Mass Market Annuals?

Mass market annuals are one of the least sustainable-eco-green things produced.

Insecticides, fungicides, weed-killers, water, electricity, heating, plastic, gasoline, trucks, soil, labor.
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Compare to a packet of self-seeding annuals or the vignette, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic same garden as previous post.  I was a professional grower for years.  We grew from plugs, seeds, cuttings.  Mostly plugs.  Adored doing the hydrangea cuttings late each summer.
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Mass market annuals do have their place & when needed I always put Jenny Hardgrave's company, Simply Flowers on the plan.

Perfect Front Porch

Of course the patina of the rooster is white.  It's her theme.

To the left of their front door, below.

To the right of their front door, below.

Mary Poppins said it best, "Practically perfect in every way."
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic same garden as previous post.

Basement Door is now the Dowager's Porch

It's common to see a basement door with lawn.  And nothing else.

Mother-in-law Suite doesn't aptly describe this rendition.

Common furnishings, off the shelf shutters, a simple arbor, concrete pavers & voila !

Color theme was chosen and leveraged with punches of yellow.

Boxwoods, liriope, hollies prettier AND easier to maintain than ubiquitous lawn.  Notice, above, the garbage can?

Between driveway & Dowager's Porch is a tiny foyer, above.  Gravel, above, pure brilliance.
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Most basement doors are the throw-away-zone.  Worse, the criminal zone.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.  This garden belongs to Jeri Farmer, co-founder of the PMHF with Susanne Hudson.  Susanne helps Jeri with her Garden Design.  

Where to Start

Don't know where to begin your Garden Design?

Begin with a table outside.  You must eat.
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Then, begin with layers of green: trees, shrubs, groundcovers.  Each suited for your zone-sun-shade-parched-moist areas.
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With the greens add focal points on axis from window views.
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You've just created a garden in vanishing threshold with your home.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic via Bumble at Home.   Truly, keep it this simple.

Keeping Plain, Plain

There is no 'architecture' at my home.  I've created my own.  The humble cottage.

Instead of lipstick-on-a-pig with the front door.  I've left it as modest as the day it was built.

With only a hint of character.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in my garden.  Before the garden I can remember disliking my home so much I would cry coming back from any vacation.  This is my starter home, here 5 years then off to something 'better'.  That was almost 3 decades ago.  If away for a night I cannot wait to get back and see what has transpired in the garden.

In Relationship

If your secondary subsidiary focal points

are 'animals' make sure they are in

relationship to their surroundings.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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For many years I maintained a small  townhome back garden for a client.  She had a little rabbit that I would move each week, as if it were nibbling her flowers.  Her garden was always done on Fridays, her area of town has the BEST estate sales.  These cats are at my front door, pics taken this month.

Using Words in the Garden

Be wary of words in a garden.  

Welcome?  Don't have it in a 'word', say it with your front door, paint color, light fixture, door mat, plants, & etc.
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Let 'words' in your garden be subsidiary focal points, amplified in the song of your garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken near my front door last week.  A Christine Sibley piece.  Of course bought long before she died.  The ivy 'Gold Heart' is not aggressive.

Mosquito Position

Once established,

your garden shouldn't be in need of watering cans.

Pots, yes.  Shrubs/groundcovers/trees/bulbs?  No.
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Perfect reason to only have the Queens Pot.
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Pots so wonderful they remain empty.
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These watering cans have assumed the mosquito position in my potager.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken in my garden last week.  

The Well Placed Chair

Decrepit, sets the timeline at any spot across the last few decades. 

A narrative.  Timelessness.

The Well Placed Chair must suit the theme you've chosen & leverage it.
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You must have at least a pair of chairs for The Well Placed Chair rule !
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Paint them the color of your front door, trim or shutters or an accent color threading thru all your interior art works.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend in my garden.  Oakleaf hydrangeas are incredible this year.  The Well Placed Chair rule was an epiphany after touring Sir Walter Scott's garden.

You Must be Able to Parse

A view, below, from the swing.

The swing, below, from the chair, above.

Virginia sweetspire, a native, below.

Hydrangea 'Penny Mac', below. She's opening pink, after decades of blue, due to drought/aluminum uptake not ph.

You should be able to do this in your mature garden.
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Parse the photo angles.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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pics taken in my garden yesterday.

Perhaps the Right Choice is....

What do you need to get rid of?  When Susanne Hudson came to choose colors for my interior she also moved furniture.  Then, literally, she picked up and threw out my sisal rug.  This was at least a decade overdue.

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1-2 times each month I do the same thing with clients.

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Mostly it's pots or their entire patio 'set'.  

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Today, look around your garden, what are you not seeing anymore?  

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If I came to your garden what would I throw out?

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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara

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Pic, lost provenance.

Water & Creativity

 Excellent reading venue, below.  Have recently been bathing with Wendell Berry, Nicky Haslam & a woman who's been living The Dirty Life.

Tub views are a concern.  Behind the draperies, below, the shower.  

More views soon.  Decisions finally made for the large blank wall, alas, men needed for execution.  

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Found a huge vintage Eastlake mirror, huge, $30, it will reflect a garden view.  Timing, it had just arrived into my favorite junk shop.  

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Through the decades, as I've stepped out of the shower, complete visions of the current Garden Design appear in my mind.  As if by Messenger, the Muse.

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A better drug than the $30 score.

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Do you do this too?  Create a garden & home to leverage your thoughts.  Ideas to spur action steps.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics , my bathroom

Draperies at the Door

 In the tropics of Houston, TX light is brutal.  With many ideas back/forth my sister  & I have concluded the solution to her front door furnace is drapery.

More, the builder added windows above windows across the back of her home.  

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When I visit I wear sunglasses inside, even on cloudy days.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic via New York Magazine.

Choose a Theme then Overdose

 Choose a theme, Overdose on your Theme.

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Orchard House, (aka my starter home in a working class neighborhood of cluster homes ca. 1986, today.)

Feng shui has it right about gardens, better than any garden class, 'you must be able to flow easily around your property.'  Like Mrs. Wilcox I adore walking round my garden.  E. M. Forster knew women.  Coop, below,  is mostly rescued materials.  Why not boxwood, roses, itea, hydrangea, camellia, daphne?  The coop is worthy.

View across the drive, below, with front loading garage.  Some jurisdictions have outlawed my type of home.  Too unfriendly.  Garagecentric.  No worries, it is my starter home, here 5 years & off to something more worthy of my magnificence.

It's obvious I had to do more growing than the garden.

I'm particularly pleased with this bit at the side of my garage, above.  Though the white roses lost their graft and only the root stock is left.  Reminds me of an old vicarage wall .
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Did you see the neighbor's houses?  Why would you?  You've entered my world.  An old cottage......  and become lost in my theme.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken in my garden last week.

Fireplace Decorating Ideas

Over my fireplace mantel today.

What do you do with your worn out & broken tools?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Yes, screwed to the wall.  And each other.

Hiding Ugly Views

Pleased as the Cheshire Cat.  One of my chief accomplishments.  Do you see why?

A few feet away from my house, above, is a neighbor's house.
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Yet the view is a Woodland Garden: contorted filbert, hydrangea, camellia, azalea, hosta, fern, helleborus, bulbs, meandering path edged with tree limbs.  And the air-conditioner.
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It's a lifestyle choice.  Anything else, for me, is subsistence living.
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I travel farthest in my garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday, lovely rains all day.  The Woodland Walk is morning sun, with Tara's Trinity of the Southern Garden, azalea-camellia-hydrangea, there are blooms EVERYDAY all year.

Acceptable Addiction

 Pharmacology has not discovered a pill to compete with the special endocrinology I was born with.  If they had it would be prescribed, and stolen for a street drug.

I cannot get enough of this, above.

Seriously.

Anticipation, is the best drug.  Oakleaf hydrangea buds, above?  Any bud in my garden, oh my.

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Can you imagine doctors knowing to prescribe an 'anticipation pill' ?

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I'm sure it's the diagnosis for many people, yet 'doctors' have no clue.

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AND, my circle of friends has the same special endocrinology.  When we talk with each other about our gardens, yes, we get high off each others garden.

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Garden & Be Well, XO T

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Pics taken this week in my garden.

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Chandelier with a Tin Roof

Reflected lite, even during the day, of chandelier on a tin roof.

In my conservatory.

Doors, windows, tongue/groove all a century old.  Field gathered for over a decade & all free.

Conservatories must be at least 12' x 18' and have doors on 2 walls.  Minimum.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken this month in my garden.

Farmhouse Kitchen

A real farmhouse kitchen.  

The island, above, is an old dresser with detailing applied to  the back.

She removed a wall between table & kitchen.

The cafe curtains win a Garden Oscar.  Beyond those curtains, inches, is their driveway, Funeral Home parking lot, and, ta-da, a Funeral Home !
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Sky & tree canopy are all you see.
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Perhaps the solution to your garden eyesore is inside your house.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics at jobsite, same garden as previous post.  Yes, she made lunch, blueberry mini-muffins, pimiento cheese sandwiches, chicken salad, fresh fruit......iced tea mixed with lemonade.  And, I got the story from him of how he met her when they were teens.  They're grandparents now.  The story began when he was a bagboy at Piggly Wiggly.
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You did notice the rug under the island?
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They've asked for a Chicken Coop, Pole Barn, Pond & a few other delicacies.....
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How to Use Heads in Design

Got heads?

They're for

exterior, and

interior.
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Have you noticed a formula for your favorite interiors & exteriors?  Not into formulas?  No worries, formulas are nothing more than Shopping Lists!  Now, I have your attention.
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I've always been drawn to interiors with heads & ......
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In my garden is a decades old collection of broken heads.  Most were a $1.
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Top pic from same home/garden as previous post.  Bottom pics Nicky Haslam, via Cote de Texas article.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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More than heads, bodies too.  And urns with plinths.