Front Porch: Take that Rail Off

"Take the rail off", I said.  Friend, not client, we knew the obstacle, husband.  Years passed. Now, below.    Understand intuitively who took the rail off & built the new step?

Ahead of the curve, they sold their lakeside mcmansion, and moved here, her childhood 2B/1 bath cottage.  When it's full of their 5 children, 15 grandchildren, & friends (lucky me) the house does not feel small, only unlimited horizons of love & joy.

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"Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now?"  William Stafford.  Gifting this lovely quote to my dear friend who lives in the cottage, above.  
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week.

Features to Copy from this Room into the Garden

In the garden you know exactly what type of arbor is required, below.  Arched, 3' deep, iron, creating an enfilade punctuated with an urn on plinth matching the one below.

Repetition, is one of your strongest design tools in the garden.  Maximized with interior repetition.
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Color & pattern, very easy to copy from this room into the garden.
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I never tire of a client saying, "I love that."  Exactly, I copied it from their interior.    Yes, it's that simple.
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Garden  & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Cote de Texas.    Why an iron arbor to match?  Contrast.  Yet, if the client wanted heavy cottage style I might do the wood.

Designing Redolence

Not only historic, I want my garden designs to be redolent of having read, and adored, E.M.Forster.  Jane Austen, Wendell Berry, my grandmother, you get the message.

A garden must be more than 'there', it must take me somewhere.
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For decades I've known, I travel farthest in my garden.
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The owner of this garden, above, discovered me in my gown getting pics at 6am.  I knew it was she who created the magic.  As I walked barefoot in the dewy grass we meandered while she told me her garden's story.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Piper's Cove, Jamaica.  The resort was built in the early 90's and she could only afford tiny plants.  I know exactly how she feels about each one.

Historic World Pivot Point: Rarely Captured in a Garden

Remnants of historic gardens, from garden design studies across the globe for decades, create a trinity: woodland, low meadow, stone focal point.

You are looking at, above, when-the-music-stopped.
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A concrete terrace built during the 20's for evening dances, think Gatsby, was topped with a stone fountain during the 30's.
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It is rare to see, in concrete, when the world shifted.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic Shaw Gardens, Jamaica.  Had quite a 'moment' when I saw this, of course my friends were happily obliviously walking past fast, before I told yet another garden 'thang'.  Poor dears, they had to tolerate my 1 track mind.
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Know what else you are seeing above?  Maximum pollinator habitat: high density with low density + water.

Vanishing Threshold: Dining Room + Landscape

Where, below, do your eyes land?

Mine went straight to the urn outside and its placement dead-center on the French doors, vanishing threshold.
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No accident the photographer caught it.  Douglas Newby has quite a nice day job !  We know the truth about easy day jobs, they require work.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Douglas Newby.   Photographers & interior designers rarely pay attention to Vanishing Threshold.  I START every Landscape Design at the Vanishing Threshold.

A Real Man Cave

From our lunch table overlooking the Caribbean the Cave Man stories intensified, Do you want to see the man who lives in the cave?  I did see him, he's 2 feet behind his fishing net, below.    

With every intention of shooting him, once I saw him, I could not.  He possessed nothing but his dignity.
 

From our lunch table, above/below, the Cave Man's sanctuary.

Haven't we all had I'll-go-live-in-a-cave Robinson Crusoe thoughts?  The Cave Man's foyer, below.

Coming face-to-face with a person who is living that life I saw the poverty surrounding his choices and his deep courage in retaining his integrity & spirit, though the choices take him to death.  He is free, burdening no one.
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No, I could not take his picture.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Again my love of seeing gardens across the globe stuns with epiphany.

Landscape Design Rule: Repetition

When space is limited use repetition to make it appear larger.

Seems so right, above, hard to believe it's a landscape design 'rule' in action.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Shaw Park Gardens & Waterfall.

Shaw Gardens: Tea Terrace + Cannon

A proper Tea Terrace, below.  Unchanged for a century.  Must I tell you what a Tea Terrace becomes in the evening?  Wine & canapes on the terrace, of course.

