INSIDE TO OUTSIDE LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Style inside is directly related to style outside. What? Often I copy arrangements atop mantels, chests & tables. What? Easy!! Above & below, painting is evergreen hedge or side of your house, lamp is an understory tree, clock is a 4'-5' evergreen shrub, books/box are hellebores, and the porcelains are cinnamon fern,

the platter is dwarf sarcoccoca and the nosegay is a stunning pieris cultivar.
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Took these pics at a client's this week while installing a new phase. I love it when clients have a strong sense of style. A challenge to be on top of my game.

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What do you see in your interiors, to use outside?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

FRONT PORCH

Wreaths on doors are difficult. Scale, color, quality. Oh no, The 'Cute' Factor. CUTE KILLS. Ha, another Tara rule. Wit, whimsy, humor. YES. Last week BOOK GIRL's door had it right.

Looking to the right of the door, above. Reality garden photography, I styled nothing.

Looking to the left of the front door, above, more reality garden photography. Nothing styled for the pics. BOOK GIRL does her own decorating.

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Landscapes should be designed and decorated for the impromptu photo shoot.

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Think of your landscape as it is, this moment, can I meander and take several shots to steal your heart?

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When you look out the windows of your home, at your garden (Vanishing Threshold), does it steal your heart?

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When your garden melts your heart you've got an endless stream of energy, joy, beauty, wit, serenity, peace to draw from for daily living.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

RANCHBURGER: Before & After

Contouring of the land, below. What to do, what to do?

The most important thing you can do to a Ranchburger? Let It Out Of Jail.

Remove the rails, and those ratty (Rattus rattus) evergreen meatball shrubs, which are naked at the bottom and chopped at the top, the builder planted decades ago. Shall I wax poetic about builders landscape design? Hmm, PUPPET BARBUDA is too busy today.

Aaaaaaah, the brick was liberated too. This ranch is going country French.

Furnishings & Pots aren't 'done' yet. But the Ranchburger is done. Done gone!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Thank you for sharing your Ranchburger before/after pics Krystol. Love the dogs & your intuitive landscape design. Fabulous.

MONTY DON: Around the World in 80 Gardens

Monty Don wrote, The Prickotty Bush, years ago. Each January I reread it.

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Garden writing as literature by someone passionate about doing his own gardening. He's done a little TV too. Enjoy.

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Teza's Garden, has more YouTube of Monty Don, and you'll like the blog.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Amazon has 3 copies of The Prickotty Bush, today, all used, at 50, 72, 92 POUNDS. Not dollars dahlings.

FEEDING THE MUSE

Designing landscapes is science & art. With a degree in engineering & horticulture the science is easy. The art? I've learned it's something to be nurtured & honored.

Speed walking 5miles, 3-5x's/week, at Stone Mountain, GA, feeds my muse. Doing my best thinking while sweating.

Being in nature to feed the left brain/right brain thing.

A potager? Perennial border? Choosing paint colors for a house & patio furnishings? Nature, consistently enriching my creative muse.

Understanding forms, patterns, silhouettes, plant drifts? Color? Nature has it all, and more.

How a body relates in scale to its surroundings?

Creating enfilades thru paths, rectangular stone terraces edged with brick, over a fountain, between pairs of boxwood, caressed by flowering shrub borders sprinkled with a few tough perennials, and finally landing the eye/foot on a bench. Nature? Hardly.

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But it's nature feeding the creative muse, a tool box for designing landscapes.

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What else feeds my creative muse? Music, pets, books, friends, movies...

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What feeds your creative muse?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken at Stone Mountain Park, 2.96 miles from my garden.

DESIGNED TO LOOK UNDESIGNED

Bits of this landscape look UNDESIGNED, yet nothing was left to chance.
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A potent landscape design tool:
CONTRAST FORMAL VS. INFORMAL.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thanks Krystol for your pic.

A LITTLE COLOR

A few days ago in Oregon, below. What I like most, above? Remove flowers & pumpkins, and the design holds together.
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Your pots must be so wonderful they can be empty.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Love your porch pic Trina, thanks !

ROOFSCAPE

In your garden, looking back at your home, how does your roof look? Please tell me you don't have white pvc pipes sticking up from your roof.
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My real ROOF FETISH is about finials. But, that's another post.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for this pic.

KISS: Keep It Simple Sweetie

How little can you do in your landscape and have it evoke in picaresque who you are? Splendiferous you.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for this pic

PATH & PATIO

PATH GIRL, born 1935, hired me early summer. She was stuck in her backyard. One glance, I knew. First, stain patio furnishings a shade from inside.

More important, paths. PATH GIRL created a beautiful garden but the paths weren't 'done'. A roundabout, below, radiates paths.

Gravel to the rescue. PATH GIRL shoveled her own. Edging garden beds with stone found on-site & fallen tree limbs. Not quite finished yet. Yes, dearies, part of the design, use what's at hand.

An alcove of path with an antique marble bench &, while sitting on the bench, a pineapple, symbol of welcome, at your feet.

And the pre-built potting shed, Magnolia Hall, is steeped in gravel too.

Up to its side, adding a new sitting area.

Many weeks of shoveling then an invitation to lunch.

Crabcakes & conversation. Hours of connection.

In the dining room a 2nd, smaller, table for games, reading or dining with a view.

Vanishing Threshold views, above & below.

NOTES & RESOURCES:

* Edge gravel path, with stone or brick, closer to the house.

* Edge gravel path with fallen tree limbs farther away from the house.

* Transitioning edging materials creates another layer of interest.

* Paint Colors for deck furniture: Behr Ultra Exterior Satin [primer & paint all in one] at Home Depot. Antique Red UL 170, Native Soil 179-22 [taupe].

* Powder Coating of wrought iron table/chairs: http://www.millerpowdercoating.com/. 4251 Wayside Ct. #B, Lilburn, GA, 770-931-1505.

* Rug for deck, not shown, http://www.rugsusa.com/

* Shot pea gravel: Atlanta Landscape Materials, 5996 Buford Hwy., Doraville, GA 770-936-8462

* Lantern, not shown, http://www.nadeauimports.com/, Buckhead Store.

* PATH GIRL had the shot pea gravel delivered to her driveway. It took her several weeks to shovel from the pile to a wheelbarrow then dump into place. A neighbor, seeing her shovel, offered help. With a smile of appreciation she happily declined. Enjoying her gardening too much to let others in on her fun. Remember PATH GIRL, born 1935, is DIY.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CECIL BEATON & CELIA THAXTER

Dear Cecil photographed his conservatory, below. At first glance I thought it was an 'illumination' by Childe Hassam.
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Then I locked eyes on the Blue/White mixed with terra cotta & wicker. A trinity that will never go out of style. A trinity I've used consistently, Ha, thinking it was original.
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Childe Hassam has pictures and illuminations throughout, An Island Garden, by Celia Thaxter.
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"He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul." Celia Thaxter.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Architectural Digest Celebrity Home, 1977, via, Mrs. Blandings.

TRIPLE AXIS FROM THIS BENCH

A landscape where you might see a, "disheveled wood nymph after a night carousing with satyrs." as N. Singer wrote. Oops, digressing. Sitting in the bench, above, you'll see the house, below, a double axis.

Sitting in the bench, and looking right,you'll see this axis, above.

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The more axis a focal point has the better a focal point is.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Krystol, thanks for your pics.