GUERRILLA GARDENING

My secret vice? Tossing seeds out the car window. Done it for years. Guerrilla Gardening is its name. Who knew?
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Seeds of choice: hollyhock, cleome, rudbeckia. All from my garden.
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Are you Guerrilla Gardening too?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from the Guerrilla Gardening site.

PRETTY vs. GOOD: Perennial Garden

Perennial gardens are like people, they may be pretty, but, are they good? Winter is the test of every beautiful perennial garden. Is it pretty in winter?
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Above, a good perennial garden: canopy & understory trees, backdrop hedge (fence-wall-house are fine too), boxwood. Each element forming structure/bones for the winter landscape.
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Dwarf conifers are great in the perennial border. They peak in winter. Of course, in my Southern zone 8, rosemary is evergreen and blooms all winter. La-ti-da. Sweet.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Golden Age Gardens

MONTY DON'S WHEELBARROW

Monty Don's manly wheelbarrow doesn't work for me. Why? Why waste gardening energy with a full wheelbarrow on one wheel?
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If you're serious about low maintenance gardening choose a 2-wheeled wheelbarrow.
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A 2-wheeled wheelbarrow works for you, balancing weight vs. you balancing weight with hands-arms-chest muscles.
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WHO IS MONTY DON? Ha, he's the best. Discovered him thru his book, The Prickotty Bush. I read it each January. If you like gardening in the least, get this book.
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I'm quite serious about the wheelbarrow. Remember, 2 wheels. Of course if the 1-wheeler came with Monty Don, hmmmmmmmmm !!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via 1st link which includes tidbits from his recent book, delicious.

SEVERAL LANDSCAPE DESIGN TRICKS

Do you think this is an accident? Just Let It Touch. My landscape design trick with focal points. Foliage barely gracing the edges of a focal point.
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Think the azaleas 'accidentally' bloomed on the chair? Hardly. I designed it to happen.
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Pruning to the event.
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Siting the Well-Placed-Chair. It's on axis in the woodland walk from the back gate, and the front gate. It's on axis from inside, Vanishing Threshold: downstairs breakfast room & living room, upstairs library.
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More than a home run, the chair has 5 axis views.
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And you thought it was just a chair in the garden?
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Landscape design skills used:
...........Tara Inventions............

1. Just Let It Touch
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2. Vanishing Threshold
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3. Well-Placed-Chair
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4. The-More-Axis-Focal Points-Have-The-Better-They-Are.
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Traipsing continents for decades seeking what makes a landscape work. Seeing universal patterns across space/time. Copying them. Naming them.
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In college my landscape design classes had none of this stuff. Why not? Perhaps it's what the Founding Fathers discovered. When truths are Self-Evident they need to be written.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

OVERDOSE YOUR THEME

Choose a theme for your landscape and overdose on it. French? Cottage? Conifer? Perennials? Italian? Native? Color? Historical? Japanese? Victorian? Chinoiserie? Focal Point Axis? Paths + Entries? Mid-Century Modern? Lutyens? Jekyll? Vanishing Threshold? Mediterranean? Desert? ??????????
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My frontdoor, above. Victorian doorknocker a gift from SHIPMEN while they worked in Malta.
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Yellow? It works well with my red brick which has too much disgusting orange. Painted over previous incarnation, Williamsburg blue. Playing with a chinoiserie pattern. Thought I would paint over the chinoiserie pattern the day it was done. Instead, years later it remains.
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Does your frontdoor tell me who you are?
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A frontdoor does not have to be painted your shutter color.
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What color should your frontdoor be?
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Choose from your artwork, wall paper, fabrics. Make sure the color works with the exterior colors of your house.
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"Our lives are about getting the outside to match the inside." Jung
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My theme? Very English!!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

DEEP IN THE SASANQUA

Deep in the sasanqua the ginger lilies bloom.
Standing in the garden this morning, below, their reflection deep in the mirror of my old armoir.

The glass of my grandmother's secretary, below, reflecting more ginger lilies.

Looking into my home, from the garden, it's important I see, and feel, warmth, joy, appreciation.

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Demand a lot (beauty, nurturing, serenity, wit, charm, fragrance, birds, butterflies, carefree, organic, epiphanies, sweetness, sounds, spirit) from your garden. You'll get it.

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Making the bed this morning I saw deep in the sasanqua the ginger lilies bloom.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CHOOSING TO PAINT & STAIN

It's not an easy choice. Staining wood & painting iron in your landscape. No going backward once your 6' teak bench is stained.

Hard work going forward painting your inherited rusted iron chairs.

I waited years to pull the trigger.

It never looked 'bad'.

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Once the deed was done, WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG?

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A French conceit, consistently applying color in the landscape. Studying in France I saw that it worked.

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If it works in a fabulous landscape it will work in yours.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

VERTICAL STONES DEFINE ENTRY

This had been lawn, below, until I realized I deserved a garden when pulling into my tiny drive. The more entryways a landscape has the better a landscape is.

Low maintenance was a given, drought tolerant too, and NO MORE LAWN !

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Enter my garden here, along a flagstone path flanked with a pair of huge quartz stones, placed vertically for added heft & drama. Dwarf Indian hawthorn & roses caress the path. Contrasting foliage sizes & colors are easy drama. Why don't more people do it?

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The Chinese snowball tree and weeping red cut-leaf Japanese maple block views of neighbor's homes. And add repetition from other parts of my landscape. Ooh-la-la I love to show off with Chinese snowballs.
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A dear friend carried those stones home from camping trips in north Georgia. Turning 40 he sold every possession and moved north to be with family. A disconcerting estate sale but I came home with books & stones. He wouldn't let me pay for the stones. Two months later, my dear friend moved back to Georgia. Enough family, I suppose. Over a decade later Georgia is where he remains.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

MAINTAINING GRAVEL

Wanting gravel. Needing gravel. Got gravel!! Why? Oooooh, that crunch. #89 granite gravel, above, in Susanne Hudson's landscape.

Shot gravel, above, in my garden.

In my potager, above.

This path, above, was bermuda lawn. With wheelbarrows, me & beloved Suzy, my chocolate lab, it became compacted. What to do?

Gravel.

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How it was done? Removed bermuda lawn with sod cutter. Loaded 1 ton of shot gravel in my pick-up truck. Shoveled gravel to wheelbarrow then to path. 1 hour to shovel. Total girl power.

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Used no liner, gravel dumped straight on soil. Dust, debris accumulates within 1 year on top of any liner allowing weed seeds to germinate. Why line?

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MAINTENANCE NEEDS: I blow gravel paths 1/month for 4 months each year; 2/month for 6 months each year; 4/month for 2 months each year. Every 8-9 months I sweep gravel, with a broom, up hill. Accumulated weeding time/year? 1.5 hours.

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Per square foot gravel is less maintenance than lawn.

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Gravel compacts after 1 year & needs replenishing.

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Per square foot gravel is cheaper than lawn.

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Gravel needs replenishing after 4-5 years too.

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I discovered the delights of gravel while touring the old landscapes of Europe. Late this fall a new gravel terrace is being added to my frontyard and a new gravel terrace beside the Texas Terrace for a tiny dining area.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Stone Forest has good close-up pics of different gravels, and stone too.

WHICH PICTURE WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

"...REFLECTIVE OF A RICH, WANDERING INTELLIGENCE LIGHTLY WORN."
AN AESTHETES LAMENT
The insouciance of my empty pot & French lavender.
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Which picture from your life illustrates "...reflective of a rich, wandering intelligence lightly worn."?
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LOL, of course I desire a rich intelligence wandering amongst myriad topics and most importantly to wear it lightly !! No energy to wear it any other way. Selfishly want to see pictures you choose. Why? To absorb your rich, wandering intelligence.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CHALLENGE: TREES + ROOTS + SHADE

Old house, old trees, old solution!!! Le Jardin Blanc in Douglasville, GA spread #89 granite gravel under its old trees. Oh the romance of hearing gravel underfoot. Tables + chairs? Yes, ordered from France. Notice where the gravel laps into the tree? Left natural, by choice.

It's a fairy tale, but true, garden at Le Jardin Blanc.

White house, white garden, white furniture, white tea pots, white red -velvet cake.

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LOL, at the style of Le Jardin Blanc. Why? Most people crumble at the challenge of huge trees, dense shade, roots rising from the ground. Le Jardin Blanc decided to open a business in this 1868 plantation home. Their budget? Nill.

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They tamed the landscape sustainably, organically & with low-maintenance.

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Nothing new about the fabulous landscape created at Le Jardin Blanc. The ladies copied what worked from the past.

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PUPPET BARBUDA knows landscapes of gravel are cheap, affordable, well-priced, soft-on-the-wallet, effective, gorgeous, low maintenance. Women clients into their 60's have shoveled their own gravel once delivered. Gravel landscaping has been used more than 10 centuries. Ha, PUPPET BARBUDA wouldn't sell you an irrigation system with lawn under those trees................

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It seems PUPPET BARBUDA wants to bark about landscapes that can be created by you vs. landscapes that can be sold to you.

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Yes, pics of the tea party are mine, at Le Jardin Blanc. I was there lecturing about Vanishing Threshold to a large garden club group. An incredible afternoon.

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Felt like we were in the park in the movie, Gigi.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

LAMPSHADES + LANDSCAPES

You've got to adore a woman who eyes a lamp, a regular everyday lamp, and thinks, I'll put that in my garden. Lamps happen to be another fetish of mine. Susanne Hudson's too, above.
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Under a tree and near a pond this lamp is on 24/7 and has been for years.
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The little glass jar? Fish food.
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Notice the clay saucer atop the silk lampshade? A practical detail.
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The fence? Susanne scoured books for which style to choose for her, over 100 year-old, home.
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Another BIG THING in this tiny little nothing of a garden pic?
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SUSANNE'S COLORS: green, brown, white.
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Throughout the landscape Susanne only uses green, brown & white.
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Tiny garden picture with lots to teach.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara