Choosing Exterior Color

Your front door does not have to be black. Nor does it need to be the color of your shutters. Choose a color threading thru your interior art/wallpaper/couch. I cannot design a landscape without seeing interiors.
Look at color choices in sun & shade, morning, evening, rainy days.
Beware of colors that are too alive. They steal attention. White is the worst offender. No worries, there are plenty of calm whites.
A color looking (for example) grey/green in shade, and at the same time looking green/blue in sun is fabulous.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Colour Me Happy is a dedicated COLOR EXPERT. I love everything written & photographed at Colour Me Happy. I like using Benjamin Moore Historic Colors. There is a reason they are historic !

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Pics taken at a client's last week.

Edwardian Simplicity

Pecan Orchard needs a gate. A simple gate.Visiting an English country house & garden I fell in love with this gate.

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Simple, but not.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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This gate starts a conversation, Pecan Orchard needs a taller/wider gate. The garden, above, typically English, a wildwood beyond a gate luring you away from the formal garden. Wondering, finally, if you'll find Sirens, Nyads, Dryads, Satyres.... The last 2 sentences summing up the best of Landscape Design !

Whence Creativity?

This truck does it for me!! LOVE. Squared front, curving wrapped glass, black/chrome, darts of orange/yellow lighting above the cab. You can feel the power behind the grill. (Instant lust, wanting to take advantage of that power.)Most importantly the cab is asymmetrical for the
SMOKESTACK. This Tonka toy stirs my creativity. It had me hearing Nina Simone, "....POWER...."

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'Seeing' this truck was a 'conversation' with its designers.

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In a Mad-Max-bitchin' way, I love this truck being 1 of many tools in my quiver. Getting rid of things; bringing in the new. Creating art, with art. More than changing a home & garden, changing lives.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken at a jobsite last week. Feeding my Creative Muse is more than part of my job, it's part of my life.

Chandeliers In The Kitchen

Diminutive, my pair of chandeliers hang, as inspired by a blog years ago, over a harvest table. Many mornings I'm here, in my wicker chair,
reading & looking out 3 walls of windows, starting my day.A view out 1 of those walls, from my wicker chair this morning.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Did you notice my ceiling is not white? It's a faded blue/green, depending upon the lighting. Below the chair rail is a terra cotta type color. Both colors are within the wall paper. Susanne Hudson was hired to choose the colors. 25 years in this house & I still love the wallpaper.

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Pics taken this morning.

A Wall & A Painting

Pecan Orchard's back stairwell.
Yes, she liked the painting but I don't think she realized it sums HER up.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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In your home, what wall/artwork sums you up? When I lecture I always bring a large fabric for the stage, antique wicker roller basket, the books I've written, an easel; creating a still life. Subtle metaphors for who I am. Creating ME in whatever venue I lecture, taking ownership of my little spot. It's not about me, it's asking, "How would YOU own this little bit of stage?"

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That is what creating a landscape is, it's summing up who YOU are. Your choices of what to put in, what to leave out. Landscapes speak volumes.

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Pic taken yesterday at Hedgerow Farm.

Music Is A Drug: Take It

Gardens love music. My garden especially loved Bryan Ferry singing Cole Porter yesterday.
Music is a SECRET WEAPON in creating a fabulous garden (life).
For just as long as I've talked to my garden I've played it music.

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No, I'm not kidding.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Another chance, play this MUSIC for your garden. I had it playing on my iPad yesterday, walking my house & letting the music stream thru windows into my garden. It fell lovingly. You know what my garden did, it nurtured me back.

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Found the bottom pic online eons ago and have no credits to pass along.

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Top pic is my Music Room. It has a baby grand, turn table, & dulcimers. Must get a pic of that angle soon. Walls & ceiling are BM- HC Rockport Grey.

