COLOR: CEILING, WALLS, FLOOR

Glorious fall is coloring ceiling, walls & floor. Pink walls, & ochre carpet, below. The grey flagstone terrace with dwarf mondo growing in the cracks, below? Now, a carpet of ochre. Magic. I adore the change, no matter how fleeting.

Oooooooh, the sound of walking thru leaves enriches my soul.

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And of course, I didn't forget to color the ceiling, below.

Looking up thru the art on the wall, pink camellia blossoms, into a golden/green laced ceiling, above.

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Designing in your garden is no different than designing in your house. It's one thing to paint or coffer your ceiling inside. Outside it's a feeling of, "I own the sky!"

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OWN YOUR SKY!!!!!!!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CREATING A LIFE FORCE

TRACTOR CHICK's landscape is being installed. Double sided fireplace, bluestone terrace, gravel terraces, arbors, ponds, rill, outdoor kitchen, garden rooms, focal points, paths, allee's, orchard, compost pile, potting table with nursery area, tiny lawn to legally please the homeowners association. Hardscape is mostly installed. Plants aren't on site yet.

Yet it's already there. A new LIFE FORCE. Risking being, The-Fruit-Loop-Garden-Designer I called TRACTOR CHICK last night & said, "I feel the Life Force of your garden."

Guess what? She feels it too!!!!!!!!!

Normally, it takes longer for a garden to share its Life Force. Sadly, many landscapes never have a Life Force. If yours doesn't, once you ask, "Why?", you're on your way to having it.

PUPPET BARBUDA will not let anyone use the I-don't-have-the-money excuse. One bush, one tree, done correctly will create a Life Force. We've all been in check-book gardens, yuck.

What do landscapes with a Life Force feel like? Grace. An energy calming & inspiring; an energy making sense of anything life throws at you. Beauty, enriching & sublime filling the senses, feeding your inner muse.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from my patio this week.

FALLEN

He startled me, at my feet, walking quickly to the compost hands full. A face, looking up. My garden, already an enchantment, transitioning from metaphorical to literal? HA!!!

Hanging at the entry on my arbor at the patio, he fell. Long forgotten, perhaps a squirrel knocked him off?

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His open mouth? He's a birdhouse hand-made of cast stone with marble eyes & a rough sandy texture. Bought him lecturing in North Carolina almost 15 years ago. A perk of traveling to lecture far from home, UNIQUE LOOT.

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I adore it when my garden surprises me!!

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What charming surprises has your garden given you?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SHE LAUGHS

Fifty weeks each year, this planter is THE FOCAL POINT. Until, Mother Nature laughs, saying, "ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, I CAN DO BETTER."

Waltz with MOTHER NATURE. Let her lead. It's not a bad deal. YOU get the credit.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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In reality these pics are a Good-Garden-Accident. Client & I placed 4 of these planters around her pool recently. THEN the Japanese maple began to color. Good-Garden-Accident's tell you, "You've done the right thing dahling."

WICKEDLY WONDERFUL

At the front of her property as she drives in, below, a lovely new stone plinth. As she walks from the back of her property, below, to the front; the same lovely new stone plinth.

One focal point placed on DOUBLE AXIS. Discovered this landscape design trick at Mount Stewart while studying in Ireland.

Perfection, an urn so fabulous it can be planted, OR NOT. Discovered this landscape design trick while studying landscapes in Scotland.

Realized studying landscapes across Europe: The more directions a focal point has the better a focal point is.

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Wickedly wonderful. And EASY.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

NOTHING HAS MOVED

Today, below, the end of a long fall. This summer, below, a fairly decent year for Mophead Hydrangeas.

Table nor blue/white ginger jar has moved. Only the seasons have changed & where I've stood to take the pics.

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Big Impact, Little Input Gardening!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

A FREE HOUSE

Knowing he replaced windows Susanne Hudson deduced the old windows were going someplace, shall we say, unpleasant, in these 'sustainable' times? With Susanne's brilliance, instead of ending their life at a, literal, DUMP his windows are becoming GARDEN HOUSES, metaphorically, free.

#89 granite gravel creates crunchy delicious floors.

With rescued objects (aka free) and an exquisite eye for junking Susanne's GARDEN HOUSE is a statement in INTERIOR DESIGN too.

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Who knew junking & rescuing could be so GORGEOUS!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took pics in Susanne's GARDEN HOUSE.

ROUNDABOUTS HERE & THERE

Roundabouts, below, get you around a garden.

Roundabouts are a fabulous landscape design tool. Use where 2, or more, paths intersect.

This woman, above, was beyond ready to take her frontyard in hand. Corner lot, too big, unattractive, way too much mowing, little property value, and most importantly, it did not make her happy. (Ha, beware the woman not happy with something.)

Grass was reduced, paths with roundabout designed, groundcovers, evergreen shrubs, & understory trees to survive drought/flood & aging in place. Aging in place? Want to be 88 with weekly garden chores? Ha, didn't think so. It's designing for unskilled labor, tough plants, and timeless beauty on axis from window views.

From the house, above, a stone roundabout anchors the view. Evergreen hollies anchor the entry path, variegated sweetflag (groundcover) surround the roundabout.

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Designed in the grand tradition with a low maintenance theme. Not completed, above, and already showing promise. And her? She's HAPPY.

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Small roundabout, above. Notice something important about the pot, above? It doesn't HAVE to be planted.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics of completed roundabouts I took last January in the botanical garden in Birmingham, England. My client sent the pics of her roundabout.

DESIGNED FRONT GARDEN: BEFORE + AFTER

We began over 2 years ago. He had already begun remodeling their older home. With children & 2 careers in full blossom construction slowed, and the garden almost halted.

Overwhelmed, he hired me to design the landscape. Loving gardens he was doing the work himself. Until,

his wife, in very serious tones, let him know the projects did, INDEED, have a completion date.Do you know what love is? He hired a personal organizer. He also began subcontracting some of the landscape labor. Another gift of love for his wife; working in his garden is a joy to him, not labor. Alas, time.

Instead of an arbor for shade, crape myrtle's will soon cover the terrace. Flow & axis dictated the terrace have 2 entries.

A GARDEN PACK RAT he had a stash of Stone Mountain granite curbstones. They now step you down into a woodland garden, on axis from the stone terrace.

The garden is young and all areas are not this far along. Yes, I'll post more about this garden in the future.

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In a note, sent with these pictures, he wrote: A family that gardens together, grows together.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

NOT CRAFTY

A board, mirror, old tools. Each a rescue. What would you do? Susanne Hudson made this, above, mirror. Hung on an outside wall of her carriage house.
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I'm 'not crafty' in the least but a mirror I was given & old tools are in my garage (carriage house!)
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Continuing with the 'not crafty' fact, I see pine cones on the mirror frame too. Hmm, a glue gun needed. AND, in season I see fresh hydrangea blossoms tucked into the tools & pine cones around the mirror. And, in season camellias................roses...............tea olive................gardenia.................hosta/fern foliage................hellebores.............daffodils.
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Wouldn't that be interesting, collecting a year's pics of the garden mirror?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SURROUNDED BY GARDEN

Upstairs, below, is my office window. Surrounded by garden.

3 project (antique) tables, 5 bookcases, 5 chairs, pair French doors, mantel, chandelier, 9 lamps, for starters. Quite satisfying until I saw this, below.

If this were my office, above, this would be its backdoor, below, entry.

OK. I am teasing. But I won't always. Before pics are being taken. My backdoor & garden room will be unveiled late 2010. My atelier? Same timeline.

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Oh, the anticipation. Life is good.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Bottom pics found via this fabulous place. Top pic truly is my garden & upstairs office window. It faces a sideyard garden room with pond, potager, arbor, flagstone terrace, encircled by evergreen hedge, & scented by 6 mature tea olive. For a moment, do you think I see my cluster home subdivision abutting my tiny arcadia? Denial may be good but a garden is better.

LANDSCAPE APPROACH. GOT ONE?

Approaching each landscape design one of the first things I know, before getting out of my car, is the MAIN VIEW TO THE HOUSE.

Some homes are approached from both directions along the street. Many are approached from mainly ONE direction. Design to the main direction.

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Is the main direction of your house a side with air-conditioner? Garage with garbage cans stored outside? Ha, you've got serious landscape design issues.

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The main approach above? The top pic.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara