HUMBLED

Until I walked my garden for snow pics, below, who knew the witchazel was blooming?

Daphne buds, below, fat. Snow/ice, no problem, they always open in fragrant perfection.

Providence laughs in gardens.

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Designing fabulous landscapes is all about letting Providence laugh.

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HOW? Use plants for your area & plan for something new to begin bloom every 2 weeks. It's the backdoor to birds, butterflies & more. Without effort.

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You'll discover your garden is a hobbit hole of grace & atonement.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Isn't atonement a great word? At one with. In my garden, sometimes, I'm in atonement with nature, time, loved ones & friends & pets who are gone, problems I can't solve, joy, beauty, new ideas, a good book, acceptance, not forcing solutions, placing hope in God's hands, the richness of solitude, forgiveness, meandering thoughts, discarding old ideas no longer serving my life, & mostly, the grace I seek.

IRON: Ugly to Fabulous

Lost my head in envy seeing ugly Ranch Burger iron welded (why didn't I think of this?) into fabulous gates, below.

AND they are flanked with a pair of heterosexual

statues.

Gates, statues? Where do they lead?

DAHhhhhhhhhhhLINGS, last week

I entered the gates to the promised land, above. In Birmingham, AL.

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Each piece sourced from around the globe........more later. Ta ta, tootles. Must draw a landscape design this morning.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in Birmingham, AL.

DOUBLE AXIS

Looking east, below. Looking west, below.

Double axis with an Italian cypress.

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My wicked invention after an epiphany in mentor/friend Margaret Moseley's garden.

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A focal point fabulous in one direction must be fabulous in the opposite direction.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Don't despair dahlings, it takes years to get to double axis. Start with your single axis & the double will come. Example: Place bench on view from your bedroom window. Sitting on the bench you see the air-conditioner? NOT ALLOWED. Ha, put your intellect to it and create a fabulous view from the bench.

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Pics taken last Friday.

CONE IN EACH ROOM

Each garden room should have a cone shaped evergreen. Bringing eyes to the sky.
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Honestly, dahlings, I don't make this stuff up.
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More honestly. It was the hardest rule to get right. Done correctly cone shaped evergreens appear serendipitous. Lagniappes.
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Ha.................! Anything but.
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Cone shapes, mostly, are inherent in what you've already designed. If not, they're balanced symmetrically/asymmetrically with house or trees or garden room or, or, or.
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They will feel right.
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Study pics of landscapes using cone shaped evergreens correctly. Study-study-study. It took me years to get this right.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in my garden last Thursday. The cone? 2 Italian cypress planted with rootballs touching, beginning in 1 gallon pots. (Proof I'm patient, ha.) Songbirds love nesting in these cypress.
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Studying cone use in Italy it's obvious their style won't work in USA. Why? Don't know. Whenever I see a USA landscape copying an Italian landscape with lots of cones they look stupid. Hmm? Anyone know why?

NAMING ROOMS

My desk, below, last week in Birmingham, AL. GARDEN COURT & I sat here discussing the list of action items

for each room of her landscape.

The original names were

gruesome & won't be repeated here.

Lest GARDEN COURT accidentally use them again.

Without the names I couldn't structure lists of action items for each part of the garden.

With the old names

GARDEN COURT couldn't move forward with her garden.

Now, in conversation with MR. GARDEN COURT, family, friends, Ralph (her gardener), & me there is no confusion about which garden room is being discussed.

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Tara, the woodland walk is being installed.

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Ralph, prune the hollies in the Summer House Garden.

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Tara, I need more help with the Lavender Gate Garden.

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Darling, we're eating on the Fountain Terrace tonight.

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You are invited to lunch in the Conservatory.

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Yes, name your garden rooms!!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Ironically, GARDEN COURT's garden reminded me I have 2 new garden rooms to name. Two new gravel terraces were installed late-late last year. Hmm. Fun. Pics taken last week with GARDEN COURT.

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!