Tess: Best Employee

My best employee, is my little white van, Tess.  Built for work, and adventure, which live the same, not speed.  Uglier than a mini-van, her boot opens the same as, below, with 4 more doors pulling their duty, daily.  So ugly, she's cute.
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This week Tess hauled several huge Tea Olive, groundcovers, irrigation tubing, and a box of irrigation supplies.  Tea Olive foliage wrapped the top of my seat, embracing my neck lightly for a quick hour until I could meet the guys, and they unloaded.
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Tess carried home a beautiful pair of vintage Brown Jordan patio chairs, ca.1950, this week.  Finally, my turn to own Brown Jordan.  No worries, they were at the curb on garbage day.
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Later in the week, I got Tess into a pickle, which she's still in today.  Meeting with our stone mason at a jobsite, just before leaving, he asked if I wanted a large fieldstone he had leftover from another client.  "Show it to me.", I said.  Walking to the back of his truck, it was instantaneous, That Stone, perfect to use as a step into my shed in the Orchard.  How quick the greedy brain works. (Update at bottom.)
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Here's the pickle.  No manly help at home for a few days.  The stone weighs close to 300lbs.  How to get the stone out, without hurting Tess?  After today's appointment I'll try a piece of particle board at the bumper, pushed under a lip of the stone, hop into Tess, and push the stone onto the particle board, and hopefully 'out', without denting/scratching the bumper.  That's the game plan.  Until then, the stone will continue riding shotgun for a couple more appointments.  Yes, I'm brazen enough to think I can do this at the door to the shed, and the stone is 'mostly' positioned.  Already graveled at the shed, I may be able to sit on the gravel, and push the stone into perfect position with my feet.
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At the front end, totally aware of the humor, knowing the end of this story may include waiting for manly help.  Oh, the dread of that.  More than getting the stone out, I want to have created an easy way to get it out, on my own.  Plan B, my neighbor has a wench.        



Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Tess is always loaded with work baskets, measuring wheel, drawing board, folding table/chair too, my mobile office.
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Tess?  Never drove a car with a name before.  Driving her off the lot, overwhelmed with all the 'new', I took a pause at the dealership, to study my new surroundings.  My saleslady came over to see if everything was ok.  Told her I felt awkward, she offered to drive me home in the van, with another employee following, she knew I lived 45 hard traffic minutes away.  Wasn't about to let that happen, but totally appreciated the gesture.  Driving slowly away, unbidden, a 'voice' came to mind, "Tess will get you home."
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Update: 7-25-16

Stone removed.  Parked on incline, letting gravity help.





Did several short shoves, getting out each time to hammer tomato stakes further under stone.
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TaWanda!   Stone is out.

Blue Hill Farm

Blue Hill Farm, below.
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What a pic.  Full monty, sustainable agriculture & ornamental horticulture.  Can you label what you're looking at, below?  Can you discuss, cocktail chatter, what it takes to put this garden together, how it lives as part of your life, how it is sustainable, what the ornamental horticulture does to the agriculture, why it has a civic duty component, how it can lower HVAC expenses, how it can raise residential property value?
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In USA, colleges have 2 degree tracks.  Horticulture vs. Agriculture.
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Enough, won't go full monty now.  Just enough for your cocktail chatter.
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Maximum pollinator habitat is high density next to low density, meadow beside woodland.  Another validation, as if needed, life happens most richly in the margins.
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But why?  What am I nattering about?
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When crops are grown with maximum pollinator habitat, production yields rise by 80%.  Do the math.  Instead of getting 1,000 pounds of produce, you're getting 1,800 pounds with the same amount of effort.
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There is more, but for now, a little cocktail chatter is fine.  Pic, below, is an entire class, about living within an agricultural landscape married to its ornamental horticulture.  




Pic, above, here.
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This pic has a great story, it's not from a 'gardener', but a fashion/luxury branding personality, Habitually Chic.
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Think you can't have, above, don't own farmland?  Happily you're wrong.  My 30 year garden had every layer, above, and clocked in at less than 8,500sf, in a subdivision.
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If you have time, take the Blue Hill Farm link, scroll to the bottom, enjoy their month/month listing of their crops, livestock, cellar & more.  Exactly the type of stuff I'm wanting to know for my own ca. 1900 American farmhouse.  And that information does not exist yet.  Within the realm of how I'm wanting it.  Life is good, a well trod learning curve.  Personalized.  For me to discover.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

How Chickens Came to be Garden Designers

Notice the small evergreen hedging, below, along the gravel?  Thought low hedging was done as a garden design element, in the beginning, as in at least before the era of Christ, literally.  Then, I had a client with a cutting garden.  I did the classic potager shapes, large boxwoods at all the corners, brick edging, gravel paths, but no low hedging, wanted it easy to walk into for cutting flowers.  Unfortunately, it was easy for the chickens to walk into also.  Where was the best place on the chickens 300 acre farm to scratch & kick & toss dirt onto gravel paths?  The decision to hedge-in the cutting garden beds was made and planted.  It worked, chickens don't walk into the cutting garden beds anymore.  And, we had a good laugh, realizing where the garden design conceit came from, boxing-in plantings with low hedges.



Pic, above, here.
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An odd thing about chickens and old gardens, are old garden books.  In all my years collecting old garden books, none write about chickens in the garden.  Interesting.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Terra Cotta Inside

Bringing in a live plant in a terra cotta pot, is exactly that, bringing in life.  More, it's an interior design concept centuries old.
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Planted pots brought from my previous garden are not an option, they are gorgeous but several hundred pounds each with their soil/plant.
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For months I've been on the prowl for suitable plants for staging at least 20 terra cotta pots.  Of course the prowl has been one of convenience, already going into L, H, W, for other items.
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Aside from knowing it's time for Susanne Hudson & I to split another order of various ivy topiaries, I suppose it's my past, those 5 years at 2 nurseries with incredibly fascinating selection.  Nope, don't want anything less.  When I bring my terra cotta pots inside, a rotating selection, I want to have fun making the next round of choice, and once inside, the terra cotta pots must make me smile.
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One of the nurseries sold out, the other still hanging on, it has an FTD side too.
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I'm still in Atlanta most weeks with design work, or a job installation.  I must stop at my old nursery, and buy enough 'interesting' for me & Susanne.  She has a stunning, most unusual, angel wing begonia that belonged to her grandmother, I'll take cuttings this fall.
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Glad of my terra cotta pot collection in various sizes.  Have you noticed it's become more difficult to find a range of good terra cotta pots?  Whenever I see them at thrift stores, junk shops, Ace hardware, I buy.
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Ahead of having the terra cotta pots, ready to go inside, it's a joy perusing the house for which tables, desks, side tables, buffets, to set one.  Then there's the old ironstone plate to choose to set each terra cotta pot on.
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Most fun, is having enough, to give some away.
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Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Not having a garden yet, it's been a year in the new house, each day the imperative grows, bringing terra cotta inside.  Upfront it seemed a simple mission.  amusing the time & paths to success.

Happy Daisies

In the early 80's a girlfriend, recent college grad like all of us, was on a motorcycle and hit head-on.  I was living in a garage apartment, working full time at a bank, paying for starter husband's masters degree, not eating dinner many nites, to save money.
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Talking with the local florist on the phone, trying to choose the perfect flowers, was tedious.  Hydrangeas were out of season said the florist.  My imagination blanked with that information.  She gave a stream of ideas.  No, no, no.  Finally, I thought how happy daisies are.  Plain daisies with their brite white petals and a plain solid yellow center, not any of the new fancy spooner daisies or etc.  Plain daisies.
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As little money as I had, it was still embarrassing to send only a pot of daisies.  But they were so happy, and spending more money for something 'appropriate' felt too depressing, compared to the happy daisies.
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Walking into her viewing, at the funeral home, the next day, well, still, I can feel it, even now typing.  But there was a brite spot.  Dozens of large expensive floral arrangements, in big wicker baskets, some on tall wire stands were arrayed as in a floral fantasy.  Yet there was 1 pot of flowers, so happy, like she always was.  The single pot of daisies I sent had been put on an antique wood plant stand, next to the coffin inches from her head.  
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Glad I listened to my heart, and not lizard brain.
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This week, talking with a friend, her 90 year old mom with Alzheimers is in a care home, probably within the past 6 months, she said, there is nothing behind her mother's eyes, no one is there.  Then she started talking about the kind of woman her mom was,  and she seemed so much like my friend, above.  I asked what her name is.  Daisy, she said.
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Immediately remembering, a few days ago, below, another amazing photograph matched to poetry, from Enclos*ure Take Refuge, by Cindy Goodson.

"See, the grass is full of stars,
Fallen in their brightness. . ."

— Marjorie Pickthall, from “Daisy Time“

Pic, Floe Sallows Saunders, Floe Sallows, Emma Combs Fillman, Lottie Green Langell in a field of flowers in Bayfield, Ontario, date unknown, by Reuben R. Sallows, via Huron County Museum & Historic Gaol Commons on flickr.

Garden & Be Well,   XO T

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Finishing college, Engineering degree, Jimmy Carter had just left office, interest rates 21%, jobs hard to find.  Worked at a bank, knew I had to leave, bored beyond measure and thought my head would explode, brains flying to the wall, dribbling slowly down.  Within a month a nursery along the 30 minute drive to work had a 'Help Wanted' sign.  Hired, gave notice, started 5 years of nursery work.  Gained another degree, Horticulture, by the time those 5 years were done, and started my own Garden Design business.  A terrible economy created my career/life path.  I would have eaten dirt off the sidewalk instead of living at home again, it was the era.  During leave taking, after 30 years with starter husband, I thought back to the several years of not eating dinner, to save money.  They added up to about a year.  A year without dinner.  Worth every meal missed, getting here.

    

Color & Architecture's Relationship

It's outrageous what color can do, good & bad, for architecture.
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Painting or staining a fence coming off the front sides of a home, widens its architecture.  Enlarges the footprint of welcome, to the home.
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An easy concept, and wildly affordable relative to the huge impact gained.



Pic, above, here.
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Great example, above, about purchasing a properly scaled doormat.  This poor mat, above, looks like it came from a Pin the Tail on the Donkey store.  Dinky is Stinky, is this doormat's trinity fail.  The doors are way too fabulous to be wearing this doormat.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Dinky is Stinky is a great save, protecting you from hunting/gathering the wrong things.  Another great save, 'We're not to that layer yet.'  Both from Susanne Hudson.

Taking Historic into the Modern Realm

Clearly a master's touch, below, playing with history, cunningly modern.
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Whimsy, below, in the metaphor of sanctity.  What?  Taking the choice, below, to walk into the garden, you must bow your head, at the shrine of espaliered trees.
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Soon, hedging will shield the house from the outer world, flying buttresses, arc-boutant, to the nave within.
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Is your life worth anything less?
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Stewardship of self.  In all its layers.






For good measure, several ball rooms planted into the back yard, above.



The long hallway, above at right, a promenade, lit in the manner of le jardin rustique.  With hedging at the backyard too, another nave, a double cathedral built,
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Someone, at the top of their game, above.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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We are still tending structural  outdoor necessities at our ca. 1900 American farmhouse garden.  Pouring more gravel, putting in paths, lighting, plantings, must wait.  One of those 'necessities' a well.  Beloved has worked with the well diggers many times during his construction career, he trusts them.  Good, fine.  My concern is flagrantly obvious.  Where will they find water?  How will it affect designing the garden?  
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We chose similar lights, above, for a renovated shed.  Once installed, I knew those lights would be perfect for the rest of the garden, on posts along pathways.  Imagine my surprise seeing the pic, above.
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What a day I had on the old Kubota tractor yesterday.  Wounded pride, newbie mistakes.  Hilarious being an 'expert' and embarking upon a new learning curve in the garden.  Details sketchy, pride still ruffled.
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Pics from here.

Vertical Lawn

Vertical lawn, below.



Pic, above, here.
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Note the tiny planting pockets, above, for the vertical lawn.
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My favorite vertical lawn, residential, are espaliered woody shrubs.  No wire, no trellis, merely simple pruning once a year.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Ready for Outdoor Games

What to add to your patio/deck zone?  Space for games.  In less than 5 years it is amazing how wide-spread Corn Toss has become.  What other games can you add?  It's fun having friends relax & revert to age 8, even rough housing with each other, and they're all past age 50, then the young ones, who really are age 8, pile on!




Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.

 

Pic, above, here.



Pic, above, here.
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Plastic Corn Toss, above, no worries about dragging it in/out.
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Pic, above, here.
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Twister.  Exactly.  Why don't I own Twister?  On my buy list now.
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I'm not a game playing kind of person, yet the right garden, evening, dinner, friends, kindred spirits. We PLAY.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Pleasure in the Ruins

‘To delight in the aspects of sentient ruin might appear a heartless pastime, and the pleasure, I confess, shows the note of perversity.’ From Italian Hours (1873) by Henry James.

Pic, above, here.
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When I was a small girl traveling to Georgia, from Texas, before I-20 was completed I never tired of seeing an old rotting farmhouse, still inhabited.  In summer, windows & doors open.  Intuitively knowing this was great poverty, the type that kills.  In particular a single worn out farmhouse remains vivid, tattered cloth spilling from an open window, and thru the open front door I could see the main room wallpapered with newsprint, a few strips hanging down and dozens of loose corners, behind them, more newsprint.  A tall gaunt man, stooped but not old, walking to the front porch, sitting in a chair.  Nothing human in his eyes excepting misery.
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I was safely in the backseat of our late model 4-door Buick Electra 225, 401 V-8 Wildcat 445, white body, white-wall tires, blue brocade seats, air-conditioning, sister/mom/dad, Argyle our standard poodle, and Puppet our toy poodle.  Dad pushing 80mph, getting us to grandma's house.  His driving, and passing, on those 2 lane roads thrilling, and terrifying.
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Looking at abandoned farmhouses now, I like to imagine the original family, and how the house & land provided a good living.  Not the last inhabitants.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Picture: Garden Design Course

Pulling the gate/columns forward, below, welcomes you from the wide world into their private world, elongates the entry, and adds a foyer to the front door.  Painting the columns same as the house adds them to the footprint of the home, enlarging the home's territory.
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Painting the columns a different color, or if they were stone, still adds good features, excepting they become part of the garden, not the house.
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Great wisdom leaving the tops of the columns empty.
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Front door & light fixtures chosen well, they make the house seem taller.
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Note the gutters, below.  Copper color, not the brick color.  Well done.
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Roof, below, is like jewelry for the house.
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Repetition of square shapes, below, highlights the fabulousity of the tall round urns at the windows.  Super contrast.
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This garden design has been done for centuries.  Have seen it on several continents, and at all price points.  Done it myself, more than once.  Looks fresh & new with each reincarnation.
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Even the front door handle was chosen with care.  Drapes vs. blinds, again, well done.



