What Bunny Mellon's Terra Cotta Pots/Topiaries Can Teach Us

House, cabin, barns, pastures, lakes, meadows, orchards, livestock are part of her domain.

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Family, friends, church, community building, volunteering are more of her domain.

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She's recently asked for something 'small', local terra cotta pots, known not to freeze/crack, with plants.

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Property is ready for this layer but how to have this layer leverage her garden & life?

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Plainly, "How do they get watered & how do they not add more work to the farm?"

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Connected with a potted plant specialist yesterday, we will meet at the farm next week to see if it's a good fit.  Aside from maximum talent, need a team player, someone willing to build a long term relationship.  

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Once the 'fit' is finalized I look forward to sharing her work with you.

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My job, keeping things fabulous yet easy, demanding magic from my muse & each person on the team.

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Leaning toward creating 3 greenhouse zones for myriad potted plants, drip irrigation included.

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Caretaker will move the pots, as the owner chooses, for events.  To move pots from greenhouse to garden a 4-wheeled wagon with tallish sides that can be pulled with the Gator.

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1 greenhouse, small, in the courtyard next to the potager, for the owner to easily use for the house & covered porches.

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Live plants in terra cotta pots have been a missing layer in her home.  According to me, & of course I told her.  Go me.  (This type of thinking, and blurting, does get me into a pickle or two.)

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For sure, ivy topiaries in several sizes/shapes, orchids, old fashioned begonias-geraniums, whatever the client wants, and lastly the potted plant specialist creates wonderful potted plants we don't know we need yet.

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Exactly, teamwork.

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Have been a fan of Bunny Mellon for decades, she had many homes & a busy life.  How did she manage her terra cotta pots with plants?  With greenhouses & a caretaker.  Voila.  Caretaker is already part of our team we simply need to add the greenhouses with drip.

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If you see any disaster zones let me know.  If you see something fabulous to add, let me know.

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I wake up at 3am too often, but know to push my brain into a garden.  This morning at 3am it was 'this' garden.

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Garden & Be Well,     XOTara

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Pic found online, no 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.

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

Historic Template

Shelf-steps, terra cotta pots, topiaried evergreens.

Big impact in the garden & easy resource for your interior.  A historic template.
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Recognize her?  Bunny Mellon.  I adore everything this woman does in her gardens.
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Garden & Be Well,                XO Tara
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
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Details about online design services.
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Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
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Details about lecture titles here.
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I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Office Renovation

My real office is your garden.  When you hire me it's to turn your hopes & dreams of a garden into plants-hardscape-house, a Vanishing Threshold, that ephemeral bonding of joy letting you hold onto faith, expand your spirit & gather grace.

 This zone, designing gardens, is intoxicating, Joseph Campbell speaks of it as experiencing eternity here & now.

My office must let me leave ties of place to become a Mental Traveler.

Letting the Muse of writing, lecturing, powerpoints, & Garden Design 'dance'.
 

In homage to Bunny Mellon, my basket table.  Each client for the day goes into their own basket, a lecture in the evening has its own basket too.  Adore multiple basket days.

Long-distance Garden Design is done, above.

Administrative tasks here.

Overlooking the garden, below.  Best place to blog, surf, read.

No rugs or art yet.  Enjoying the simplicity.  

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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Laskett, left above, devoted to me no friends like him!  He pays them zero attention.  If there is a loud crash or something 'wrong', daily occurrences, it's Laura, right above.

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Love walking into my office every morning.  Decades of joy.

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I adore looking at offices, thought it fair to show mine.

Tough Terra Cotta

Finely particulated terra cotta lasts longer.  Water doesn't seep in & expand during a freeze.  At least in my zone.  Zone 6b, then 7, now 8; all without moving.  It does freeze here, ice & snow.  (Notice the meadow in my flagstone terrace, below.  It's obvious why I fell in love with Bunny Mellon's garden!)

 

I really wanted the pot, above.  4 to be exact, for boxwood.  They were sold only in 'sets'.

Ironically, it's been fun playing with a few of the smaller pots.

Foxglove, above, frosted with Chinese snowball petals.
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Foxgloves are done.  Next, small heirloom tomatoes.
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This is enjoyable beyond expectation, these little pots, thinking about what to put in them, or leave them empty, or move them....
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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I do pay attention to my wants/expectations vs. what truly occurs.  Adore these little surprises.  This terra cotta is from Asia.  Chose terra cotta for my pot 'theme'.

Bunny Mellon Style

A garden, below, needing tending or a garden tended to perfection?
Is this garden, below, your idea of heaven or a mess? (Have this garden, below, in any post 1985 deed restricted subdivision & you'll get 'nastygrams' from the HOA demanding it be 'weeded'.)
A fairy tale, below, or needs pruning?
Bunny Mellon likes it SCRUFFY !!

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A woman to love.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Oddly, I've always been repelled by deeply manicured landscapes. Repelled & disgusted by tidy landscapes omitting an intellectual component entirely. Is Puppet Barbuda being too vague in her dislikes? Puppet Barbuda abhors subdivision tidy landscapes installed by the 'builder' and maintained ad nauseum thru the decades; as if tidiness is an excuse for a 'decent' landscape or an intellect.

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Vanity Fair has a lovely article, where the pics came from, about Bunny Mellon here.

A Room With Purpose

Bunny Mellon has a room for her baskets, below.Biltmore Estate has a room for flower arranging.

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2 very good ideas.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic via unknown.