Something new had arrived, alas, something of the old had disappeared.  



In the mid-90's touring an Atlanta, GA technically correct and considered lovely garden set in a street of McMansions I saw a friend who was on the Garden Tour committee.  Telling her of all the gardens already seen and my favorite parts, I looked around at the garden we were in and said, "These people are cold, I don't want to know them.", she said, "Oh, you've met them.".  Never met them, was sad to see their personalities writ large in their garden.  My friend said they were the most difficult homeowners to work with putting the garden tour together.  She said their garden would not be a 'repeat', ever.
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Why was their garden 'cold'?
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Reading Monty Don, A French Garden Journey: the Road to Le Tholonet, in bed last night, Don described my experience in the 'cold' garden many years before, and why, "They are still lovely and essentially unspoilt.  but there is a kind of self-knowing quality to them that was not there forty years ago.  The innocence has been sold....."
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Exactly, the 'cold' garden was totally paid for, not an ounce of 'magic', there was 'a sleekness and order that only money can buy'.  "It was like a fine-set face made puffy and bloated with years of ease."
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That last sentence had me laughing out loud, go Monty go.  Especially, 'years of ease'.  I have many clients with weekly lawn care and I always tell them they must take care of a certain area, by themselves, zero help.  How else to be connected to their garden?  Most things that I can do in my garden, I do.  Knowing, hiring out work I can do would become habit, and remove one of life's chief pleasures, and honor.  Working in my garden is, Washing of the servants feet.  Honoring, Nature.



Pics, above, The Gardens of Chateau Val Joanis.
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Garden, above, is not a 'cold' personal garden.  Yet, it had once been a richly warm residential garden, now, a commercial garden.  Don used this garden, above, in the chapters where I took his quotes, above, from.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Kayaking, 1st time ever, this summer in the salt water marsh of Saint Simons Island, we reached a sand bar our guide wanted us to park at, and walk a bit.  Docking my kayak on the steeply sloped beach, the guide was quickly placing his hands on my arms, making sure I didn't fall awkwardly getting out of the kayak.  A very quick, "No, thank you."  He continued trying to help me, "No really, step away, thank you."  In the end, he did not step away, and kept both arms spread as if we were about to begin a ballroom waltz.  Ugh.  Nope.  Hope I'm well into my 90's still getting out of a kayak on a steep beach, by myself.  It has begun, I saw it with Rosemary Very during her 2 visits to Atlanta, many years apart, the transition from physical power to feminine power.  Great topic, Feminine Power, no time to go further now.

Simplicity of Narrative

Last question, finishing a Garden Design, What can I take out and it holds together?
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There is so little here, below.  Yet overwhelmed in layers of narrative.  I see a story/stories, below, you must, too.
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Not, simple-gardens-are-the-best, it is simple gardens including narratives of classic aesthetics across the ages, tied to the life of their home's interior, and owner, with an ease of maintenance, those are the gardens lasting centuries.


Pic, above, here.
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Front door, above, reminds me of a story I was told by a friend, decades ago, in Savannah, GA.  The story teller lived in the historic district.  The story told happened ca. 1950'ish.  An elderly widow lived in elegant deep decay in a large historic mansion.  Her handy-man, an African-American, took care of her, the house, garden, and it was well known he brought her food from one of the best restaurants, he waited tables there several nights a week.
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More, they lived outwardly their proscribed rolls. Yet, within her home they were lovers, in a committed relationship.  Further, the city knew, yet lived the lie.  Protecting both, beloved members of their community.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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The lady in the story, born 19th century, lived the story in 20th century, I'm telling you in the 21st century.  Her home still standing.

Deer & Armadillo Fencing

Two members of the Garden Design team, for my space at our ca. 1900 American farmhouse, control many choices at the front end.  Third member of the team is wildly controlling too.
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None of this overlooks a fourth controlling component, aging in place, me.
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For decades I've had the honor of older women, into their 70's plus, hiring me.  Their landscapes must be beautiful, and fully turn key.  Tough plants, easily maintained with minimal unskilled labor.  Check.
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Back to those original members helping design my new garden, deer, armadillo and the weather: brutal heat, humidity, drought, rains, occasional 0 f, strong winds throughout every season, and, the worst, a freeze in April after weeks of warm days.  Check.
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Oddly, with all the constraints, above, (after achieving acceptance) it's easier to create a Garden Design.  Fewer choices.
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Southern Indica azaleas will be many of my hedges.  Sun/shade, deer resistant, drought tolerant.  Better, their height & growth habit, below.


Pic, above, here.

Deer don't bother much with what they cannot see, they keep on walking.  Outside my garden, deer will see this, below.  Delightfully, more than solving a deer issue the azalea hedging will block views of the street/cars, and create garden rooms, walls.

 
Pic, above, here.

If deer were the only problem, azalea hedging would be deterrent enough.  Armadillo dig for worms/insects with their clawed feet and tapered snout.  Around since the dinosaurs, armadillo are not smart in expected ways.  Simple wire fencing at ground level guides them away, they won't dig under.
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I fully expect to be the first human to experience the first self aware male armadillo, who tunnels under my wire fencing, releases his pheromones to Pluto, and his harem arrives, delivering their typical 4 identical offspring with each pregnancy.
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Wire fencing, below, will be built, azalea foliage to grow thru, and obfuscate its presence, and armadillo.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Had to include this pic, above, the pruning is amazing.  Foliage/blossoms from top to bottom, achieved with pruning tapered, wider at bottom than top.  Then, the subtle change in height from left to right, as the Garden Design dictates need.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T