When I asked about the cannon, below, Mr. Adams said, It's never been fired.  Where did it come from?  He said, Oh it came from up above.  How did it get up there?  The Spaniards carried it up there, he said.  (You realize he means the Spaniards contemporary with Christopher Columbus.  I hear, George S. Patton, Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of Man.)  FYI, Mick Jagger has a gorgeous estate where the cannon was rescued.    

Mr. Adams, below, of Shaw Gardens.  More than love his job, he loves Shaw Gardens & showing it off.
He said, Take it easy, dozens of times as we traversed steep grades.  Before arriving at the best views he would say, Look where you are going or you will go where you are looking.

Today, mostly, I wanted you to meet Mr. Adams, above.  And know his wisdom, Take it easy.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Cannot imagine the misery of getting that cannon up the volcano !  Worse, the misery of Mr. Adams ancestor at arrival in Jamaica.

Faux Bois: Shaw Park

At a century old the faux bois lamp post, below,

in Shaw Park Botanical Garden, Jamaica, is perfection.
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Walk too fast & you would think it was a tree.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Stephen Sills: On Acquiring Objects

"It's funny with objects.  If you're really passionate, and you really understand your sensibility, and you're patient, they will come to you..."

"That's what I love about the magic of objects.  You never really own anything in this world, but you can be lucky enough to possess something for a time, and enjoy it, and then it goes on to another person to enjoy.",

Stephen Sills in Town & Country, Oct. 2013.
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His simple gardens in the city are caressing arms.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics via Elle Decor.

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?

Remember Gertrude Jekyll's "....the first thing I consider, when planning a garden, is what to put on the house."
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For ease of maintenance I prefer espaliered woody shrubs.  No wires, no trellis.
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House & terrace, above, are vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Half Pudding Half Sauce.

Darrel Morrison: Native Habitat - Designed

Immersion in native habitat for designed habitat.  Left brain, right brain.

Darrel Morrison made it a science.  Creating grids from native habitat, similar to archaeology, to create designed habitat.  And he does not neglect 'spirit'.

With expectation of 'professional' enrichment Nature's landscapes are my favorite vacation zones.  Intuitive learning.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics from web.  Have only heard Darrell Morrison speak once, decades ago, a man ahead of his time.

Garden Design: Airstrip Neighborhood

The brilliant 'Urn Idea' atop their low columns was nixed immediately.

Instead, we'll hunt for these caps, above.
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Brain dropsy, I had forgotten airplane wings must easily navigate the driveway.
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Every home in their neighborhood has a hangar + plane.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Used portions of the gate, above, for another client.  Hers had to be chicken/rabbit proof at the bottom.  It's obvious I have the best job within the galaxy.
 

Charles Faudree: Creating Relationship with Opposites

"Establishing a relationship between unlike objects adds to the interest of a tablescape.

An antique French figurine is a three-dimensional companion to the painted figures

on the English foot tub."  Charles Faudree

Contrast.  The Arts cross-pollinate.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic from Details, by Charles Faudree & Francesanne Tucker.
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For inspiration in the garden I have been going to interior design writers for decades.

How to Choose a Design Direction: Before/After

You know what to do, below, of course?  Extreme rustic requires extreme

formal, below.  Contrast is one of the sharpest arrows in your quiver.

Of course an allee was needed between the Chicken Coop & Long Barn toward the Pole Barn.

For added formality Crape Myrtle standards were chosen along with espaliered sasanquas, below.

 Not quite before/after pics, pairs of urns not sited correctly and another 2 years of maturity needed.
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Path is wide enough to set up small round dinner tables during parties or a harvest table with twinkle lites in the Crape Myrtle canopy.
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Are you doing this?  Design your garden to enjoy in the fullness of life.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics last month at a jobsite.  Wish you could have seen the heirloom turkey trying to get rid of me while taking these pics.
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Contrast won't steer you wrong and keeps you from ever being 'stuck' on a direction.

Penelope Bianchi Asked

Merely pretty?  Think again, this is serious business.  Without pollinator habitat we die.  

What is pollinator habitat?  Macro description, you want high density & low density in your garden.  Micro details,  trees-shrubs-groundcovers and open meadow/gravel terrace, water.  With plant selection mixed for something coming into bloom all year.

Penelope thinks she's merely standing in her beloved garden.  More, she's bathing in maximum pollinator habitat.
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Why care about pollinators?  Increasing pollinators can increase crop yields almost 80%.
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Wendell Berry has been writing agricultural essays for decades about big agriculture with machines-chemicals-devastation of communities (every pun intended) vs. small farms, mostly organic, producing more/acre than big agriculture.
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Have had a crush on Penelope Bianchi since first seeing her gardens & interiors.  Loved her before I knew she existed.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Both pics in Penelope's garden.

How To Follow Through with a Theme

Fine tuning the smalls, below.

Dried flowers from the garden & Jacob sheep grazing outside.
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From property line to the center of your home the theme should be who-you-are.
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Do I know who you are from first approach at the property line?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last month at jobsite.  Sublime to see her reach this layer of interior design, the tiniest touches amplifying who she is.
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Hardest advice ever received?  "Be-who-you-are."

'No' is Design's Important Tool

As designed, below.  Orchard wall & gate copied from centuries of history.  Why figs?  Huge, ancient, figs are nearby, using the design tool of repetition.

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A more important design tool than repetition I used, 'no'.

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You think a Garden Designer is hired to put things into your landscape?  The most important thing I do is keep things OUT of your landscape.

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'No' isn't only about simplicity/expense it encompasses impact-elegance-sustainability.  Beautiful historic landscapes incorporate the least amount of care creating the maximum amount of pollinator habitat, with aesthetics too.  Providence has huge wells of aesthetics, so it's allowed us too.  Grand canyon, Niagara Falls, Edisto Island, Alaskan sunset.    

At my desk, below, I listen to the site.  Every site speaks, I call the language 'gardenese'.  It's easy to tell clients, "No, that won't work because....."  Every client consultation is intense visually & listening deeply.  Their long list of desires must be edited.  I try hard to keep the deepest 'wants' using 'no' to get there which increases the impact.

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My favorite place to be, above, my desk.

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Drawing a garden's language.  Seeing, listening. 

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Pics at jobsite last month.  

How to Choose & Site Pots in the Landscape

300 acres, 3 'mostly' matching pots totaling 3 centuries of age and no pots placed on the property, yet.  

(Does the pot, below, tell you, "Touch me."?  If it does it means you are an old soul & kindred spirit.)

Pots must be so wonderful they can remain empty, if desired.  Here, they needed to match the history of the home & be within a certain size range.

Perfect, above, they do not draw attention to themselves.  And still allow seating on the low stone-capped columns.

2 men/pot setting them in place.  My general contractor said, as the pot, above, went up, "...That's a ballsy spot."  As if he earned a response.

3 years getting to this layer, placing pots.  Best part?  Looks like they've always been there.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last month.  Found the pots, plus several more, at Scott Antique Market a couple of months ago.
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Did you pick up on the major component of getting the right pot in the right spot in your landscape?  Something few are good at, patience.
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Knowing to choose pots that can remain empty is such an important 'discovery'  I claim it as one of my inventions.  If you think through the carbon footprint of 'annuals & potting soil & fertilizer' for container plantings along with your time & money you'll understand beautiful empty pots.
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Of course planting sublime pots is a layer of fun in the right season of a busy life.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"The search for outward simplicity, for inner integrity, for fuller relationship -- is this not a limited outlook?  .....The world is rumbling and erupting in ever-widening circles around us.  The tensions, conflicts and sufferings even in the outermost circle touch us all...."

....I believe the heart is infinite -- modern communication loads us with more problems than the human frame can carry.

Our grandmothers, and even -- with some scrambling -- our mothers, lived in a circle small enough to let them implement in action most of the impulses of their hearts and minds."  Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, copyright 1955.
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Yes, the circles of living are too big.  Without my garden I could not navigate.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics at jobsite yesterday.  Her words could have been written this morning.