Seek & Amplify Frissons

Incomplete new construction, below, already a charming spot.

From this zone, 1 room deep, both front & back gardens are seen.
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Adore this type FRISSON.  Landscape Design is all about intensifying existing frisson's & creating more.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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The Table, Diane Von Furstenberg

Lunch in the Conservatory yesterday.  Who can eat alone without a book?  

Had to make calls to clients, then leave for appointments.  The book remains anticipation.
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$2.02 from the thrift store I knew it would be worth it without perusing.  Diane Von Furstenberg is a huge supporter of the High Line Garden in NYC.  Better than expected, Diane's own garden in Connecticut is featured.
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Interiors, gardens, recipes.  Beautiful photography.
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Garden & Be Well,               XO Tara
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Pure catnip getting this book so cheap.  Plenty more here.

Creating Layers

View into the garden, below.  Pic taken at jobsite last week.

 Not mature yet, above, but doing its job.  You don't know what that job was.  Means the job was done right.

My job?  Hide the view (pic taken 2 years ago) of the dependencies, above, create mystery, pull your feet to investigate, be a proscenium for all weathers, fill the spirit of any mood, provide entertainments for small groups, large gatherings & yet be easy to maintain while providing maximum pollinator habitat for potager, bees, & yet more.  Now we're in the realm of my Landscape Design classes.
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Every step in Landscape Design is counterintuitively simple.  
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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My basket is in yet another pic.  It was a 2 basket day.  Did you know I rate my days by how many baskets are needed?  The best days are 4 basket days.  Means I've been designing & lecturing & overseeing an installation.
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Last visit home my sister told me it was infantile and not appropriate for a woman my age to use baskets.  In fact, the little basket I was using embarrassed her.  We were having Sunday lunch at the club with mom.  It's a joy to irritate her without trying.  When the server was clearing away she told me how cute my basket was & what a great idea to use it.  Sensing the Cheshire smile my sister received from me?  Obvious I'm the younger sister.

How To Create Vanishing Threshold

Gardens begin inside.

Looking out the window, above/below.

And, looking in the same window.
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Landscape Design is more than plants.  It's Vanishing Threshold with your interior, exterior & life.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Love the layers of this project coming together.

Checkerboard: Before & After

Exploded brick ranch, below, before their checkerboard this week.  Water issues where the lawn won't grow.  And an entertaining area, go figure, at the bare dirt & low wall.  This neighborhood is thick with children and the parents have earned their margaritas & canapes set up on the low wall while their progeny go wild on the lawn.

Mr. CDC  cut 48 paper squares for the trial run of the checkerboard, below.  My contractor watched, amused, as we spread them out.  Of course, totally confident, he only purchased 48  18" x 18" bluestones.

Do you know the 1st, and most important bluestone, below, to be laid?  The rest of the Checkerboard relied upon this beginning.

Dead center, above/below,  at the entry from the carport.

The Caterpillar was used to contour the land for drainage.

New sod up to the low wall AND the steps of the porch.  Simple, potent, functional.
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Garden & Be Well,                XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this week.  Cannot wait for the sod to root & a party to take place.  I want to walk slowly by (incognito stranger) & see if my visions for the space are correct!  Several young children accumulated on the wall while Mr. CDC & I were placing the paper squares.  They were speechless & still, sitting on the low wall, with staring eyes at what the strange adults were doing.

Interior Decorating for Ornery Client

After his garden he asked for a guest bedroom.  He had parameters, "Use the furniture I own & leftover paint from the garage."  I told him what I would do, he wanted none of it.  

 Mixed Benjamin Moore Philadelphia Creme with York Harbor, resulting in a pale ocher/yellow.  The room has to be simple, its bed already a focal point.  Wow, was he verbal during set-up.  All negative.  He was asked to step away until called for.

Burlap draperies, cane chair, & thrift store lamps were my only additions.  From the hall, he didn't step far, I could hear his continuing demands.  (Whatever.  I knew what was to be done.)
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Finally, he was called into the room.  He stood there, silent.  Looking.  He teared up, and hugged me.  This is his beloved grandmother's furniture.  I got it right.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics taken this month on site.  This is the type of 'interior decorating' I do.  When it's using furniture already owned and there is little money.  I know where this room is truly going, very Eleanor-Roosevelt-at-Val-Kill. The entire time Mr. Negative was talking to me I was smiling at him.  So glad I'm over 50!  Younger, I would have tried pleasing his lizard brain.  Instead, my work is done for the grace of the soul.
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By-the-way.  Same scenario in his garden.  He had a collection of hodge podge plants.  Didn't like a thing I said about placement.  Once done he said, "This is exactly what I was going to do."  Pics of that later, when plants are bigger.

Historic Yet Modern

Close to being a 'foundation planting'.  But not in the least.

Seems simple.  It is not.  Historic with modern edge.  Holbrook & Associates  created this garden for the Princess Margaret Show House .
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Of course the house is fabulous too.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via House & Home

Lattice Columns

When money isn't there for impressive columns.  Charming is good.

Lattice at the ends let's you see out clearly yet have a nice amount of privacy.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Never seen lattice used as columns.  And isn't that the hunt, something new & good!  Pic via Old Long Island.

What To Put On Your List

Looking in, framing the view.

2 years ago there were no bushes in the foreground or background.
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At 200 acres every plant must pay their keep.  Once established no watering, no bugs, no fungus  & no susceptibility to late frosts.
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AND plantings must have something coming into bloom every 2 weeks, all year.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pic taken at a jobsite last week.  Please be this demanding with your plant list.  

1 Hedge 2 Garden Rooms

Soon, as planned, the cabin will be hidden from this garden room.

Love when 2 garden rooms share the same hedge.  Strong bones.  Less money, less maintenance, more mystery, greater interest.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic taken at jobsite last week.  Historic cabin is original to the acreage.  Asters in the foreground.

Art & Flowers

Perhaps a year will arrive and there is The-Big-Event, I know

exactly who should plant annuals in the garden.  Simply Flowers, Jenny Hardgrave.  

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Selfishly I would like to see what Jenny would do based upon the art, above.

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In satisfaction I understand these shelves.  The house is still under renovation & there are pockets of sanity, this included.  When painting, floors, carpentry are done in my home, I do the same OCD thing with my shelves.  All is chaos, but a shelf here/there.

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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara

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I quit designating annual flowers decades ago.  If a garden NEEDS annuals it is a Landscape Design failure.  Love self-seeding annuals.  Simply Flowers is the exception!  Jenny's work is NEEDED.  Like air.  Something about Jenny most people don't know.  She loves jewelry, appreciates its nuances.  Totally explains her talent with flowers.

Choosing Garden Colors

These shelves are a heavy contender

for the stain color on her Adirondack chairs.
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Interiors always tell me what colors to use in the garden.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic from same home as yesterday's post.