SPECIAL FURNITURE

Unless I told you, you wouldn't know. This chair?

It's outdoor furniture. Fabric? Outdoor frabric. Cushions? Rain drains in 20 minutes.

Outdoor coffee table, above.

As Anne of Green Gables would say, "...scope for the imagination.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took the pics last week at a To The Trade Only showroom.

HOW TO GIVE & KEEP

On axis with your favorite view, from inside your home, plant a fabulous tree. Beauty for yourself, lifestyle for birds, food for butterflies, increased property value, lower heating/cooling costs. Trees are gifts to future generations.
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Sandra Jonas, Recreating Eden Landscape Design, planted Japanese Flowering Apricot (Prunus mume), above, it blooms in winter lasting a month. Growing to zone 6 this tree ranges wide.
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Plant flowers for a lifetime with Japanese Flowering Apricot.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic by Sandra Jonas & posted in Gadabout Media with a lovely article. Private note: Sandra dahling, please get your blog going.

COLOR + FORM = DRAMA

Horizontal form & burgundy foliage Japanese maple at right, below. Light green foliage, weeping willow at left, above.
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Contrast colors & contrast forms for fabulous tree combinations.
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Imagine a purple leaf plum with a burgundy Japanese maple. Yawn.
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Go for the DRAMA!!! Use contrast.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took the pic in Mr. Jim's (Jim Gibbs) garden.

MAKING CHOICES

Design is the oldest profession. If everything began in a garden someone had to plan it. Did you know 'garden' is derived from 'paradise'?


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Several times a year I refer to THE HOUSE OF BOUGHS, by E. Wilkinson & M. Henderson, to make a choice.

This week I had to make a choice about fencing for a home approaching its century mark.

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There are 2 books I like to gift. This is one.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic taken from House Of Boughs, bottom pic, from Amazon.

PRICING

Once, this house had the grandest view of Stone Mountain. Owning most of the land in the view too. Recently sold, its estate sale is on now. Multi-colored marble, below.

Iron security gating INSIDE the mansion, below.

Grand rooms, multiple bars, this house was built for entertaining. Now, carpets pulled up, tables

loaded with trinkets, the good stuff was leaving in several trucks as I arrived.

In the garden, above, a mailbox post completely grown thru a tree.

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Hunting old garden tools finding few. Bought 2 old swing blades. $3 each, a common price for the average old tool. Was hoping to get a better deal. Will be creating tool bouquets for my interior & exterior.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken Thursday.

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A clam rake I found in Hogansville, GA last summer set me back $12. But it's hardly average!

CHALLENGE & SOLUTION

When the carriage house, below, was completed Susanne Hudson's builder said, "Don't plant, I've packed solid Georgia red clay so you won't flood."
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What did Susanne do?
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She planted a garden around her carriage house in POTS.
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Last fall's flood, killing several in Douglasville, GA? Roads & bridges are still closed in places. Susanne's carriage house did not flood.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in Susanne Hudson's garden of her carriage house. Susanne prefers green, brown & white in her garden. Above, you see mophead hydrangeas allowed into her tight color scheme. Three years ago Susanne began the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. A weekend of lectures, vendors & garden tours. Go if you can, it's fabulous.

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Your Frontdoor

Two questions your front door answers. Whether you think so or not.

Do I want to see inside their house?

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Do I want to see their garden?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic from Homes & Gardens via Brabourne Farm

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Lighting

When it moves outside it's a trend. Fabulous lanterns. First Rules of Landscape Design: copy, simplicity, repetition.
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SENSUOUS, above. Crunch of gravel, trilling water, warmth of candle light, hearing refreshments poured from a pretty pitcher, feel of foliage upon your arm, repetition of color house-furniture-shutters-arbor-fountain-gravel, scale, flow, texture, vanishing threshold.
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Beauty w/Low Maintenance in the garden is sensuous & feng shui.
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Design, above, for yourself. Grace IS a destination.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, Michael Partino via Brabourne Farms

DIVA BRAIN vs. LIZARD BRAIN

POVERTY IS A GREAT PRESERVER. Unaffordable harvest tables led my conniving lizard brain to a table I already own. Hideous: oak, mahogany stain, carved clawfoot pedestal, terrible measurements.
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DIVA BRAIN took over from LIZARD BRAIN.
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Dahlings, I hired a man with a power tool, muscle & skill.
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Now, harvest table is an exact 30" wide.
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Soon, faded green stain, same as the teak in my garden, will fabulously display the triumph of DIVA over LIZARD..
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That hired man? He hung a pair of antique gilt/chrystal chandeliers over my harvest table. They've changed my life.
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Only 2 weeks & the chandeliers are a morning ritual. Arising before the sun, walking into the kitchen, along with cat entourage, I fire up those beautiful girls.
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To be continued....
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via City Sage via Isa's Little World
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To be continued? House in chaos. Painters into week 4. Clawfoot tub, now in my bathroom, still filled with vinegar/water soaking away stains from its former use in the garden. My kitchen is no longer the kitchen. Cut off a counter, moved ceiling lites, added chandeliers + 24" ceiling fan, harvest table added. Though painting debris litters the room it is potent enough, unfinished, to be called THE GARDEN ROOM.

STUDIED INSOUCIANCE

Charming insouciance. But not enough. If this were MY wood the gate stays, posts are replaced with split locust & the hideous new wire replaced with rescued old wire.
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Dahlings. Really. Indeed. Informal wildwood landscape design is as serious as a designed formal potagere.
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From Mirram-Webster, INSOUCIANCE: lighthearted unconcern.
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You think an INSOUCIANT woodland walk in my garden is serendipitous?
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Garden design is pairings: ying/yang, formal/informal, & etc..............
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from House & Garden magazine via Brabourne Farm.

ILLUSION OF REPOSE

Chairs & benches are favorite focal points. Why?

They give the illusion of repose.

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Weeks & months may pass without time to sit in my garden. Doesn't matter.

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Potency lies in the illusion, throughout my days, seeing from the windows, views prettier than any Hallmark greeting card.

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Seriously. How can Hallmark compete with a deep red cardinal landing on the top of a chair & singing to his mate? A squirrel bringing lunch to the arm of a bench in the potagere?

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Comfort must not be illusion. Sit test each chair/bench.

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I don't care if it's rescued or only $19.95. If it's not comfortable & fabulous, don't take it home. Remember my estate sale question, "Will this be fought over at my estate sale?"

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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I took the pic in Susanne Hudson's garden.

CALLANWOLDE & FREDERICK LAW OLMSTEAD

Circa 1920, a dowager survives demolition, 1971, in a neighborhood Olmstead designed. Ceiling of trees outside, ceilings inside, below. Proof, again, of what survives landscape design: TREES & MEADOW. Please, dahlings, you must begin your garden with TREES & MEADOW.

I lectured at Callanwolde, (Dekalb Federation of Garden Clubs was host), this week. All original, below.

I realized I was taking Callanwolde for granted. I've lectured & attended many events here thru the decades.

The courtyard was enclosed, above. A little fetish of mine, enjoying the styling of refreshments garden clubs provide. Charm straight from the heart.

Front terrace, above.
Hand-painted silk panels in the dining room, above.

Hand carved front door, above.

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Garden clubs weave a tapestry of nurturing around their communities. Most members don't realize the potency of their actions.

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Many Garden Club meetings I've sat thru, waiting to speak. Learning who has died, been sick, had a baby, moved out/in, crime issues, new fundraising plans to benefit xyz, holiday plans & more.

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Garden Clubs are the last bastion of civility in our neighborhoods.

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If I were to get a Phd in horticulture, Garden Clubs & Society, would be my topic. That's my soap box & I'm staying on it!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took the pics this week at Callanwolde.