Pic, above, here.
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Copy, enfilade, axis, cross-axis, color, contrast, repetition, flow, welcome, focal points, ceiling, walls, floor, simplicity, has all the right Garden Design rules checked.
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I have a weakness for Garden- Design- Course in a single picture.
Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Design Solution: Deer & No time

Last week I completed a Garden Design for a local family.  Their home is new construction on 35 acres of beautiful farm land, open, wooded, pastures, broad slight slopes.
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The pool is near completion, the pole barn completed, the house has its exterior, now awaiting wall board and layers that follow.
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The home is huge.  They have young children.  Deer thrive on their acreage.
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Plantings, aside from deer proof, must be no care, they have no time for landscape maintenance.  None.
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What to do?  Farmesque is the theme I chose.  With pool at the back, the front yard is open, mostly flat, short meadow.  I sense the front yard will be THE play yard.  Still, what to do with the Garden Design?
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At the far side of their front yard meadow, I designed a small pecan orchard, 8 trees, 2 rows of 4, with harvest table and strands of lights, for trunks and canopy.  Trunks to be lit nightly.
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More than meals, a gathering spot for projects, or lounging with a book.
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Pic, above, here.
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Whew, saved by an orchard.
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And, simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Versatility: French Rain Barrel

When Smith & Hawken had its going-out-of-business sale at its Atlanta store, I had the good fortune to be there shopping with a client.  Little realizing ahead of time, I'd be purchasing things too.
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Ahead of moving from my 30 year home/garden I took 18 van loads to the thrift store.  My house sold within 24 hrs of listing and there was zero time for another choice.  Once in our new home, ca. 1900 American farmhouse, it became apparent much of my cottage garden 'stuff', thought to be so worthy ahead of the move, would not 'work' in the new setting.  Yep, that was a 'moment'.
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A couple of months in the new house, Beloved had his largest work truck, large bed/tall sides, and team of men on site.  Unexpectedly he said I could have the men/truck for a couple of hours.  Code language, get rid of your stuff.  Now.
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Six work ready men, felt like I had just stepped into a fire ant pile, and could not point to stuff fast enough as they were scurrying and pulling things for the truck.  2 rounded loads taken to the thrift store.  I did manage to think quickly enough for one of my clients, and saved some things for her.
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Everything purchased that day at Smith & Hawken remained.  Not a conscious choice, the clearing of stuff was too fast for proper editing.  One of the Smith & Hawken items, a galvanized French rain barrel.
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In my cottage garden I used it as a rain barrel, and later, turned upside down, a table.
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In our farmhouse, currently, the French rain barrel is on it side, wedged not to roll in the seat of a teak bench, used as a Cat House at the back door.  With a cushion inside they love it in winter, and it's a shelter against the rain the rest of the year.   Not a use anticipated when purchased.
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Amazed at the versatility of the French rain barrel, have yet to use it as a planter, below.  More, it made the aesthetic transition from Cottage Garden to Historic Farmhouse garden.
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Why didn't I buy more than one ?



Pic, above, here.
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Great enfilade, above.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Smith & Hawken currently sells online via Target.  Hardly a hint of their 1st incarnation yet they may have that perfect xyz for you too.  No, this is not a paid endorsement.

Designing the Impromptu

Multiple layers of form & function, below.
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Aside from  pure magic, painting the walls with vines, going a step further, adorning the ceiling in vines too.
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There's even a touch of Camelot, the round table.



Pic, above, here.
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It's rare when designed impromptu, upon completion, looks/feels impromptu.
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Many layers in the room, above, enough to be considered a Garden Design class.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Had the good fortune to work for an interior decorator, Mary Kistner, a master of impromptu, who later became friend/mentor.  She passed several years ago, aside from missing her & actively using so much learned from her, I still tell stories about her.  Then, I come across Penelope Bianchi on the internet.  Penelope's work, the work of my beloved Mary.  Of course I felt obligated to tell Penelope about Mary too, aka, fan letter.  Who knew I would discover Penelope to be twin sister to my Mary.  A joy to follow Penelope's work, blog, and have her friendship.  Two close friends locally are aware of something quite personal happening in my life recently, yet, from my blog, without mention of personal issues, and thousands of miles distance, Penelope intuited the situation correctly.  And, sent a couple of quite detailed notes to me.  Perhaps that's why I adore creating gardens & rooms, like, above, because there is an alchemy in sharing  'life' situations with friends, kindred spirits, in the rooms, above, churning situations into calm, removing stress, clarifying solutions, and adding the binding glue of laughter.        

A Good Ready-Made Lattice Choice

For just over a year I've been working with a client at her farm with a barn style home, ca. 1970'ish.  A polyester leisure suit worn with white leather slip on shoes pastiche of narrow front porch with low ceiling, brass light fixtures.  Built for convenience of builder, no desire for aesthetics, nor its historical underpinnings.  The full monty, a catastrophe.
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Every renovation layer, interior/exterior, honoring form, function, history, and relationship to Nature.
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A few exterior spots need lattice.  We researched the best historic lattice to use.  If building the historic lattice could not be done, there is a default lattice my team uses, with more than adequate success in the layers of form/function.
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Showing her pics of the default lattice, she decided to move ahead with custom.  Recently, ironically, she let me know a change had been made, the default lattice used, already installed and she was quite pleased with it.
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We both laughed, I had pushed upfront for the default lattice, the expense of custom wasn't a necessity for the minor role her lattice plays.  Too ironic, 'my' choice of lattice installed.  Laughing, because she knows my hunt is taking off the porch's end rail, adding steps for another entry to the porch.  Rich laughter, because my choice of adding a wrapped  covered porch, quite deep/long etc, has been built, large & not inexpensive, yet I keep chirping to her about that small end rail.



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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Pressure treated spruce from Lowe's, above.  (No, this is not a promotional/compensated ad.)
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Community Activists Off Radar

Three weeks ago, I got a phone call from a neighbor, about 7 historic buildings away, inviting me to the board meeting of their garden club.  "It's not federated.", one of the first things she described about it, "We just like to have fun."  Amazingly, I've never belonged to a garden club, merely spoken to them across USA for decades.
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Past president of American Hydrangea Society, or on the board of Georgia Perennial Plant Association, do not count, in the least, as garden clubs.
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Moving rural, I knew I would finally join a garden club.  Garden clubs weave the tapestry of subdivisions.  More than social, they are community activists.  Common grounds are arranged to be maintained, money is raised, donations given, college scholarships awarded.  Relationship with local police is proactive, zoning issues kept current, neighborhood illnesses/deaths/births/crime are spoken of, and at least one yearly entire neighborhood social given, keeping their community property values as high as possible, along with several speakers thru the year on pertinent topics, followed with lunch.
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Why join, at this late date?  Have paid it forward, and will continue to do so, in a different realm, it's time, finally, for the Garden Club realm.  A client invited me to her federated Garden Club several weeks ago, quite a group of activists, heavily into all of the, above, and fighting the state department of transportation.  I'll join their federated group.
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Yesterday, at a job site, finally checking messages, the best text ever.  "Straining
watermelons for martinis tomorrow.  See you then."  What's not to like about this non-federated Garden Club ?
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Pic, above, here.
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Didn't know all this about garden clubs?  Amazing, how low they have stayed under the radar of notice for at least a century.  Fine with them.  Few belong to garden clubs anymore, yet those who do, are happy to shoulder the weight of  'community', as their pro-bono, no worries the rest of their neighbors don't-get-it nor shoulder any of the macro community burdens,  All normal facts making up community.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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Please don't confuse Garden Clubs with Home Owner's Associations.  Garden Clubs are stewardship from the heart, not a law book.

Following & Breaking Rules

Green-brown-white is the top historic exterior color trinity for gardens.  Who, ever, likes/wants rules?
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Late to the game, me, once I learned the trick to garden design rules.  I hadn't known or trusted garden rules deeply enough to wisely break them.  That's all there is too it.  Trust the rules, follow the rules, break the rules wisely.  Why the bother?
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Knowing the rules, breaking the rules, creates a garden & exterior more deeply 'you'.  Rules don't make every garden the same.  Rules make every garden potently different.
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Adored, seeing this garden, below.  In the pink.  I want to know this person.  Just from this pic, a tiny portion of their exterior.  More, I want to see the owner's interior.



Pic, above, here.
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Hope you realize that's what you're patio/deck must do, too.  Others must see it, and want to come inside.  Others must see it and 'know' who you are.  Those are garden design rules !
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

How Color Choice Affects the Size of Your Home

Calm, rustique, classic, nestled, below.  What plays the major role in this Exterior Design?  Color.
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Imagine home, below, with white trim.  Pop.  The house just moved forward, got smaller, the roof lowered, the garden shrunk.  Merely, painting the trim white.  Ironically, this home previously had a teal blue trim.  Same effect, to lesser degree, than white.
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Pic, above, Martha Stewart.

In an area that is small, or with disparate components, here's the color trick, below.  Did you already intuit the trick?  Everything should be the same color, or color family.

 

Pic, above, Martha Stewart.
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Exterior color, if you haven't given it much thought, does potent work to every exterior.  Make sure your exterior colors are doing the right potent work.  Potent for good vs. potent for bad.  It's your choice.  Make every layer of narrative with color choices exterior/interior and you've just raised property value, and made every day in your home happier.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Need Somewhere to Think?

Gardening is truly like putting this room together, below, by Miles Redd.  Intentions for this room, and a garden are the same.  Beauty, calm, introspection, learning, amusement, stewardship of our interior thoughts, connection to larger realms, focus, and oh my the anticipation of being at this table and knowing that whether 15 minutes or 2 hours, each will pass as the same, it would be easy to forget lunch hasn't been eaten, yes, a room like this is a proscenium, just as a garden is.
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"Every garden needs a desk.", said Susanne Hudson.
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Quick assignment.  Say Susanne's 5 words, above, aloud.  Next, do the Johnny Cash thing, 'Meditate on it. Then you'll understand.'



Pic, above, here.

Reading an education article almost 2 years ago, one of the experts said reading/learning from a source backlit by light from a computer screen/cell phone goes to a different brain region than reading/learning from a paper page lit by natural light.  Fascinating.

 

Pic, above, here.
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Epiphanies.  Moments of intuitive enlightenment.  Are the hunt in my garden, and they arrive, unbidden.  Do you partake?  Have you already been this intuitive about your garden?  Perhaps it's better to ask, "Have you been this intuitive about a garden?"
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Oh dear the nattering palaver about a garden's sun/shade, how to dig a hole, mowing properly, and worse, chemicals & etc.
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Nope, a garden is not about any of those things in the previous sentence.  None.
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Focus.  Mental focus.  From playful realms to partaking its energy, & love, to assuaging even the deepest loss.  Need to make a major life choice?  Major.  How will you go about it?  I know to go into my garden, phrase the question mentally, set it aside, in faith to G*d, trust the freedom of letting go-letting G*d for at least an hour, then poof voila, seemingly without thinking, an answer.  Heads-up on the life choices that have fear as a component, I've learned to beat fear by asking, "What would I do tomorrow if I were not afraid?"
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A friend, we were in a circle of like minds in a group Lois put together, casually said, "I do my best thinking while sweating."  Wow, a floodgate opened, 'Me too, me too, so harness it girlfriend', I said to myself.
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Gardens aren't what garden centers sell.  Look at the top pic again, and know it is exactly what gardens are.  Yet more.
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Redemptive beauty.  Abiding.  Places of joy, grace, not a place to work digging holes, shearing lawn, though if those things are done they are the gift of washing-the-servants-feet.  Stewardship.  Focus, mindset, choices.  A garden is long threads of time.  Opposite to tv, internet, cell phone, cacophonies.
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Focus, comes to you in a garden, you don't have to go to it.  More, you get the trinity of focus,
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"Focus matters enormously for success in life and yet we seem to give it little attention.

Daniel Goleman‘s book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, explores the power of attention. “Attention works much like a muscle,” he writes, “use it poorly and it can wither; work it well and it grows.”

To get the results we want in life, Goleman argues we need three kinds of focus: inner, other, and outer.

Inner focus attunes us to our intuitions, guiding values, and better decisions. Other focus smooths our connections to the people in our lives. And outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world. A (person) tuned out of his internal world will be rudderless; one blind to the world of others will be clueless; those indifferent to the larger systems within which they operate will be blindsided.

How we deploy attention shapes what we see. Or as Yoda says, “Your focus is your reality.” , from Farnum Street, here.
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I'm fortunate my gardening began before cell phone/internet.  I know what a garden harnesses.  I know how diminished my garden is with my cell phone/internet.  About 2 years ago, I had a more fabulous than normal afternoon, beyond 4 hrs, they felt like a vacation, in my garden.  Coming inside, discovery why.  Cell phone on the kitchen counter.  Whoa, or woe, that epiphany.  Disclosure, I do carry cell phone into garden.  Self-employed is a great excuse, perhaps Beloved needs me, or my ankle goes, or nefarious mr. timber rattler or, or, or.
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" Way back in the 1950s the philosopher Martin Heidegger warned against a looming “tide of technological revolution” that might “so captivate, bewitch, dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking may someday come to be … the only way of thinking.” That would come at the loss of “meditative thinking,” a mode of reflection he saw as the essence of our humanity.
I hear Heidegger’s warning in terms of the erosion of an ability at the core of reflection, the capacity to sustain attention to an ongoing narrative. Deep thinking demands sustaining a focused mind. The more distracted we are, the more shallow our reflections; likewise, the shorter our reflections, the more trivial they are likely to be. Heidegger, were he alive today, would be horrified if asked to tweet. ", wrote Goleman.

 

Pic, above, here.
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Farnum Street selections, above, from, The Impoverishment of Attention, here.
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I'm impatient to take notes, put upon paper with hand/pen, on the new desk in my garden, from yesterday's Sunday edition of Farnum Street.  Ironically, my new garden desk is currently in Susanne Hudson's garden.  Bought for a harvest table, custom made by a craftsman in Susanne's town, too long for my small van, Susanne will bring it next time she has a client near me.  I know she's smiling each time she sees 'my' desk, knowing how excited I am to get it.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Too Much Wind

A single client, in decades, with consistent much too amazing winds.
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We've been in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse a year.  Twenty miles from windy client, it's not far enough.  Lifetime first, living in a windy location.  A new realm to conquer.
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We've added a deck the full width of the house, at the back, overlooking meadow, lake, woods, Milky Way, fireflies, chickens, potager, Beloved's office shed, my garden shed.  Too many days, the deck is not usable, wind.
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Luckily the winds have a predominate direction.  We are impatient, an evergreen hedge may be planted too, but we are not depending upon it as a sole solution, too slow.
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My shed has a deep/long covered porch at front/back.  Have already had many lunches/dinners inside my shed, too windy outside.
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The shed has a simpler solution for wind, using a rolling barn door front/back against the prevailing winds.
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Still awaiting the perfect wind fix for the deck.  Shutters keep topping the discussions.  Framed, for strength, by adding an arbor too.



Pic, above, here.
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Weekly, I anthropomorphize the winds.  They laugh at me.  Literally, the wind is a boss.  About every 4-5 days, on the deck & front porch,  I have to wipe sills & tabletops, their thick coating of dirt/dust/grit bondoed with pollens.  Without the cleaning I'm sure pecan & pine tree seedlings would grow upon them within 6 weeks.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Off topic, great detail for color & painting, above.  Painted risers, very nice.  Lighting, ceiling fan, furniture, well done.