Front Door: Curb Appeal

Yesterday, at my front door.  

Ivy 'Gold Heart', discovered studying historic landscapes in England.
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Espalier Oakleaf hydrangea, discovered studying historic landscapes in Italy.  (Irony, Italy teaching a USA southerner how to prune hydrangea.)
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Plaque is a Christine Sibley piece & I don't like 'words' in a garden.  (Great profession, exceptions to EVERYTHING.)
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Epiphany yesterday.  With heat-humidity-droughts my garden is gorgeous from every window view.  And I haven't done any gardening for weeks.  Groundcovers, flowering shrubs, flowering trees, a few perennials & self-seeding annuals, focal points on axis.  No accidents.  I paid attention studying across Europe AND have a mission statement for my garden.
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More correctly, my garden is a metaphor for what I want in my life.

Lawn With Mowing Strip

Make it easy, to mow or weed-eat flush with your home, below, with a stone strip.

 Choose stone wisely.  These, above, were easy.  We copied the stone, granite, already used at their frontdoor.  Stone should look like it was quarried on site, or nearby.

Landscape Design is all about repetition.
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Notice 4 more MAJOR Landscape Design topics in the pics?
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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Why is the deck painted?  Lattice isn't off-the-shelf-big-box-disgusting.  How was the size of the arbor chosen?  How to choose placement of deck steps.  Same garden as previous post.

When A Window Becomes A Door

The engraved invitation to Tea arrived last winter.  Didn't know her but you know I wasn't going to miss fresh tea & homemade cookies & sandwiches.  What's not to love about a crowd of ladies?

 I sat in her kitchen, above, and said the baywindow should become a French door and the deck should be extended to include it.  Of course I proceeded to point out why her existing backdoor did not work functionally or aesthetically.

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You would have thought White Lightening was in my tea.  Horrified in hindsight, at my conversation, at the time it was normal Tara Talk.
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Did I mention the bit about property value?  Flow?  Feng shui?  Removing her valences?  It would really open up the view.  You are wasting your lake view.
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Upon leaving I said her frontdoor needed replacing; why & what should replace it and the color needed changing.
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Cannot believe I'm telling you all of this.  Indeed it's a true story.
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The new frontdoor has arrived, it's on its side in her garage.  Awaiting installation.  And we're changing the direction the door opens into the foyer along with the color.
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She loves to cook & always sends me home with homemade delights.
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Garden & Be Well,                XO Tara
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Same garden as yesterday's post.  Can't wait to show you the perennial garden she created.  But, of course, the new deck must have steps leading from its side into her fabulous perennial garden room.

When To Let Lawn Touch The House

Great Dixter, in England, had Sir Edwin Lutyens & Christopher Lloyd.  Seeing bits of the meadow sweep to, and touch, the house was a revelation.  Frank Lloyd Wright used the conceit.

New deck above, its patch of lawn touching a full length of it.  On purpose.  Lutyen's idea.
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Planting a STUPID row of bushes (green meatballs) along the deck provides what benefit?
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Lawn, here, is a perfection of size & maintenance.  And looks larger without the row of green meatballs.  The deck, also, looks larger without the row of green meatballs.
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Note: deck faces east, and a lake.  Finished days ago.  Furniture, pots/plants arriving soon.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

Underestimate A Frontdoor?

A front door is the focal point in the front yard.  The house & views into windows also.  Before ANYONE comes thru your front door their opinion is influenced.  

Door, hardware, windows are original to this early 20th century home.
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Paint colors, height of knocker, paneling of door, which side the door opens, wooden grid of sidelights & transom, type of hardware metal, scale of door & windows.  A lot of creativity, work, aesthetics, historical consideration & more is understood in the 'conversation' creating this door.
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Is your front door a focal point?
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Is your front door so fabulous future owners, in another century, will decide to keep all of your choices?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic from the same house, with the metal flowers, as previous post.

Fun Flowers For A Busy Life

She sent me an iphone pic of bright metal flowers, "Can I have them?"  

 Tennis, sailing, dogs, family & career, she doesn't have time to water flowers.

 Hardly visible from a few steps away, on purpose, the surprise of dragonfly & bird.  Staked hi for movement in the wind.

 I first saw metal flowers in an urn on top of a home in Italy.  They were bronze and centuries old.

Maybe these will go rust, and left alone.  Doesn't matter, today they are fun.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at a client's home.  No accident she found the flowers, they are her.  Are things in your garden 'you'?

Garden View: Draperies Vs. Curtains

She said curtains are from a catalogue and draperies are custom.  Another interior decorator said, curtains are for a home & draperies for a coffin.

I say every window must have a garden view.
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I KNOW landscape design begins inside your home looking into the garden.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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My baywindow, above.  Alas, curtains/draperies closed many days recently against sun/heat.

Choosing A Front Door Color

Look inside your home for a front door color.  Wallpaper, artwork, textiles, dishes, clothes in your closet.

Typically it's artwork showing which direction.  A tiny bit of color, teeny tiny, flowing amongst most artwork on the wall.  Choose a variation of it, taking into consideration exterior brick/siding color & trim color.
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Front door does not need to be the color of your shutters.
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Your front door is a focal point, painting it the right color begins the story of YOU.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

It's easy to see my client's favorite color, above.
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The planet doesn't need another 'safe' black front door.  The world is ready for your voice.

Soldiers In The Landscape: Formal & Informal

In the city, below, less than an acre.  Keeping a gravel drive BY CHOICE.  Where woodland meets gravel  keeping the frisson 'wild' BY CHOICE.  Feelings of leaving-the-city-behind, the sounds of crunching gravel; driving thru woodland.  (Gravel percolates water, no taxes for stormwater runoff.)

 Adding soldiers, below, to the front parking area.  A zone with more formality.  The stones, known as soldiers, indicate "yes, park here."

Soldiers can be: bricks, concrete chunks, branches, pavers, plates, baby doll heads, half submerged model ships, old farm parts, & etc.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Did you realize the top pic was totally landscape designed?  Including the leaf litter mulch.  It is !

Tough Terra Cotta

Finely particulated terra cotta lasts longer.  Water doesn't seep in & expand during a freeze.  At least in my zone.  Zone 6b, then 7, now 8; all without moving.  It does freeze here, ice & snow.  (Notice the meadow in my flagstone terrace, below.  It's obvious why I fell in love with Bunny Mellon's garden!)

 

I really wanted the pot, above.  4 to be exact, for boxwood.  They were sold only in 'sets'.

Ironically, it's been fun playing with a few of the smaller pots.

Foxglove, above, frosted with Chinese snowball petals.
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Foxgloves are done.  Next, small heirloom tomatoes.
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This is enjoyable beyond expectation, these little pots, thinking about what to put in them, or leave them empty, or move them....
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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I do pay attention to my wants/expectations vs. what truly occurs.  Adore these little surprises.  This terra cotta is from Asia.  Chose terra cotta for my pot 'theme'.

Lamps Beside The Daybed

Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Susanne Hudson redecorated her Conservatory this year.  Sconces are laid on the table in my Conservatory, primer/paint/brush nearby, new packages of screws/hooks, brown/white ironstone transferware.  Soon, a bit of my own redecorating in the Conservatory.

Simple Gesture

Her garden on tour, she knew visitors would want to come up the steps.  With a lake view & several sitting areas, I would.  Not a house tour she chose a simple gesture to guide guests.

 Much better than a sign with words.  Probably of the negative sort, Do Not Enter.
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The pot of flowers is HER.  Sweet, colorful, creative, yet firm.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara