MORE THAN ANDY WARHOL

Landscape classicism, below. Landscape designed to obscure era, continent, neighbors, reality.

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Looking at my house, above,
looking out my windows, above. I choose to live amongst eras, continents & the moat of grace my garden gives my interiors, and life.
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About New York City restaurants in the 60's Andy Warhol said, "They caught on that what people really care about is changing their atmosphere for a couple of hours."
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Lame, indeed.
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Design choices for interior & landscape create a Vanishing Threshold of changing atmosphere for each moment of life.
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Why settle for a couple of hours?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Cell phone pic from my car taken 5pm yesterday. I live in a small cluster home subdivision in a city of millions. Houses are freestanding on tiny lots. Tiny. Ha, myriad homes engulf mine but I've opted out of that reality. And I did it with a tight budget of time & money.

WOMEN'S KNOCKERS

A century ago, in Turkey, these hands were the women's knockers of a household. Attached to a door possessing a much larger knocker. You know, the man's knocker.
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Knocker sounds let a household know who should answer the door.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in Birmingham, AL this week. Stay tuned, more from this delicious location, above, soon.

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.