MOASTING: Moaning & Boasting

Lecturing at the international America's Mart, the world's largest collection of product show, last Friday my contractor saw this first, below.
My name & lecture on the elevator doors. Yes, BOASTING.
Already experienced with TV, radio, & etc. a thrill (out of all proportion) seeing my elevator door debut !!
However, you see IMMEDIATELY their mistake, below.
Who are those guys? Where's my picture? MOANING.

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MOASTING: MOANING & BOASTING. A delicious word I discovered last Thursday. Duck to water. Been doing it for years.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Had a little time to wander the vendors. Gathered new resources for statuary, online fountains , torches, brass rain gauges, & met a fascinating French woman with a European Design & Trading Company, a man who does landscape design/owns a nursery in Montana (think he had a business card on him?) .......

Steps

The change in elevation was deceptively 'not there' without my new Conservatory.

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Alas, My Dear Ladies both use canes. You know they will be in my Conservatory sharing wine/canapes before dinner.

Stone steps are dry stack, above. And, ta da, rescued from jobsites.
Serendipitously, I put in a side door to my conservatory. That door has a meandering woodland path, no steps. SAFE, for My Dear Ladies.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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No pics yet of the meandering woodland path leading to the side door. My guys put the steps in, wish I could say I did !!

Enfilades Increase Drama

Enfilade, a view thru to a view. In gardens or homes, I adore an Enfilade.
Standing outside the conservatory this week (in gown/robe/bedroom slippers) in the snow
I discovered a new Enfilade.
Oh yes, sublime.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Good accidents, without waiting 3-7 years for discovery, in the garden are verification you've done it RIGHT. Mostly, gardens take time.

Nassim Taleb: 3 Views

From, The Bed of Procrustes, a new book by Nassim Taleb."Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but it makes the fool vastly more dangerous."
"You are only secure if you can lose your fortune without the additional insult of having to become humble."
"You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept."

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Wesley Yang wrote about Taleb, "He made what he has called his "fuck you" money when his bets against the market made him millions on Black Monday in 1987." "...the content of his next book, Anti-Fragility, ...will be about how we can create systems that mimic the resiliency of nature."

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Taleb also wrote, The Black Swan, and, Fooled by Randomness. Both bestsellers. Both about Wall Street.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken this week, of my month old Conservatory, from my bedroom window. Poppets, you should see my VINTAGE 25 year old linoleum kitchen floor, with battle scars.

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Conservatories are for the soul, kitchen floors a necessity. Younger, I would have done the 'right' thing, the floor. This age is exquisite, bringing me the Conservatory.

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No doubt, fate will bring a new kitchen floor, including, of course, new countertops, backsplash, sink, faucet, stove, refrigerator. Last year in the kitchen was: ceiling reconfiguring, painting, 4 new chandeliers & cabinets. In the interim, I don't look down.

Contrasts

Wildwood, mother nature's contrast of shapes, with a transition zone of pruned hedges, and another transition zone of tightly clipped lawn leading to a hardscaped yet watery focal point.

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Add the man made contrasts of circles, ovals, rectangles, squares & spires.

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Toss in multiple axis, changes of elevation, and canopy-understory-walls-floor.

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Even a non-gardener knows, intuitively, the plant selections are CHOICE. Serenity of greens, low maintenance, no irrigation & perfect pollinator habitat.

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Yes, this pic by Slim Aaron ca. 1960, is an exciting garden. Gardens are all CONTRASTS.

I doubt they thought about the garden at all. Their clothes, the gossip, & dry martinis, yes.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Something To Make You Smile

Last year when I designed her landscape her kitchen was sheet rock. Last week, below, still unfinished it's already fabulous. Sheepishly, she said, "I know it's ridiculous but it makes me happy to look at my new chandeliers."

A wise observation. Over a decade ago, in Penny McHenry's garden, I realized the same thing about things that made me smile. Her garden, tastefully, had many.

Near my front door, above, the cat. I bought the cat for no other reason than it made me smile.

Go ahead, give yourself permission. Choose things that make you smile.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara