Thursday, May 26, 2011

Back Porch With A Breeze

Architecturally drawn to mimic original construction at this century old home the back porch has high ceilings, great depth + length, and is in an 'L' shape. Exactly like the original front porch, previous post.Old wicker, found locally, is layered with old primitive tables. Scale isn't 'intuitive', not oversized to reach for the hi ceiling. It's scaled for historical correctness, body comfort & ease of conversation.
No matter the heat of the day, stillness of the air, there is always a breeze on this porch.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last Friday.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Front Porch Dining

Built before air-conditioning (near Athens, GA) there was a REASON for this long & deep 'L' shaped front porch.
With morning sun, it's perfect for evening dinner.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Table/chairs arrived recently, sourced/ordered by Susanne Hudson. Big surprise, there are 2 of these tables/chairs. Alas, my pic was awful. Will try again and post the whole front porch for you. Team Tara includes Susanne Hudson on this project.
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Susanne & I are teaming in a garden at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival in Douglasville, June 4-5, 2011.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Stone In Your Landscape

Rose Tarlow, below, interior decorator, furniture designer & a master with stone in the garden. It's a rare landscape that cannot benefit from a tree trunk base & stone top. Tom Wilhite's book, below. Amazing how many of my clients already have this book at our first appointment. If you're thinking of DIY with stone, or not, this book is for you. Buy it here.
Sir Hardy Amies garden in England, below. With stone this good it would be difficult to get the plantings wrong.
Stone Mountain, GA, below. Nature's stone. Teaching stone. The wildflower, front of pic, growing on the stone, Mother Nature's patience adapting a root system/foliage/flower to growing in shade with trace amounts of soil & less water.
Then there is Michael Eckerman. His ideas in stone
changed mine.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic via Rose Tarlow, bottom pic via Michael Eckerman.
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All about STONE today with Garden Designers Roundtable.
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Monday, May 23, 2011

Gravel To The Door With Vine + Table

After designing a landscape Saturday I perused Brabourne Farm, a favorite blog. Here, below, I stopped.I had just designed this EXACT garden. Less than 2 hours earlier.
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Client has 5 acres with woodland, gravel lanes, open meadow, barns, horses. And a home with a daylight basement needing the 'zip' (zest?) above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from John Granen. Molly, is this what your mother's bistro set looks like? Wish gardens could be installed this fast.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Enlarging A Front Porch

Ubiquitous rectangular home with a jailed-in front porch. American Builder's Special. Ugh.Remove chunks of railing and disgusting foundation plantings, widen steps, add flagstone landing.
Now, a front porch to enjoy.


I've removed so many porch rails for clients I've lost count.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Same garden as previous posts.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Bedrooms On The Lake

Off the master bedroom, below.

And,
off a guest room.
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Yes, I've been lucky and stayed here.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from same garden as previous posts.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Most People Are Afraid Of This.

Carl Jung, "Our lives are about getting the outside to match the inside."Tucked in a woodland, on a mossy stone, unseen by most.
Are you brave enough to put what resonates in your heart into your garden?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Same garden as the previous posts.
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It's odd, I design landscapes but often feel like I liberate adults into their imagination.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Seating On A Deck

Pair of matched chairs. Works every time. If it's wood in her garden it's painted her special green.Directly below this deck, pathway to her rescue run. She rescues & fosters dogs.
From this portion of her deck, below,
you can see her wooded frontyard or the backyard & lake.
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Seating areas are throughout: garden, porch, deck, dock, woodland.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Same garden as previous post.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Birdhouse Condos

Before, birdhouses were on fencing, rocks, tables, trees, chairs, ledges, everywhere & nowhere.Birdhouse Condos. Will rent for a song.
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Look closely at her stone edging. Wine bottles !
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from the same garden as previous post. She was on the Lake Coweta Garden Tour last Saturday & I took the pics on Friday. We laughed and hugged our way thru her garden. Exciting to design a landscape that becomes an intensification of the owner. Teamwork at its best.

Monday, May 16, 2011

How To Create A Bedroom

Bed, lamps, tables, art, canopy tree ceiling, shrub walls, pillows of dirt wrapped in burlap, brown/green color theme, wood chip carpet, a book for night time reading,
stone box spring, and a quilt of twigs-ferns-moss-ajuga-ginger.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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She already had the ubiquitous bed-of-flowers in the sun. This is an ENCORE ! Same garden as the last post.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

How To Color Echo

Most important, below, Landscape Design feature? SIMPLICITY. Nothing between view, meadow, lake. (Bushes seen were already there. Client asked for more bushes! Puppet Barbuda KNOWS Mr. Testosterone-On-Wheels-Mow-Blow-Go-Commodify-Everything-I-Touch would, indeed, put more bushes here. CHA-CHING. )
Those chairs? Ubiquitous plastic wally-world cheap. Painted, they become HERS.
At the top, above, of her drive, colors arranged to PERFECTION on a simple bottle tree.
Colors Echoed in the chairs beyond.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday at my client on Lake Coweta, she's DIY, in Newnan, GA. Her garden is on tour today. Can't wait to show you more of it.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Italian Simplicity: Are You This Brave?

A vine & 4 pots. Voila, lush, done.No foundation plantings, no lawn.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took this pic over a decade ago in Italy, outside of Lucca, and haven't wavered in my awe of its simplicity.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Faces Vs. Words

I don't like 'words' in a garden. Too 'fixed'. Limiting. Why look at a stupid doormat that says 'welcome'? Your home, frontdoor, colors, plantings, focal points, lights, knocker, views into windows & etc. each say 'welcome'.At my backdoor, above, a Christine Sibley piece. Bought from her 2nd's table, the only way I could afford her things.
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I've never tired of her face; through the years she's spoken volumes.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Christine Sibley, artist-gardener-business woman. She left this world too soon.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

A Slope In Italy: Drystack Stone

Olive trees sold long ago. These stones have retained this slope for centuries. No mortar.A new Drystack Stone wall begun by a recent DIY client.
Copy brilliance, I do.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Cannot wait for my client to finish their wall & send a pic.
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A previous contractor told me (with attitude), at a jobsite, this type of wall could not be built, "It has to be mortared." Should have quit using him with that job. But he was young & I thought I was mentoring. Alas. Months later 2 women clients (they don't know each other) called me in the same week, using the same word, misogynist, about this contractor. I'm sure he's missing my referrals.

Friday, May 6, 2011

How To Create Hidden Assets

The rule is 1 focal point per area. How to break the rule? Subsidiary Focal Points.
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In the Tea Olive Terrace, above.
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Tucked quietly in a corner, often overlooked.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken last week in my garden. A perverse delight, creating subsidiary focal points to be overlooked.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

How To Hang Pictures

Hung by the artist, R. Scott Coleman, & his wife Kathrine Coleman, below, this art is obviously arranged. But it doesn't look 'arranged'. And the table, custom built for the Conservatory, is arranged subtly with smaller pieces of R. Scott Coleman's art. Placed in the Conservatory, below, for a garden tour it's
going to be missed once it's all packed up and taken away.
Imagine the walls, above & top pic, without the pictures. Not good, feels like 'life' is taken away.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken by Kathrine Coleman. I wonder how many pieces of art the garden owner bought!! Can't wait to visit this client again. Get my body into their Conservatory, spatially 'feel' it. Garden pics only get me so far. NEED my body in gardens that excite my eyes.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

How To Hide An Eyesore Powerbox

Altar table, below, used as a potting table. Lamps (oooh-la-la) have electricity. Altar table, below, was past its church days before it's new life in the garden.
A power box, below, at a client's chicken house & pecan orchard.
Within the louvres, above, is the green power box.
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Top 2 pics were sent to my carpenter as description for what I wanted. He adapted the idea beyond expectation.
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Carpenter & I never communicate well in the 1st round. Ever. Then we laugh, always. Afterward he leverages my ideas 'better'. I adore working with this man.
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We'll accessorize the altar table with a cloth of burlap placed 'church style' (diminishing the louvres) , iron book holder, pair of heavy iron lamps, a couple of baskets for egg & pecan gathering.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pics are from the garden Susanne Hudson & I created for last year's Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. We're using the table again this year but not as a potting table. Can you guess how? Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, Douglasville, GA, June 4-5, 2011.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Most Copied Garden In Charleston, SC

Loutrel Briggs designed this garden, below, for Emily Whaley. I've copied this garden more than any other.Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden, is a book you'll read often through the years.
Dogwood Books & Antiques, below, was a vendor at my lecture venue in Rome, GA last weekend.
Bought 2 boxes of vintage garden books. Most will be given as gifts. Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden? Bought both their copies. Penny McHenry gave me my copy.
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Penny & I were in Mrs. Whaley's Charleston, SC garden less than 3 months after Mrs. Whaley died.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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2 days in Rome, a box of books per day. Couldn't afford to stay longer!!! Saw the 1st hydrangea blossom opening yesterday while reading the morning paper & perusing my Ipad (at the same time of course). Wanted to call Penny, tell her about my 'Penny Mac' being the first mophead this year in my garden. Missing her delightful scream at my news. Missing, more, her dive into all the wonderful/sumptuous/fabulous hydrangea happenings in her garden.
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It really stinks when a good friend is gone. Her phone number is still in my head. (Aren't those the beginning lines of a country song?)

Monday, May 2, 2011

How To Hide A Fence

Asked to hide a fence at the back of their garden in a tiny, dingy corner,
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the MUSE said, "Put in an 'L' shaped Conservatory, gravel terrace, chandelier from the oak tree, a dining table underneath & build it from rescued parts."
It wasn't an option, below, to see the ugly fence from all these windows.
Recently completed, below, on a garden tour for Hay House, in Macon, GA. (These are smart people, create a BIG deadline!)
Artist in residence for the garden tour R. Scott Coleman, here, watercolors.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Since I designed this garden missives have been sent showing the progress. Many building parts are ca. 1870. Did you see the fence? Love my MUSE. Puppet Barbuda cringes thinking how Mr. Testosterone-On-Wheels-Mow-Blow-Go would have designed this dark little corner.
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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Landscaping After The Tornadoes

Lecturing near tornado devastation yesterday I had time to meet & speak with the Floyd County Master Gardeners & Rome, GA mayor.
Let's do a Free Landscape Design Symposium.
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Siting trees properly cools in summer, heats in winter. Contouring turf properly reduces mowing-fertilizer-chemicals-water-maintenance; more space for flowering shrubs & groundcovers creating maximum pollinator habitat & beauty. Choosing paint colors, light fixtures, patio/deck shape. And the fun of siting focal points.
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Lovely garden, curb appeal, raised property value. Greater tax receipts.
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Puppet Barbuda went in for the kill, with the mayor, on that last bit. Increased Tax Receipts!
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In hindsight the mayor looked like a deer in headlights. Hmm. Puppet Barbuda was in her element. In hindsight Puppet Barbuda should have let the mayor speak. In Puppet Barbuda's defense, she had little time with the mayor before mounting the stage to lecture. Think Puppet Barbuda would miss a single second of STAGE TIME?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Stopped at Liz's Antique Barn on the way out of Rome. Puppet Barbuda found a TUTU.
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Took the pic in France moons ago.