How To Make New Brick & Mortar Look Old

With a keen eye on historic homes their new home copieda mortar & brick style of the past.
At terrace level bricks are flush with mortar. The rest of the bricks are slightly raised.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in the same garden as previous post.

How To Add Depth In A Narrow Space

The long brick walk was already installed before I designed this project. My design added to its length, literally & metaphorically.Instead of bringing the brick 'straight' to the curb I flared it slightly.
A common technique for painting on canvas; transition from wider to narrower for creating the illusion of greater depth.
Can you believe the timing of the shadow? Ugh!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken at a recent project.

What's At Your Front Door?

Vanishing Threshold, below. And an enfilade, a common choice for book covers.I was in my early 20's when I first noticed, in House & Garden magazine, a front door Vanishing Threshold.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic from Victoria Hagan's new book.

Chandelier: Before & After

From Lowe's, below, chandelier in my new Conservatory.SHIPMAN called from Buenos Aires last month, "Found you the perfect chandelier, want it?"
SHIPMAN dismantled the chandelier & packed it in a fruit crate for its trip home.
SHIPMAN brought a bottle of wine & 2 crystal glasses for the hanging & gossip fest.
SHIPMAN & I decided it must have summer shades & winter shades.
I'm on the prowl for those shades.

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SHIPMAN & I decided the chandelier is only about 80 years old, we pouted a moment about its youth but decided its great backstory, into my Conservatory, adds patina. At least to us.

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Life is good.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Voicemail from SHIPMAN this morning, "You must come for lunch in my conservatory this week." Yes, life is good. Now, how to get the time...........

Killing Me Softly With His Words

I do it to other people almost daily, "Your, (insert plant name), must go." What goes is as important as what stays.Yesterday, in my garden, several big projects. My guy suddenly standing in front of me, in my space, mirroring my body language. Not good.

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"Your cedar really needs to go." "Let me take those boxwoods to the compost."

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Boxwoods still here, cedar met the chainsaw.

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This is so hard.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Hard AND personal.

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Pic from the new Laura Ashley catalogue. Gotta love a company selling curtains using an enfilade to the garden.

20 Plants That Could Kill Your Dog

Amy Leigh sent me this title, 20 Plants That Could Kill Your Dog.From, See Fido.

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Enjoy !!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic from a client this summer. We trade garden & pet pics !! Some food too.

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Thank you dearest Amy, I didn't know about this site.

How Anwar Sadat Taught Me Composure

My mother's 1973 white Cadillac was abruptly stopped by a motorcycle cop, seconds later a foreign (Mercedes, Rolls Royce?) limousine stopped inches from the hood ornament.More police, car & motorcycle, what an inconvenience, stuck in another motorcade.

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Peculiar arrogance was placed on my DNA from childhood. Presidents, potentates, pashas, premiers, poo bahs, & etc all came to see my father's work, ABC, CBS, & NBC too. The last 3, a joke. Listening to the evening news to hear what they got wrong. Hollywood made movies about men dad trained. The New York Times runs obituaries of dad's coworkers; neighbors I grew up with. One neighbor, portrayed by John Wayne, lived a few houses down; he didn't work with dad & we didn't know him, it's not a very good movie. Last year another neighbor (he owned Coco Chanel's yacht, had the channel dredged to dock it behind his house) we didn't know was in the NYTimes obits, ha, gossip we heard in childhood was true, all in the obit.

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Back to the limousine. In the back seat, no more than 6' away, a man & woman, both looking forward, both with Mona Lisa smiles, eyes sparkling, clothes finer than I had ever seen yet not showy, skin radiantly hued & dewy, were spellbinding.

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The air around them a cloud they imbued with their intellect, passions, joys, loves, conquered hurts, spirit, grace & more. I was 15 & had never experienced seeing intuitively.

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Those minutes of 'seeing' were profound. Thankfully, more potent than the peculiar arrogance of the time/place of my upbringing.

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When Anwar Sadat was assassinated several years later, I was in college, mom made an offhand comment about us seeing he & his wife on their way to NASA. I had no clue I had ever seen Anwar Sadat. At 15 I didn't care who the people were in the limousine I cared about how to get what they had, that cloud.

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An introvert, that cloud sustains me designing gardens, doing live TV, lecturing in large auditoriums, accepting the vicissitudes of life while increasing its joys. Anwar Sadat & his wife were my epiphany, they mentored their composure without effort.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Found the pic online, it was probably taken a couple of hours after I saw Anwar Sadat.

Are You Making A Choice With Library Shelves?

Centuries old, below, this style of library shelf caught my eye 2 years ago. All books, no bric-a-brac.
A style matching my landscape aesthetic. Borders with: flowering shrubs/flowering groundcovers/flowering understory trees/bulbs. Brick-a-brac of perennials? Not.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic via Habitually Chic, from Roman and Williams.

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Must take a pic of my library shelves for you & post it with a pic of my garden. A conscious aesthetic.

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Perennials, though pretty, are too much maintenance. Dead-heading, cutting back, downtime and they take very little space for their expense. Give me a flowering shrub.

Why You Shouldn't Decorate With 'Cute'

"On the outskirts of agony sits some observant fellow who points." Virginia Woolf
When I NEED her words I don't need a cute stupid sign or focal point (cheap resin is particularly offensive, ha, expensive resin too) in the garden as I gaze out my windows.
I need beauty, strength & wisdom.
Upon a winter's day Providence laughs. Slowing me. Taking me away, for a few moments, into a realm of grace.
Away from the 'outskirts of agony' .

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Closer to seeing the 'fellow who points'.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken at Pecan Orchard's garden this month. Ugh, straining to see the 'fellow who points'. Knowing I will when I let go.

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.