Views In: Conservatory at Dusk

 Looking into my Conservatory at dusk this week, below.  Your home is the backdrop to the garden.  Views in must be seductive.  Inviting.  Every view in must tell me who you are.

Returning from a lecture I gave in Chicago/Moline Wednesday there was a little pile of cards & gifts on the harvest table in the kitchen.

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The best present was working, aka lecturing, on my birthday.  Adore a job on my birthday every year.  Gift to myself, loving what I do.

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Back to the little treasure trove.  Had Beloved gather everything, I grabbed the champagne, and we trotted off to the Conservatory.  Fine way to spend a late afternoon.

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This morning, and the Conservatory pic, I realize pics must be made for every window of my home, from the garden, at dusk.

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Game on.

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Tick Tock

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Deadline, Dec. 2014.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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First time to Chicago/Moline, far too short, grand hospitality, will go back.  

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

How to Copy your Interior into the Landscape

 Tables, mantels, buffets, chests, demilunes, with toppers, aim my Garden Designs.

Scale, proportion, flow, color, texture, and balance.

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What?

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I copy your table top arrangements, in plants.

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Look around you.  There is a thread of continuity with your table toppers throughout your home.

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Laughter is included with my job.  Every time, every & each time, I finish a garden design the client says, "I love that!"  Well, of course.  I copied YOU.

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Which I think is hilarious.

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Then I get a check.

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You must admit this deepens the humor.

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Of course, too,  I use the right plants for entries, foyers, halls, parlours, double axis, focal points, staging of blooms throughout the year, fall color, berries, fragrance, ease of care, shading the house......then I want to exchange some of your windows for French doors, change the paint colors, & etc.

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All while the 'husband' was worried you hired a garden designer and he was going to have to pay for flowers.

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Flowers?  My stealth is far more wicked than 'husbands' comprehend.  Until it's too late, which means they've come on board as full team members.

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That satisfaction is my favorite bit of humor to savor.  

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Husbands call me 'that woman' to their wives, at first.  Within a month, generally, the wife will email or phone and say, "My husband said, 'ask Tara'....."

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At that point the poor dear man is within the clutches of 2 Cheshire cats!  

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And likes it.

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Yes, my job is quite humorous.

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Garden  & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic found on net, lost provenance.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Advantages of a Mossy Roof

The first large garden design & installation job I had, 2+ decades ago, was on Wieuca Road in Buckhead.

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A well-divorced woman & her sparkly happy/smart daughter on 2 acres in a 1940's charmer stuffed with antiques decorated to make Bunny Williams jealous.  

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Nearby, over the fence, a turn-of-the-century A-frame, somehow still surviving, with gobs/gobs of lovely moss on its roof.

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I told her how lucky she was to live near that gorgeous mossy roof.  She agreed.

Weeks into the project she told me I was not the first garden designer called.  The 1st one told her the house next door with the mossy roof should be torn down, an eye-sore.
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What she did not tell Mr. Testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch is that she owned that house with a mossy roof & her daughter lived in it, its interior like a Nicky Haslam folly.

Life conspired, above, to finally give me a mossy A-frame roof, diminutively.

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A potting shed at my office/guest cottage.  A short walk from my house.  With a concrete floor it must have been the well.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Pics yesterday.  Miss Wieuca Road met a man at a funeral, married him, moved away.  Her daughter married that man's son.

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Designed another garden on Wieuca Road a few years ago, a new home, and realized it was on the property of the house in my first story.  It had been torn down to build cluster mansions.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design Equation: Double Axis

 View from my office window, below.

Standing on the terrace, above, looking up to my office window, below.

Double Axis Equation: 
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View Out + View In = Double Axis
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics in my garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: home renovation, interior design, exterior design, painting & color choices, hardscape, pools, ponds, lawns, irrigation, patios, decks, farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

E.M.Forster: Walking the Garden at Dusk with Mrs. Wilcox

Dusk yesterday, below.  I had been inside reading but the Chinese snowball blossoms beckoned.  

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E.M.Forster,  Howard's End,  "...Continually contrasting the "seen" with the "unseen"--the physical, material world of the Wilcoxes with the imaginative, spiritual world of the Schlegels--Forster posits the possibility..." 

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Decades before reading Forster peering in has been a delight.

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Is your garden pretty from inside?  Is your interior pretty from the garden?  Vanishing Threshold = 'yes' to both questions.

My dear friends (aka Viburnum macrocephalum - Chinese snowball), above/below, pulled me away from reading, Diana Vreeland, Memos - The Vogue Years.

This is a garden.  

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Best friend.  Nurturer.

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House & garden, armor harbor strength metaphor atonement listener humorist joy independence spirit music life love.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics yesterday at dusk in my garden.

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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard Garden Designs installed by 

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Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home builder, from renovations to neighborhoods. Heard's Landscaping, commercial/residential construction, hardscape-irrigation-lawns-grading-pools-lighting-stone-decks.  Three decades of service.

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Shaefer Heard

Garden Pantry: Staples

Bare essentials, below.

Pair of square planters, pair of round planters, and jewelry.
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Just as salt/pepper are pantry staples, gardens have staples too.
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Love the garden jewelry, above.  Garden jewelry?  The rails.  Pure jewelry.  Lights too.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic via Habitually Chic.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Sofas: Backed vs. Facing

Pairs of sofas 'backed' began intriguing me a couple of years ago, after decades of adoring pairs of sofas facing each other, which is, of course, what I've had for a-very-long-time.

Cote de Texas posted this pic, above, the same day Laura, below, lept to the balcony in a smash/crash.

Once I get-me-a-man the French commode with urn on plinth will be between newly backed sofas.
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Laura, from that distance, cannot leap to the balcony.
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Decorating or catorating?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Top pic Architectural Digest, a Mario Buatta room.  Bottom pic, apparently Laura's room, and soon to be mine again.  With pleasure my sofas need new fabric, and studying Buatta's room I will be getting a few extra pieces of furniture too.  Fine thoughts, indeed.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Bunny Mellon Rustic or How to be Happy

Leaving to eat dinner at my office/guest cottage yesterday, my garden, below, stopped the car & pulled me out.

Bunny Mellon would approve of my rustic garden.  More, she knew the 'high' it gives.  Asleep in bed, my garden Vulcan mind melds.
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In this working class neighborhood of tightly arranged homes my garden is infinite.  How?  It owns the sky, and when the birds land in neighbor's yards they are still my birds.
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This little patch, above, makes me incredibly happy.  Perhaps the best mission statement ever, Make me happy.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday, before dinner.  More about Bunny Mellon, Guardian.  More about Bunny Mellon, Habitually Chic. See my neighbor's houses, above?  Merely a slice of what my garden does for me.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Heirloom Decorating

Boxes of dishes, glasses, flotsam/jetsam arrived with the Hoosier, table/chairs.  Everything passed from grandparents/parents to him and quite emotional.  

He asked me to decorate.  Keep it pure & functional, heirlooms only, I thought.  For this little corner, everything must speak of beloved family.  Fostoria & Haviland beckoning from the Hoosier, Use me (don't keep me pristine/barely used like your mom did!)   And the satisfaction of knowing these 'things' are in the continuum of his life, going to children.

Off topic, love the fan vase, seems to arrange flowers on its own.

Justine Cushing decorated with heirlooms above/below.  After 3 decades I divorced a great Lake House with heirloom decorating.  Attached to heirloom decorating since the first time seeing that Lake House.

Would be fun to see these things, above, in their previous incarnation, then into their future incarnation.
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I didn't see the Hoosier 'decorated' before.  But I did get a wonderful hug as he said his mom had it completely different.
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Appropriately, he had friends to dinner and his parents were toasted at their table with their dishes!
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Top 2 pics from jobsite.  Bottom 2 pics Justine Cushing on Cote de Texas.
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Forsythia cut from the garden.  Cannot believe I was TOO GOOD to design with Forsythia when my horticulture degree was new.  Glad those days are long gone.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Design: Sources of Inspiration

Cracked.  Cracked & stapled is my favorite.

A farm scene, and cracked, above.
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Perfect.
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Why do we buy dishes?  By the set.
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Fun discovering the cracked dishes at a clients last weekend.  I must look more closely at the pattern, perhaps there is something to copy into the garden.
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Ironically, her garden's color trinity is green-brown-white and these dishes are almost the exact faded brown version of her garden.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Get Your Layers of Design Right

Every home needs a desk, every barn needs a desk, every garden needs a desk.

Every design project has its layers.  Completed layers, above.  Beginning layers, below.

I will always have a job.  Always.  Why?  It's DNA to put the wrong layers in first, in a garden.
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What are the wrong first layers of a garden design?  Pretty flowers.  All roses.  Mostly perennials.  Tons of hosta.  Yes, that list will keep me in a job, forever (forevah).  So, Tara, what's wrong with roses, perennials...., easy, no evergreen structure, zero relationship with the house & you've begun with high maintenance.
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Desk, above, is already years in the making.  Why?  We've been creating paths, drives, focal points on axis with the interiors, planting evergreen hedges, then flowering shrubs......
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Ironically, nurseries conspire to keep me working hard.  How?  They push annuals, lawns with needy chemicals-watering-mowing, blah blah blah & blah (are we even in the same industry?  Passed a nursery sign last week, "Kill your weeds now."  Yes, I will always have a job.)
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What is the first layer of a Garden Design to consider?  Views, main axis, from inside your home into the garden.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Top pic Susanne Hudson's garden, bottom pic at a client garden last weekend.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Enfilades: You MUST have them inside/outside

Interiors must have enfilades, below.

Gardens must have enfilades, below.

More, each garden view from your interior must have an enfilade.
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Perhaps this is why my nose flares, eyes narrow, right eyebrow rises, and a deep breath follows when I'm first asked, "What plant goes here?"
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Major reason most gardens aren't where they need to be?  Too concerned with plants and zero thought to enfilades.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Top pic at jobsite last weekend, bottom pic I Love Your Style.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Leverage: Make it Work for YOU

Leverage yourself, and your garden.

A place to put on/take off shoes, set packages & etc....
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Most landscapes require work from you, or a crew, without ever (EVAH) being beautiful or helpful.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic at jobsite last weekend.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Planting in Drifts + Ultimate Status Symbol

Several hundred acres, several barns, several thousand bulbs to plant.

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Constraint?  Bulbs must look like they've been on property for a century.

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What to do?

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Toss out every known morsel of garden design since 1960.  (Easy, been there/done that.)

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Plant in blowzy DRIFTS.

Drifts must be organic tear drops.  Stubby or elongated + versions in between.

From inside the barn, below, to the house.

Did you know this about Garden Design?  If you create beauty in one direction, it's beautiful in its opposite.  

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Notice the foot path, above?  

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How few know a foot path through meadow is one of life's ultimate status symbols.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken at jobsite yesterday.

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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Suzanne Somers: Botanist & Soil Expert

With tea, toast, cats, & a fever I'm on the sofa with Suzanne Somers & Katie Couric on tv.  Who knew Suzanne Somers would say the profound?

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But first.

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At 66 Suzanne Somers is a ripe peach.  Touting her health, mental happiness & sex life.  Poor, (should have borrowed Somers make-up artist & hairdresser) Katie Couric was a peach pit, her eyes cannot smile when her mouth does & it's painful to watch (to be fair we all have a bad day here/there).   Feverish me was not yet peach compost.

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Suzanne bubbles on, and on, then, "...we have to take mineral supplements because the way we grow our food has destroyed that ability......"

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Statement of the obvious, and truth.

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Organic gardening does not mean, only, not using chemicals.

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N-P-K fertilizers are not organic.  

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They kill mycorrhizal fungi & poison groundwater & can make a bomb.

Mycorrhizal fungi help roots take up minerals from soil.  

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A Providentially planned relationship similar to the good bacteria in our digestive track.

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2 + decades ago & my first study tour of historic European gardens.  Discovered Tara Turf, above.
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Why did USA ever stop?  No chemicals or irrigation needed & less labor expense.  A trinity of money saving there.  Pollinators abound, soil microbes thrive.  Food from this soil, above, is healthier, and safer, than big-ag food.
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Sure, the supplements Somers sells are not 100% science but the food big-ag sells is engineered to ward off insects, weeds.  Doubt Suzanne's products can make that claim.

Where is the crystal ball?  20 years from now would like too see Somers/Couric on tv together again.  If Summers is still the ripe peach with a great sex life her empire is assured.  And I'm buying.
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Yes, this is long but it took years to discover even with a USA horticulture degree.  The learning was in my head.  It has since passed to my heart.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon