PLINTH: QUESTIONS & FANTASIES

Waking at 2am last night I dwelled upon this man. His PLINTH entertained me. He's Edwardian, placed in an English Park surrounded by homes older than he is. Pedastals and bases are plinths. Made of stacked bricks, limestone, marble, &tc.
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Questions about this plinth:
* Did the sculptor choose it?
* Did a committee choose it?
* How was its height, length, width decided upon?
* Who chose the material and why?
* Who placed the plinth/statue within the park?
* How was the location on the plinth chosen to place the statue's foot?
* Who decided which direction to face the statue?

What I do know:
* The sculptor lived in a house facing the park.
* The sculptor is famous (sorry, didn't get pic of the plaque).
* The sculptor left the statue, in his will, to the park.

What I want to know:
* Which house the sculptor lived in.
* Where was the statue placed at his home?
* What type of plinth was it on?
* Is this the original plinth?
* Did the sculptor leave precise directions for placing the statue, plinth in his will?

What I fantasized about this man:
* He was given to me.
* Placing him in my landscape.
* Cutting plinth lower to properly scale it for my tiny garden.
* Getting rid of his plinth and putting his lovely foot on a local granite boulder.
* He looked great in front of the bay window.
* He looked great in the hedge in my backyard on axis with summerhouse.
* He looked great on axis from my office window.
* Fell asleep before I placed him.


Lovely thoughts of a man's PLINTH.
Ha, what do you think about at 2am?
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Took the pic last month in England.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T

CLASSIC FOCAL POINTS

A postcard yesterday. Four delightful things.
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Statue: hints of Italian & French landscapes. Garden: impatiens, astilbe and the flower brushed behind the child's right leg. Simplicity has the greatest impact in a landscape. Photographer: portrait shot, framing, lighting, ahhhh. Marketer: you understand gardens are seductive, joyful, easy. This business knows landscapes are art. How many times have I designed the finial below?

More times I've designed this focal point urn, below. Every urn in your landscape must be so wonderful it can remain unplanted. How do your urns look empty?

I have a pair of these urns, below. The lid comes off. Why should it? They do their job without soil, plants, water, fertilizer. Intelligent Design takes on new meaning in the landscape.

Place this French planter, below, contrasting with a curving terrace, step or lawn.

A wall fountain with depth, below. I like to put these on walls with a demilune or sofa table underneath. Add an evergreen vine to the wall.

KISS (keep it simple sweetie), below. The lines on this birdbath are of the ages. Do you know why this is a true birdbath? It's shallow. Birds don't like water more than 1" deep.

A great sibsidiary focal point, below. Place under a bush at the dripline. Site where you can see it from the house.

The pieces, above, fit most landscapes. Why? They've been proven thru the centuries to accent a landscape and not diminish it. Understatement is their shout.

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Tara's Focal Point Question:

Will your focal points be fought over at your estate sale?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics via Florentine Craftsmen

MOVING A POORLY SITED TREE

PSO, my term for, plant shape only, works initially. Growth displays poor planting choices. The landscape, below, was professionally designed-installed for the former owner. Royal Doulton & Exotic Bell, the new owners, must fix numerous PSO's before creating a landscape reflecting their multi-continent awareness of historic landscapes. The tree, above, if allowed to stay will engulf half the facade of the home. Where to move it?

Royal Doulton's office, above, views the front landscape. An axis to place the tree. PSO becomes focal point. I want him to enjoy the tree he is saving and have its placement be perfection.

Royal Doulton didn't know the tree he saved is a great haven for birds. Ambient sounds for his workday.

Near the frontdoor, above, a window. Peek inside, a circular stairwell. Look closely, the paint is a bit spattered. Good landscape design, Tara's way, includes everything you can see inside a house from the landscape. Touch up the spatters.

Above, stone, brick, copper, cut limestone, a lovely frontdoor, a real gas lantern, and generous size. A beautiful entry. Don't diminish beauty with something cute. The 'welcome' sign is not welcome here.

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The house already says 'welcome' in tones of elegance & intelligence.

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Styling a landscape often involves removing 'cute' gifts from a loved one. Awkward if it was from an in-law, step-child or etc... If so, keep it for about a year and then it must suddenly 'break & disappear'. Don't mention the trip to the thrift store. If you really can't get rid of a horrible landscape 'gift' plant an evergreen vine on it.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T

LANDSCAPE SWAG

Normally CUTE KILLS in a landscape. When I began designing landscapes the rules were restrictive to my novice mind. CUTE KILLS is a Tara Rule. What is cute? A flag with a pink bunny rabbit at Easter perhaps? Cute steals the eye & mind. Landscapes of intelligence & wit expand the eye & mind. How can you tell the difference? Take a picture. Is the landscape timeless? Can you tell which decade the landscape occupies? What is the correct answer? "NO". Somehow, this SWAG works. Rules followed: contrasting foliage size, contrasting foliage color, contrasting barren dry gravel 'lawn' around a center pool of water plants.

More Rules Followed: Focal point statue on axis, focal point bench on axis, enfilade created (view thru to a view), hedges create a garden room, creating sound with water feature, creating sound with feet on gravel, KISS (keep it simple Sweetie), shades of green create serenity.

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I took these pics a couple of years ago in England. They could have been taken yesterday or 1910.

LUSH PATIO TEMPLATE

Does your patio, or deck, answer the question:
IS THIS PATIO SO WONDERFUL I MUST SEE THE LANDSCAPE AND IS THIS PATIO SO WONDERFUL I MUST SEE INSIDE THE HOUSE?

If you're not answering YES the patio isn't finished.
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PATIO-DECK TEMPLATE: Lush plantings, privacy, easy to move furnishings, comfort, color choices for furnishings-home-accents to match interior design, lighting choices, detailing choices on house for 3-D effects, above, it's the shutters, large pots, area for conversation-reading-napping, area for eating, outdoor ceiling fans. Is the patio an extension of the room/s it is viewed from?

The template doesn't waver for the value of your real estate. Starter home or Madoff golf course community, the template remains the same.

Thank you Cote de Texas for posting this picture, from Ernesto Buch, on your blog

Garden & Be Well XO T

LANDSCAPE CAUGHT MY IMAGINATION

This little garden found on Aesthetes Lament stole my heart. A centuries old style. Do you see only a woman standing in gravel? Ha!

Gravel is cheaper than stone, doesn't require skilled labor and lasts as long as a stone terrace. Creating a planting bed in gravel is simple, place cobblestones as edging and presto---a planting bed.

The bed, below, is lush and has stakes ready for tall blooms and twine ready for, most likely, clematis.

A solid urn is a wise choice atop the brick column. Who wants to water a pot that high? Do you want to climb a ladder and replant a pot up there?

An iron gate contrasts materials, shapes and has a keyhole view to another garden room. Ooooooh mystery, I must go thru that gate. Does your garden have mystery? No disgusting foundation planting ruins the front of this home. Obama should have included, Americans cling to their foundation plantings as a source of security. Lushness is espaliered on the house. Easier to maintain espalier 'whatever' than foundation plantings.

A pair of iron clamming baskets frame the sitting man. (Made that up, don't know what those iron baskets are.) Without plants they will hold the design-decorating together.

I want to smell this garden, hear the gravel crunch, meander thru the gate and ask to use the toilet (the English look at you funny when you ask for the restroom) then I can see inside the house. Assuming I'm on a garden tour of course.

Cecil Beaton's eye, the photographer, is knowing. Movie-set designer, gardener and writer he adored decadent amounts of fresh flowers in his home, cut from his garden.

He wrote, Here was the garden at its best & I lay in bed & saw the Picasso & Hockney engravings framed on my side wall, & the pictures were alliterated with the reflections from outside the window of roses blowing in the breeze, & the green marvel of the garden beyond."
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Photo from National Portrait Gallery

INTERIOR DESIGN INSPIRES LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Landscape magazines haven't inspired me for design in at least a decade.
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Interior magazines are full of ideas if you transpose furnishings & art for plants & hardscape.

Copy your interior style outside.

The table, below, is a landscape template. A pathway leads through its center. Shrubs and groundcovers are each side of the path. The insect is an iron arbor coated in evergreen vine leading to another garden room. The candlesticks are an understory tree, perhaps redbud. The ferns in terra cotta pots are southern indica azaleas. The plate is a drift of Lenten rose. Bric-brac- to the left of center- are wild ginger. The green walls are obviously a hedge of dwarf cherry laurel. The pair of chairs are lovely urns on plinths. Below, another tiny space to copy outside. Perhaps the side of a brick house between a front corner and fireplace. The lamp is witchhazel 'Arnolds Promise', the vase a cryptomeria 'Yoshino'. The 3 misc. items a variegated daphne, dwarf sarcoccoca, and heuchera 'pewter veil'. Placement of the plants matches the tabletop.

This would be fun, below. The painting would be a blue conifer, pair of vases, to the left, Snow azalea. The pair of matching silver candlesticks are fastigiate plum yew, the roses a dwarf burgundy loropetalum, the finial looking thing a daphne and the decanter a virginia sweetspire.

Everything blooms white but the plant where the roses are. All evergreen plants except the decanter (virginia sweetspire). The chair transposes into a bench outside. Paint it a showy color from artwork within the house.

Planting zones and scale don't matter the theory is the same for all scales and zones.

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Design using furnishings transposed into plants works especially well with mature landscapes needing a tweak.

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The overall landscape design must have strong simple structure.

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Photos via style court, Courtney Barnes. Top from Thomas Jayne Studio, middle from Josyln at Desgin*Sponge, bottom from Martin Morrell.
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Garden & Be Well XO T

MRS. POWERS GARDEN GATE

Mrs. Powers garden gate at Mackenzie-Childs has charmed me. No fence? Don't worry, set it into a hedge or hang it.I've always said, CHOOSE A THEME & OVERDOSE ON IT. Mrs. Powers door knocker, below, matching the gate. Ship Men already gave me a charming door knocker from Malta but this is tempting.

MacKenzie-Childs is a kindred spirit. Mrs. Powers door bell.

I have Mrs. Powers Door Bell and am still deciding where to place it. Until then it's in my office where I can see it.

pics above via MacKenzie-Childs

EVERGREEN HEDGES & GARDEN ROOMS

Evergreen hedges are the bones of a landscape. No down time. Behind the hedge is a secret garden room.

FORMULA: TREES (ceiling), SHRUBS (walls), MEADOW (rug), FOCAL POINT (art)
*Big leaves next to small leaves.
*Green leaves next to yellow leaves.
*Oval shapes next to flat shapes.
*Tara Turf, meadow, mix of what's there and keep what blows in.
*Focal point, think, Is it so wonderful it will be fought over at my estate sale?

Landscapes are about contrasting everything for greater impact. Use as little as possible for the biggest impact. "Elegance is refusal" anon.
Behind the winged statue, above, is this charming garden room, below.

The same garden, below, contrasting purple foliage with green foliage.

Garden room, below, behind the hedge, above. Photo, below, framed with the purple foliage, above.

Sustainability isn't boring or new & needs little maintenance.

GARDEN INTUITIVE at an OLD ENGLISH COUNTRY CHURCH

An old English country church. Do you see the beautiful garden? I see a prophet without honor. The worker in the landscape. A garden intuitive. Are you a garden intuitive? Do you see the consistent amount of good garden work done at this church?

Vines kept off the church. Meadow kept off church & headstones. Trees kept away. No stray piles of debris from mourner's flowers, wheelbarrow neatly stowed. No garden tools carelessly left about. I know this is the work of one man. How? I've been a garden intuitive since childhood.

Often I've seen the passing of a garden prophet. Within weeks the loss is understood. The larger group suddenly realizing, 'Charles' really did maintain the landscape. It wasn't natural, it was 'Charles'. Maybe the group will hire a lawn service, or worse, do the work themselves as a committee.

Neither choice achieving what 'Charles' did with a seeming lack of effort. A lych-gate, below. Dead bodies were placed here for 2-3 days before burial. In case they began to breath.

Seeing the church, below, I can still smell the meadow & feel the excitement & anticipation of exploration. Reading headstones, discovering which plants are thriving, finding the gardener's work area. Intuitively feeling its history yet enjoying the power of intention actively present.

Maybe find a fabulous rock rescue. A breeze, birds and my own footfall for a soundtrac. The joy of solitude.

Garden & Be Well, XO T

SUBSIDIARY FOCAL POINTS

I spoke in Augusta, GA at the Sacred Heart Cultural Center a couple of years ago. Display gardens in a cathedral, speakers, food, booths. It's exciting to be in another city. Knowing I'll find something unique, a new person entering my life, new ideas & something to buy for my garden.

Choosing a private home vs. an offered hotel. Saving money isn't the noble reason, pure selfishness. Curiosity about the garden, interior, cooking, lifestyle of those choosing to share their time, home and garden with me.

Often, hosts have a dinner party and I meet their friends-family. Always, a tour of gardens. Lunch at a delightful spot, the gardens chosen with care & pride. Usually it's 2 cars of serious gardeners.

Sharing on these trips has shaped my life. Lives laid bare. Decorating, good food, a child's drug use, shoes, a spouse's drinking, hats, vacations, the sister with breast cancer, divorce, sex, a parent's alzheimer's, new books, the latest movie, great bras, antiques, pets, travel & more mingle with hydrangeas, manure, granite grit and water use.

Hydrangea 'Penny Mac' above. Birdhouse, behind, bought while at the Sacred Heart lecture. Reminding me of a special time with new friends, gardens, food and conversations.

Larry Smith, 706-894-1737, thebirds@hemc.net, made the birdhouse,
"ARCHITECTURAL BIRD HOMES! Scale models of authentic historical homes and buildings throughout America. Each home is one of a kind."

My birdhouse is a replica of the Jonathan Edwards Home, circa 1760.

FROST'S GARDEN CENTRE, ENGLAND LAST MONTH

Enjoy Frosts Garden Centre in Oxfordshire. We stopped for lunch and investigating on the way to Kew. Frosts sells everything to create a landscape. Everything.

Instant fantasies about this man? Like how dirty he is? Me too. See a gate in your color in your landscape? Clematis & sweetpeas on the willow wall? Hydrangeas, roses, foxgloves, Dianthus 'Bath Pink' in front?

Corner seat, below, was on sale. Confederate jasmine caressing its roof, cryptomeria 'Yoshino' gracing the right corner, a camellia barely touching the left. A Prunus mume tree blooming......... I can't stop designing.

What's a landscape without fabulous pots? Below, a book with prices and other pieces for special order. Pages laminated. Easy concept. Rarely done in my town. Why?

Lead colored containers, below, are better against a red brick wall than the terra cotta color.

Frosts, below, does it all. They subcontract with Shires, and other businesses, to complete theirs.

The cafe has a separate dining area for private groups to reserve.

It's frustrating to design a landscape for DIY and have no single place to refer you for pots, gates, soil amendments, mulch, plants, patio furnishings, focal points, pond supplies.

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Locally, Buck Jones, Land Art's and Wilkerson Mill Gardens give discounts to my design clients. You must have a copy of my plan. Each nursery run with passion, intellect, dedication.

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Great nurseries, above, but you'll still need garage sales and flea markets to personalize your landscape. Dumpster diving, TJMax and rock rescues are also in the best landscapes.
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Garden & Be Well XO Tara