Thursday, May 19, 2011

Most People Are Afraid Of This.

Carl Jung, "Our lives are about getting the outside to match the inside."Tucked in a woodland, on a mossy stone, unseen by most.
Are you brave enough to put what resonates in your heart into your garden?
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Same garden as the previous posts.
.
It's odd, I design landscapes but often feel like I liberate adults into their imagination.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Seating On A Deck

Pair of matched chairs. Works every time. If it's wood in her garden it's painted her special green.Directly below this deck, pathway to her rescue run. She rescues & fosters dogs.
From this portion of her deck, below,
you can see her wooded frontyard or the backyard & lake.
.
Seating areas are throughout: garden, porch, deck, dock, woodland.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Same garden as previous post.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Birdhouse Condos

Before, birdhouses were on fencing, rocks, tables, trees, chairs, ledges, everywhere & nowhere.Birdhouse Condos. Will rent for a song.
.
Look closely at her stone edging. Wine bottles !
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic from the same garden as previous post. She was on the Lake Coweta Garden Tour last Saturday & I took the pics on Friday. We laughed and hugged our way thru her garden. Exciting to design a landscape that becomes an intensification of the owner. Teamwork at its best.

Monday, May 16, 2011

How To Create A Bedroom

Bed, lamps, tables, art, canopy tree ceiling, shrub walls, pillows of dirt wrapped in burlap, brown/green color theme, wood chip carpet, a book for night time reading,
stone box spring, and a quilt of twigs-ferns-moss-ajuga-ginger.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
She already had the ubiquitous bed-of-flowers in the sun. This is an ENCORE ! Same garden as the last post.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

How To Color Echo

Most important, below, Landscape Design feature? SIMPLICITY. Nothing between view, meadow, lake. (Bushes seen were already there. Client asked for more bushes! Puppet Barbuda KNOWS Mr. Testosterone-On-Wheels-Mow-Blow-Go-Commodify-Everything-I-Touch would, indeed, put more bushes here. CHA-CHING. )
Those chairs? Ubiquitous plastic wally-world cheap. Painted, they become HERS.
At the top, above, of her drive, colors arranged to PERFECTION on a simple bottle tree.
Colors Echoed in the chairs beyond.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pics taken yesterday at my client on Lake Coweta, she's DIY, in Newnan, GA. Her garden is on tour today. Can't wait to show you more of it.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Italian Simplicity: Are You This Brave?

A vine & 4 pots. Voila, lush, done.No foundation plantings, no lawn.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
I took this pic over a decade ago in Italy, outside of Lucca, and haven't wavered in my awe of its simplicity.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Faces Vs. Words

I don't like 'words' in a garden. Too 'fixed'. Limiting. Why look at a stupid doormat that says 'welcome'? Your home, frontdoor, colors, plantings, focal points, lights, knocker, views into windows & etc. each say 'welcome'.At my backdoor, above, a Christine Sibley piece. Bought from her 2nd's table, the only way I could afford her things.
.
I've never tired of her face; through the years she's spoken volumes.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Christine Sibley, artist-gardener-business woman. She left this world too soon.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

A Slope In Italy: Drystack Stone

Olive trees sold long ago. These stones have retained this slope for centuries. No mortar.A new Drystack Stone wall begun by a recent DIY client.
Copy brilliance, I do.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Cannot wait for my client to finish their wall & send a pic.
.
A previous contractor told me (with attitude), at a jobsite, this type of wall could not be built, "It has to be mortared." Should have quit using him with that job. But he was young & I thought I was mentoring. Alas. Months later 2 women clients (they don't know each other) called me in the same week, using the same word, misogynist, about this contractor. I'm sure he's missing my referrals.

Friday, May 6, 2011

How To Create Hidden Assets

The rule is 1 focal point per area. How to break the rule? Subsidiary Focal Points.
.
In the Tea Olive Terrace, above.
.
Tucked quietly in a corner, often overlooked.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic taken last week in my garden. A perverse delight, creating subsidiary focal points to be overlooked.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

How To Hang Pictures

Hung by the artist, R. Scott Coleman, & his wife Kathrine Coleman, below, this art is obviously arranged. But it doesn't look 'arranged'. And the table, custom built for the Conservatory, is arranged subtly with smaller pieces of R. Scott Coleman's art. Placed in the Conservatory, below, for a garden tour it's
going to be missed once it's all packed up and taken away.
Imagine the walls, above & top pic, without the pictures. Not good, feels like 'life' is taken away.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pics taken by Kathrine Coleman. I wonder how many pieces of art the garden owner bought!! Can't wait to visit this client again. Get my body into their Conservatory, spatially 'feel' it. Garden pics only get me so far. NEED my body in gardens that excite my eyes.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

How To Hide An Eyesore Powerbox

Altar table, below, used as a potting table. Lamps (oooh-la-la) have electricity. Altar table, below, was past its church days before it's new life in the garden.
A power box, below, at a client's chicken house & pecan orchard.
Within the louvres, above, is the green power box.
.
Top 2 pics were sent to my carpenter as description for what I wanted. He adapted the idea beyond expectation.
.
Carpenter & I never communicate well in the 1st round. Ever. Then we laugh, always. Afterward he leverages my ideas 'better'. I adore working with this man.
.
We'll accessorize the altar table with a cloth of burlap placed 'church style' (diminishing the louvres) , iron book holder, pair of heavy iron lamps, a couple of baskets for egg & pecan gathering.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Top pics are from the garden Susanne Hudson & I created for last year's Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. We're using the table again this year but not as a potting table. Can you guess how? Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, Douglasville, GA, June 4-5, 2011.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Most Copied Garden In Charleston, SC

Loutrel Briggs designed this garden, below, for Emily Whaley. I've copied this garden more than any other.Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden, is a book you'll read often through the years.
Dogwood Books & Antiques, below, was a vendor at my lecture venue in Rome, GA last weekend.
Bought 2 boxes of vintage garden books. Most will be given as gifts. Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden? Bought both their copies. Penny McHenry gave me my copy.
.
Penny & I were in Mrs. Whaley's Charleston, SC garden less than 3 months after Mrs. Whaley died.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
2 days in Rome, a box of books per day. Couldn't afford to stay longer!!! Saw the 1st hydrangea blossom opening yesterday while reading the morning paper & perusing my Ipad (at the same time of course). Wanted to call Penny, tell her about my 'Penny Mac' being the first mophead this year in my garden. Missing her delightful scream at my news. Missing, more, her dive into all the wonderful/sumptuous/fabulous hydrangea happenings in her garden.
.
It really stinks when a good friend is gone. Her phone number is still in my head. (Aren't those the beginning lines of a country song?)