Weddings, Graduates, Joy, Rudeness

Greatly anticipated, I went to a bridal shower last weekend.  

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The bride, fresh master's degree, and new career, made a brilliant choice for her new married life.  He will be in law school, in another state, while she is thriving in her new job.   Copying her parents commuter marriage, she will have the same.

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Her thinking never entered my head, graduating college in the 80's.  You go girl !

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Enjoyed meeting her pack of well educated girlfriends.  Another common thread amongst them?  Like the bride, they are a posse of old souls.  Strongly sense, decades of threads between them, sometimes tight, often at a great distance, but never further than the phone.

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I brought the rudeness, with intention.  Arrived early to get pics of the garden, it's a favorite home/garden.  And, knew the husband would still be there for a walk/talk.  He was taking out a bag of trash while I parked.  Indeed, my skills of timing rudeness are well honed.

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He forgot the rest of his chores, and off we went, lost in our little world of gardening.  I knew his wife needed him.  Your point?

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Quite a few things to show off, and a huge dilemma.  We both knew our time was limited, but we fit it all in.

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My ultimate rudeness, at the end of this tale.

Eggs from their chickens, a cooking lesson for her famous banana pudding.

Their home is new construction, to look old.

Seated at several tables, luncheon was served in courses.

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Appetizer was Barefoot Contessa tomato soup, shredded Gruyere cheese on top, served in a white ironstone coffee mug, set on a plate with homemade herbed butter & petite cornbread.

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Lunch was chicken salad, mixed green salad, and a frozen jello fruit/vegetable medallion.

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When the banana pudding arrived, it was in a punch cup, with silver spoon, on a plate with a surprise, homemade fudge brownie & a pair of decadent ripe strawberries foliage still attached.

Buying a ca. 1900 home, I went thru my friend's home with new eyes, a great seminar, without words, only examples.
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Historic accuracy, below, with ceiling, moulding, picture rail, painting arrangement, curtains, her master bedroom.  Amazingly, her corner cabinet, small white table, lamp, painting, I already own close variations of.

 As promised, my ultimate rudeness, below.

Never saw an azalea potted like this, almost a bonsai.  Toad, of Toad Hall, could not have been more expedite in wanton selfishness than I.  Eight year old Tara, on full display.  Here's the thing about serious, into the DNA, gardeners, their 8 year old self will respond to you.  Nothing is rudeness, it's necessity to life/breathing.
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"Where did you get that?"  "A man I know does them."  "Can I have one?"  "Yes, I can get you one next week."  "No, I'm moving, I'll want it in July."
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Haven't moved in, and thoughts are swirling where this new treasure will be placed, immediately, and in the long term.  Perhaps on a step to the new Conservatory that won't be built for at least a year.  Why a year?  How could I possible know sooner?  Must LIVE in the house, the land, discover the axis and so much more.
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Didn't I have a most successful bridal shower?
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Garden & Be Well,     XOTara
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Pics taken at the bridal shower.  Facebook has been a joy the past couple of months.  Friends children graduating college and many becoming engaged.  Exciting times.  And, thank you to the parents, USA needs the children you've produced and educated.  Unable to have children, cannot imagine my cats driving a car, moving away for college, or their own lives.  Nope, kitties stay with me.  How you parents are doing this, I don't know !

Metal vs. Wood Arbor

Recently finished a Garden Design adding a similar metal arbor, below.

New construction, the home is American Farmhouse, mostly, architecture.

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She wanted an arbor for harvest table & twinkle lites.

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Lapboard siding home, a wood arbor would have been 'too much' more wood.  And the scale 'clunky'.

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Original brick patio, quite pretty, is postage stamp in size, and common to its size, never used.  I enlarged the space with gravel.

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Done.

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Now, finding this particular construction specialist, custom metal arbor.

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Adore simple solutions with elegance & function.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic via here. 

Planning a New Garden

Learned decades ago I cannot design a garden without seeing interiors.  Moving into a new home?  Difficulties designing the garden?  Of course.
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Grieving leaving my garden, but oh my, the excitements of anticipating the new garden.  I'm in a new relationship.  House, garden, me, well trod territory, and favorite.  Slow down, did you notice the trinity?  Is this trinity, house-garden-you, yours?
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Ignore this trinity at your peril.  It is not in the least selfish, instead the opposite, giving.
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Counterintuitive.
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It's the airplane cliche, put the air mask on yourself before helping others.
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Once house & garden are leveraged fully, they are your ally in times of need, a spiritual base and retreat.  Beauty, ease, activity.  Another cliche, the more you go inward the more you outwardly connect.
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This isn't where I'm going with you, another day.
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Not in my new house/garden yet, I cannot design the garden.  How could I?  Don't know how I will live inside the house.
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I do know I'm designing for my 80 year old self, deer, drought, unskilled labor, and my own needs for beauty, simplicity, grace,   The property has no barn, garage, conservatory, chicken coop.  They are for me to choose, not a bad bargain.
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Built 1900, 4.5 acres, wooded/open, pond, American farmhouse architecture, 1 story, deep front porch across entire front, and a dogtrot 9' wide x 50 feet long.  A dairy farm next door, with beautiful views of meadow, lake, rolling hills, Piedmont forest, and cows.  Thorns in the roses, but those are another day too.
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Exterior colors?  White on white is the classic for 1900, below.  Along with basic gray porch flooring and blue beadboard ceilings.



Pic from here.
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Close to the street, I immediately thought of low fencing, friendly, with 'X' pattern, below.  Alas, my 2 chimneys, after inspectors report, had to be removed.  Repairing/replacing them not an option at this layer.  Asked the current owner if I could have the bricks, realtor texted after chimneys were down, the bricks are stacked and waiting for me.

 

Pic via here.

30 years in my home/garden, a garden cat always in attendance.  Will take this, below, and style for my own architecture.

  

Pic via here.

For my dogtrot, below.  Door, table, door, the perfect enfilade.

 

Pic via here.

 

Exterior lights, above, are long gone, replacements chosen without regard to the home's age/architecture.  Finally, will get to purchase lighting from the man I refer to all my clients.



Pic via here.
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There is no library, above, in my new home, this cannot be.  Great joy in anticipating where it will be built.

 

Pic via here.
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Terra cotta, above, and galvanized metal will predominate with my pots at the new house.

 

Pic via here.
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Ceilings are 11' tall, above, and I've spent too much time researching how high to put curtain rods.



Pic via here.
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Will slipcover, above, some of my furniture, some in big check, the rest plain.



Pic via here.
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The master bedroom is shaded and needs a bright Nancy Lancaster yellow, above.



Pic via here.
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Dishes, above, will go on the walls.  Which dishes and which walls, too fun, the anticipation.



Pic via here.
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Cloth on table, above, again, where, more than one?

 

Pic via here.
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Have done variations on this garden entry, above, for decades.  The joy of knowing they will be designed, but not knowing where, for now.

 

Pic via here.
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My new home can lend itself formal, but I won't go there, wanting a blue striped rug, above, somewhere.

 

Pic via here.
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Have chosen the best room, very Enchanted April, for my office, above.  A fun day when I can set the stack of 5 books I've written in their new resting place.  Better days coming soon when I start writing my new books.  3 in the pipeline.  Which to choose 1st?  Adore these  sorts of 'problems' !

 

Pic via here.

No conservatory, I'm considering this type, above, placed backside a small barn in the orchard.  Neither barn/orchard existing anywhere but in my head.  Already, they are on perfect axis with each other, house, and garden views.
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Amazing how little I know what to do in my new garden.  In the macro, yes.  Fine tuning exact placements, flow & scale, no.  Life is good.  My next job is to get moved in, and live.  Choose interior colors, place furniture, art, lamps, library.  And litter box.
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This ride has already begun.
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Blessedly my new home is not Victorian, it is Edwardian.  A favorite era.  A little later and it would have been Depression era Poverty Cycle.  It will be included for history, and necessity, yet the elegancies from the Edwardian will each be a joy.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Getting my homes ready to sell has about done-me-in.  Fourteen trips to thrift store with stuff, packing boxes, and staging, all at the same time.  Gardens included, and alas both garages.  Made the choice to use a realtor because of my day job.  30 years in my home, only 3 years with office/guest cottage.  Have written about staging a friend's hard to sell vacation cabin, 6 years on the market with 3 realtors, I sold it on Zillow for-sale-by-owner, renting it on AirBnB while for sale.
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Staging works.  Both of my homes have a signed contract, last week, with the first person who looked, then made an offer less than 24 hours later.  No, homes were not priced too cheap.  They were priced dictated by nearby comparables.  Quite a week, last week, still not believing the speed life is happening.
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Grieving leaving is intense.  The outreach I'm receiving is helping immensely.  Humbled, and giving thanks, at this unexpected chapter of grace.
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None of the above is 'afforded'.  I must write about the financial devastation of being married to an alcoholic, college sweetheart, for 3 decades, and losing every dime to my name.  Repairing the financial damage as a Garden Designer, on my own.  Alcoholic did not aim his misery at me, I was merely collateral damage.  Was a victim for 15 wasted minutes.  Was fortunate to pass thru survivor stage in fewer minutes, thankfully, to years of thriver.
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At lectures, local/national, and in my open gardens I've had many opportunities with other women, hugging them, tears down their faces, smiles too.  Why are they crying?  They had the epiphany, If she can do it, I can too.

Conservatory in the Gloaming

My Conservatory, below.  Rescued materials for over a decade, stored in my garage.

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New materials, gravel flooring, stone steps, electrical, carpentry, a tin roof.

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With few resources, extreme determination, I have a Conservatory.

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In the gloaming, the Conservatory is more than alive, it is dryads dancing.  How was I to know?

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Gloaming approaches, below.

Shooting from my French doors at the breakfast room terrace, below, last nite.  Last moments of chiaroscuro gloaming.
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The ache of this desire.  Ephemeral.
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There is more Dark Matter in the universe than what we know of our universe.  Have known this bit of science, on faith, since childhood.  My dad said so.  Georgia Tech engineer, Air Force test pilot, I was born at Wright Pat, NASA rocket scientist, astronaut trainer, space capsule designer, then the ease of Space Shuttle payload avionics, and fun of payload robotic arm, overnite stints in MER, Mission Control became 'everyday' systems watch while the Mission Evaluation Room has active engineering for any system failures, until his death in his late 70's.   Missile guidance systems were his Air Force Reserve 2 week active duty work while we had the white sand beach of the Officers Club, built ca. 1930, between Fort Walton & Destin.
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I don't believe in Dark Matter, I know it exists.
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In the gloaming, is the closest I get to physically experiencing it.  As if Providence gives us a pin prick in its cloak.
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What does this have to do with my Conservatory?  In the gloaming, is the best time for my Conservatory.  People prattle on about 'spring' in a garden, glories of fall foliage, yesyesyesyes, they are beyond words, and I have that in my garden.  Rarer than those glories, are a Conservatory in the Gloaming.

During the gloaming, my century old tongue/groove walls, below, glow reddish.

In the gloaming, and past the gloaming, my conservatory, above, takes me anywhere I want to go.

Beloved brought me a bouquet of Cotton, above, roots still attached.

During daylight, my conservatory, above.

My Conservatory in Better Homes & Gardens magazine, above.  Built this with Susanne Hudson for our garden display at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, Douglasville, GA.
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Cannot encourage you, enough, to build your own Conservatory.  Mostly for the Gloaming.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Have been in many national magazines, cable TV, PBS, CBS, NBC, lecture stages across the country,  and know, none of those venues can give you what I am trying to pass along in a little blog post.  Curious?  Hopefully enough to finally build your own Conservatory.  

Furniture in the Garden

'Bring those 2 pillows from the sunroom, and your book', this garden speaks. 

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At what point, in history, did this, below, become a status symbol?

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Does this speak to you?  Evocative of what?

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Every garden speaks.  Whether you think so or not. 

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Henry Ford, "Whether or not you think you can, or you think you can't --you're right."

I've thought meadows, for at least a decade, are the ultimate status symbol.

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Water, tree, meadow, each honored with this bench, more deeply, its invitation to partake.

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Benches have been a favorite focal point for decades.  You may have few opportunities to partake their invitation, but on axis from inside your home, viewing them you'll hear Mary Poppins, "Enough is as good as a feast."

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Picture from Pinterest, here.   Am fascinated with furniture in gardens, especially after a soiree.  Furniture in the Garden, pinterest board.  

Garden Sanctuary: Tabernacle

I planted Chinese Snowball, Viburnum macrocephalum, for the blooms.  Below, in my garden yesterday.

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Instead, discovered Chinese snowball is a top member of the Ministry of Stewardship.

A small garden, Chinese Snowball was pruned into a tree.  Who knew a bare multi-trunked tree with canopy on top is prime location for song birds to rest from predators, bring their lunch, and a place for my painter to sit & smoke cigarettes on hot Southern summer days, some times my choice of office for making calls?

This, above/below, is why to have a garden.  Reminds me of doing math homework in high school.  Every other problem had the answer in the back of the book, letting you know you've done a multi-stepped task right.    One of my chief delights, and accomplishments, on this Earth, is what has been done in my garden with Chinese Snowball.  And I didn't do it, Providence did.
 

Subsidiary focal points, above/below, graced.

Selfish, adoring my first Chinese snowball, I planted another, below.  Shot this one while standing in the street.

At her feet, the potager, below.  Is there one word encompassing the few moments a tree has as many blossoms on her arms as at her feet?  Is this my tabernacle, given by Providence?   Ruth always said something provocative in spirit when she shared at meetings for friends/families of alcoholics.  And, invariable at every meeting for years, she spilled her cup of coffee.  Elderly, of little breath, it was a delight every time those nearest rushed in to help.  Total feminine power, but barely enough strength/air to walk.  
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Ruth's funeral was standing room only at her little Southern Baptist church in a field, 1950's long low rectangular, red brick construction.  Seated near the front, with a meadow view, tears, and the preacher droning.  Alone in grief, until he said something riveting.  Ruth's body was a tabernacle.  Now, that was a curious thing, and I had zero idea what he meant.  I looked it up.  Not my job to tell you what it meant, it's for you to look up and know it from your spirit.  (Blessedly have my inherited unabridged Webster's 10" thick, don't you?)
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  How did Nature become so dissected from the bible?  These moments of petals, throughout the year, with various shrubs/trees/groundcovers, are all tabernacle moments.  A Life force beyond my skills/knowledge/efforts.  Humbling.  In this beauty, death, regeneration, Providence skips merrily, the next day always another tabernacle.  

Leaving the street, and stepping into my garden, below.

Look closely, below, at that window.  It is my office window.  When the Chinese snowball is well finished 'tabernacling' the tree beside it, Crape Myrtle will begin bloom.

My lot is 8500sf, a lot less than a quarter acre.  Do you sense this?  Neither do I.  In the public realm, below, of my garden, do you see that many houses nearby  Neither do I, they are there, and this is reality, as is the tabernacle.  I built it.  My intention?  No clue.  Providence found me.

After much thought, years, I figured out why my garden lives so big, it's the sky, above, I own it.

My garden frames the sky, and in return Providence gave it entirely to me.  A gift you can take for yourself.  It's Tasha Tudor's favorite line of poetry, "...Take joy"  

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Took these pics without my glasses.

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Shooting my office window, I began to tear, but quickly remembered a friend's wisdom, "Make no major decisions after dusk and before dawn."  Moving, leaving my garden is rending my heart.  During the day I'm so excited about my new garden, at nite the chattering monkeys in my head.  Tearing up shooting the pic, no energy for another crying jag, I realized it was moments after dusk, and I would ignore the urge, did, and laughed.  

Leaving a Garden

Why pics in my garden are not perfect, but better.  It's more important for you to see, 'real'.  Why?  You must be able to walk into your garden, any day of the year, and be able to take a roll of 36 slides, each worthy of a magazine cover.  A major national magazine.  Allowing for a bit of primping, those pics must be worthy of an international book cover.
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Ready to play in my league?
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This morning, below, shot less than 5 minutes ago.  Walking to give the chickens a treat.

Stewardship of this garden began, horrendously, ignorant of stewardship.  Waiting for denial to pass, decades, Providence, nevertheless, allowed the garden to steward me.

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This is where I fly.

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Terrible phone conversation last nite with my sister.  Selling my home after 30 years, she asked, "Will you dig up all your plants and put in grass?"

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No, I responded, simply.

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If the next owner wishes to, that is their privilege.

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Here, this spot in my garden, pics above/below, a double axis, same path shot from opposite directions.  Merely 1 pivot point in my garden where I find relationship to Earth, myself, others, Providence, stewardship.  The more you go inward the more you outwardly connect.

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Lawn?  Fertilizers, weed killers, fungicides, all toxic to the water supply & mychorizzal fungi, earthworms, pollinators.  Mowing, watering, no shading of the house in summer.  Wrapping little strips of green meatballs and dead mulch.  High maintenance, literally, and figuratively.

More, my sister chastised me deeply for where I will be moving.  I listened, not responding.

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I am moving into my beliefs.  Yoked tightly with Providence.  Flying.  Ships were not built for harbor.  Sailing.

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"But here’s the deal: I know that life is an inexorable pull toward love, beauty, passion, delight, longing, disquiet, hunger, wildness, appetite, generosity, compassion, creativity and hope in a future beyond our limited present. "  Terry Hershey

A story from Terry Hershey,  " His dream started when he was in college. Jeffrey Coale wanted to own a restaurant. Training in cooking and restaurant management helps, but so does money. So Jeffrey Coale went at it methodically. He worked for a number of years as a government bond trader on Wall Street. At night, he attended classes at the French Culinary Institute.  He quit trading and took a job as an apprentice chef at the Louis XV restaurant in Monte Carlo. Next, he returned to New York to work at the Alain Ducasse restaurant. Wanting to refine his understanding of the wine side of the business, he then took a dream job as an assistant wine master at Windows on the World, at the top of the World Trade Center North Tower, in August, 2001.  Meanwhile, Mr. Coale, 31, sifted around for a location for his restaurant. He had looked at several properties in Greece and New York.

“He left really good money to make $10 an hour at Windows,” said Leslie Brown, his sister. “But Jeff never settled for something. He always followed his passion.”
Jeffrey died on 9/11.
Tragedy? Yes.
Someone wrote that there are many tragedies in life, but dying young while living a passionate life is not one of them. As Paul Harvey would say, “here’s the rest of the story…” After Jeffrey’s death, reflecting on that devotion, two friends switched to jobs that better suited their own true interests. Two other friends broke off unsatisfying relationships. In memory of Mr. Coale, they are going to follow their passions.

Maybe that’s where we get stuck. We’ve been invited to fly… but somewhere along the way we’ve been told that…
…we are not enough
…we are small and not sufficiently gifted
…we are carried by the winds of public opinion
…our identity is owned by shame
…we owe it to someone to be perfect
…we seem at the mercy of our grief or our rage"  Terry Hershey

.  Packing & staging & taking loads to the thrift store, in my library, I pulled yet another book for thrift store.  Bought years ago from the same thrift store, bag-of-books-$1, I hadn't read it.  The author's name popped, Terry Hershey.  Reading it now.

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In the coop, below, this morning.  After the massacre a couple of months ago 4 heirloom chickens remain, below, Alpha girl, marmalade, and her side kick Beta.  Horrifically injured during the massacre, I don't know why they survived, to thrive.  More, Alpha girl taught me a few things about alpha's. Gravely injured, 'alpha-dom' must be-will be maintained.  Body language, eye language, attitude kept Alpha girl alpha.  Unless I had witnessed this libretto I would not have believed it.

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 "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot."

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My Camelot, my garden, is within.  It travels with me.

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Yes, there is grief in this particular layer.  Deep.  Enough to keep me from flying?  Hardly.  Not flying would be fear.  Consistent foe, I've learned to silence, with a simple question, 'What would I do tomorrow if I were not afraid?'

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I first sought a beautiful garden, a place of grace & atonement.  More was given, than sought.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

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Lawn?  Too lazy for lawn & selfish.  My hunt is beauty.  Oh my, the riches of this hunt.

Grey Gardens: Black & White

From the beginning, over 3 decades, this home/garden, below, has drawn me in.
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Layers of green, a walled garden, a sense of redolence, timelessness, summer days of childhood, a secret world of your own.  Perhaps you know it, too, from this lone pic.  Grey Gardens.



via Gardenista, above.



My life in gardens began blessedly before the internet.  I have this book, above, and more like it.  Each, bought-for-a-song at a Goodwill fundraiser held yearly at the local, thriving, mall, staffed with mostly white headed, arthritic, skeletal, sparkling eyed, smiling volunteers.  During those years I looked more forward to this book sale than Christmas, birthday & etc.
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Have you already picked-up on why, 'blessedly'?
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Aside from price & fragrance of old books.  All the pics, in those books, are in black/white/
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Mind, heart & spirit filled in the narrative beyond black/white.  Perhaps the genesis of my career, and that hunger, wanting to know these black/white gardens & create them, instead of abating, increases, with foot still on the gas pedal.



Photo by Peter Vitale/Architectural Digest

From its interior, above, I found this, not looking for Grey Gardens, while sourcing a new project.
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From Goodwill fundraiser decades ago, to today, Grey Gardens is still finding me.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Grey Gardens, Gardenista article/pics, here.
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Grey Gardens is in glory again, yet malls across USA are dead, or slowly dying.

Recognizing 'Flow'

Built, in the Republic of Texas, from 1839-1841, below, this pic, 1934, stopped my eyes, at the dead-end. Knowing, 'The more entry ways a landscape has, the better a landscape is.',
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How badly does this 'dead-end' bother you?  Did you see it immediately?



Same home, below, pic taken, 1934.



Much better.  Instead of 2 dead-ends, above, at the porch, 2 entry ways.  Function, form, and metaphor, yes, breathing better.
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Came across these pics studying for a 1900 home I've begun working on.
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Two take-aways from the pic, above.  White trim/siding, and lattice style/placement.  A good find, color & lattice style, chosen.  Whew, client is a tough cookie.  My favorite type.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pics Enclosure Take Refuge.

Garden: Before/After

At jobsite, below, yesterday.

Open meadow, bottom pic, when we began.  Now, Tara Turf with paths, above, leading to 4 garden rooms, Mulberry Garden, Walled Garden, Cabin Meadow, Barn Lane.

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Gravel lapping Tara Turf, above, no edging, by design.  Keeping it rustic.

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Cutting garden, above, at center of all 4 garden rooms, with its edging of low holly.  Not to copy historic templates, to keep chickens out.  Discovering the historic template, boxed potagers, were not for design, but function.

Creating gardens, to historic templates, feels, "We've no less days to sing God's praise, Than when we first begun."

Before, below.  Open meadow.  Only the lane.

Little mowing, no irrigation, no chemicals, maximum pollinator habitat, watershed management, applicable at less than 1/4 acre scaling to a thousand plus.
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Garden & Be Well,     XOT
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Wish you could have taken in the fragrance, birdsong, honey bee buzz, and wind thru the leaves.  Intoxicating?  You bet.

How to Tame the Chaos

No worries about down time in the potager, below.  Site tuters early, and the chaos disappears.

In a perfect world, you've had time to gather your own brush and cobble them together.
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Teepee shape is the most my time allows.  5 canes, tied with twine at the top.
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"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

— Jesus of Nazareth, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:28

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Of course the lily toils, if you know basic botany.  And, has a destiny.  Attracting & feeding pollinators, then, in death, to fertilizer the soil.  The metaphor is still clear, and one of my favorites.  Humbling.
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Potager is more complete than a vegetable garden.  Potager is a mix of vegetables, herbs, flowers.  Extra beauty?  Yes, and more.  Those flowers increase vegetable garden yields by 80%.  For the same effort by you.  Lazy, I adore those odds.
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6 hours of sun, or more each day, for your potager.  A 10" terra cota pot is plenty for a potager.  Don't read plant tags/books, just stuff the plantings in.  And bamboo teepee.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic, Pinterest.