Formal into the Wild Wood

"And, I don't want anything formal."
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Gets me every time.  In the early years I would explain how 'formal' is your friend.  Now, I just let it rip, playing with formal elements, don't mention the word, and enjoy, "I love this."
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Because I know what is most important in life, I checked Pinterest late last nite, hoping something new popped up for Furlow Gatewood.  This pic, below, may not be new but I had never seen his allee of mophead hydrangea from this angle.
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Gatewood's allee has sailed a fleet of ships since its debut in Veranda in July of 2013.
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Adore how he smashed formal into wild wood.
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His wild wood of canopy-understory-walls-floors, a total home run.
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Another home run?  No dinky-is-stinky here.
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Further south than my garden, I look at Gatewood's hydrangea, nostrils flared, right eyebrow cocked/loaded, in a momentary whiff of envy.  No near decade of leisurely late freezes, in March/April, taking out hydrangea buds.
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No, there is not next year to get this decadence, below, back.  It is several good 'next years' in a row, to get the decadence back.
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Before you think this is a problem to maintain, notice front/left, a clearly exposed drip irrigation tube.
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Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Mind Wandering by Choice

Pairs of words have thrilled me for decades.  Wildly instructive, good pairs have the power to enlighten, or change habit.  Now, this moment, what pair of words pop as having done this for you?
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Example you ask?  Amusement vs. stewardship.
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Recently, oddly, this pair, want vs. need.
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Culture rewards going after what  we want, what we need, not so much.  In the want vs. need, yesterday, all I could think is the majority of residential landscapes.  Something affordable, easy to take care of, mostly just keep the status quo from the builder or previous owner, enough to keep the HOA from sending nasty grams.  The thinking is not contrived, it is, indeed a no brainer.  Excepting what we need is in the landscape.  Wanting to meet our landscape with a minimum threshold pleases others, seemingly ourselves, while oceans of life we need, flow silently from grasp.
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Miss Katherine Kirkwood Scott's maxim, heard & understood from the source herself, in childhood, "I can live without the necessities but I must have the luxuries."    Oh my, a soup, want vs. need.  Excepting I knew her recipe, intuitively, as a little girl.  The adults laughed, I didn't.  I was 'on it'.  Miss Katherine had opened new realms for me.  Something undiminished decades later

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Pic, above, Martha Stewart.
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From New York Magazine, In Praise of Spacing Out, ", by Melissa Dahl,

Todd Kashdan said. “When we’re zoning out, really what this is, is the incubation period of creativity.” This is where ideas you never would’ve consciously connected seem to come together on their own — suddenly, it becomes clear why your best friend seemed distant at dinner last night, or what you should buy your dad for his birthday, for example. “With mindfulness, on the other hand, you are so in the present moment with your consciousness that there’s no room for ideas to collide,” Kashdan said.   
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In the garden, I know, are answers to life questions/challenges/quirks.  In the garden, I can fully zone out, with intention.  Nature, humble, bold, patient, kind; even when the awareness is outside a comfort zone.  Haven't been outside your comfort zone in 6 months?  Hmm.  That's when I know I'm stagnating.
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 Scott Barry Kaufman and Rebecca McMillian, wrote about zoning out in, Frontiers in Psychology:
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"We mind wander, by choice or by accident, because it produces tangible reward when measured against goals and aspirations that are personally meaningful. Having to reread a line of text three times because our attention has drifted away matters very little if that attention shift has allowed us to access a key insight, a precious memory or make sense of a troubling event. Pausing to reflect in the middle of telling a story is inconsequential if that pause allows us to retrieve a distant memory that makes the story more evocative and compelling. Losing a couple of minutes because we drove past our off ramp is a minor inconvenience if the attention lapse allowed us to finally understand why the boss was so upset by something we said in last week’s meeting. Arriving home from the store without the eggs that necessitated the trip is a mere annoyance when weighed against coming to a decision to ask for a raise, leave a job, or go back to school." 
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Every tangible benefit, above, in my garden.  I wanted a garden, it gave me what I needed.
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With spacing out, and epiphanies, Nature provides another delightful factor, losing all concept of time, what a drug, 'moments of eternity', Joseph Campbell names this.
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Who knew the serpent in the garden, now, is the cell phone?  A killer to zoning out.  Occasionally, my phone is forgotten, going into the garden.  What riches those times are.  On the weekend, by choice, I put my phone intentionally in the garden, away from hearing.
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I'm beyond thankful my gardening life began before cell phones.  How would I know there could be more in a garden?  Of course if the cell phone does this in a garden, the question becomes, what else is it doing?
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Wants vs needs in the garden, pic, above.  Front porch with rails is the ubiquitous, 'everyone wants rails on their front porch', but the narrative, above, is wildly heavy on needs.  Needs so rich it was worth adding 3' to accommodate family, friends, Nature.    
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Another 1st Rule of Garden Design

Design your garden, 1st, from inside your home.  Design your garden, 1st, for the depths of winter.
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If your garden is gorgeous in winter, it is gorgeous all year.
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The Garden In Winter, by Rosemary Verey is perhaps the best Garden Design book.



Pic, above, from my previous garden.  30 years, creating a cottage garden.  Moved no plants/field stone/bricks when I left last May, only brought focal points & potted plantings & 7 large quartz stones.  Weeks later, seeing the pile of cottage garden 'stuff' at our ca. 1900 American farmhouse I knew it was inappropriate.  Beloved had his large work truck and 5 of his men on site, I let them gather 2 truckloads for the thrift store.  I stood and pointed and watched the bits/pieces making up a garden seen on TV, in magazines/books, tours, drift away.  Bits/pieces that made up my life.  Nothing to be done but take swift action.  Impossible to live a new life chapter, dragging past chapters.
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The view, above, is now all lawn.
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Christopher Lloyd said, The garden dies when the gardener dies.    
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Because money was nonexistent during early decades at my cottage garden I volunteered at garden symposiums, to get inside free.  Wildly, it was Providence placing me where I should be.  How else to have had lunch & traipse gardens with Christopher Lloyd when he came to lecture, how else to have had lunch & traipse gardens with Rosemary Verey when she came to lecture?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Use the Wonk Factor

Charming.  No element appears new-construction.  Yet much must be either repaired or new.  What a lot of WONK !  As in, this-is-perfect.  Each layer a feast of intellectual intent.  A home & garden with narrative.
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Of course they used ogee curves for the illusion of greater height to the front porch.  Of course they chose a historic lattice, creating a sense of greater space, single shutters down, double shutters up.  Oh my, the front door panels lending greater height, and interest, versus using a ubiquitous 6 panel door.  Color makes the house larger too.  All white, this house would shrink.  Scale & flow maximized, inviting you in.  Photographer capturing fleeting shadows, a story line.



Pic, above, Southern Living.
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There is WONK here.  Every garden & home needs some WONK.
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WONK takes your heart & head.  Often WONK arrives unbidden.  "Oh no, we're keeping that, it's WONKY."  I delight in keeping the WONK factor, it makes a better design.
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WONK is official, it's in the dictionary, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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From the 50's, as building to code has become ever more tiresome to the eye, a little WONK gives outrageously good results.

Nitty Gritty of Patio Chairs

Good chairs at the round central table, below, for overflow/extra seating.  Easily stored, easily carried.  However, I know they do not meet your full requirements.  These are not chairs conducive to lingering conversation after a good meal, especially in the evening.  Nor are they acceptable for 'him they call fat boy, clocking in at 400 lbs. with a passion for food and film magazines, who'd been a great critic downtown, he'd politely decline dinner happy to dance down the street drinking vodka in the moonlight, with his aging film queen at 58 odd years of age.' Face it, you'd rather keep this couple at your table.    



Pic, above, here.

Much better to keep Fat Boy, 'in his gray overalls, and the aging film queen, master raconteurs both, for dinner in the comfortable chairs', below.  Perhaps she'd share her story of 'the fountain of youth, somewhere west of Fort Worth, where she met Errol Flynn in the Crazy Water Hotel.'

Pic, above, here.

Who doesn't love good stories after a good meal?  No worries the pastiche is a bit embellished, it's the truth told as it should be when there are fireflies, stars and the moon filtered thru branches of century old pecan trees.
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My girlfriend, Miss Gulf Coast, had a Thanksgiving dinner several years ago, she called me ahead letting me know she'd invited a 'character'.  Bless her.  Older, crooked health, and from the margins of society, he'd created his own world, overcoming a few obvious, yet unknown, poor life choices, with dignity, character, delight.  It was my honor to be seated next to him.  He passed before the next Thanksgiving.  We still talk about him.  Yes, I like a good character at table.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Quotes from, Tom Russell's song, Mineral Wells,
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Almost a decade ago a friend burned me a cd, an unexpected gift.  Written in fat Sharpie, on the cd, Texas Boogie.  Mineral Wells is one of my favorites.
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Honestly, how many times, across decades, can I write/lecture about patio chairs?  And, keep myself amused.  Perhaps you'll tell me a good dinner story that's happened to you.

The Red Queen's Latticework

Most gardens, I get it, are foundation plantings, lawn, a few trees, installed by the builder, recently or decades ago, because the Certificate of Occupancy demanded a specific amount of lawn, bushes, trees.
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What I don't get is keeping those certificate-of-occupancy-landscapes.  It is madness, their pruning, mowing, fertilizing (toxic to soil/water/you or you can make a bomb), weed/bug killers (toxic to them & you).  It's the full Monty, RED QUEEN EFFECT.
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Literally.  "Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying ‘Faster! Faster!’ but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had not breath left to say so.

The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. ‘I wonder if all the things move along with us?’ thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, ‘Faster! Don’t try to talk!’ 

Alice looked round her in great surprise. ‘Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!’

‘Of course it is,’ said the Queen, ‘what would you have it?’

‘Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’

‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.

If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.", from,  Through the Looking Glass. 
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Until I fought through living in a Certificate of Occupancy landscape, the Red Queen, indeed, nailed me, and my small thinking.
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What changed?  I went to the bother of getting another college degree, apparently to learn running faster/smarter kept me in Certificate of Occupancy landscapes.  Crazy.  Time + Money spent learning nonsense?  My heart still hungered for living in a beautiful garden.  Off I went to Europe, no money for it, heart trampling lizard brain.
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Got what I was looking for the first study tour, England, in the first garden.  Will never forget that first epiphany.
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Until that first garden, all my energies & thought processes specified you must stand in the street, looking at the house, to design a garden.  In this madness I was equally complicit with my college professors.
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Realizing, in a moment of intuitive enlightenment, gardens must be designed from inside the home.  Designing your garden from inside the house is more than running twice as fast, it is warp speed, you can feel it. Who's living a Red Queen life now?
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Want the garden, below?  Go inside, start designing.  




Pic, above, here.

The Red Queen is merely an arrow in your quiver, for a Latticework Mental Model.  Oddly, learning the Red Queen effect, drenches everything in life.
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For decades I could not abide topiaried plants, below.  Another madness, with arrogance thrown in.  Too rich, disdain for something I didn't understand.  What is there to understand about topiaried plants?  Easy.  They're easy.  Little maintenance, year round impact.  Another arrow for that quiver called the Latticework Mental Model.  And I thought I was merely learning Garden Design.
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Thanks to Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway, his best way to learn, is with a latticework of mental models, below,
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"Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form.

You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience both vicarious and direct on this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You’ve got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head.

What are the models? Well, the first rule is that you’ve got to have multiple models because if you just have one or two that you’re using, the nature of human psychology is such that you’ll torture reality so that it fits your models, or at least you’ll think it does…

It’s like the old saying, “To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” And of course, that’s the way the chiropractor goes about practicing medicine. But that’s a perfectly disastrous way to think and a perfectly disastrous way to operate in the world. So you’ve got to have multiple models.

And the models have to come from multiple disciplines because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department. That’s why poetry professors, by and large, are so unwise in a worldly sense. They don’t have enough models in their heads. So you’ve got to have models across a fair array of disciplines.

You may say, “My God, this is already getting way too tough.” But, fortunately, it isn’t that tough because 80 or 90 important models will carry about 90% of the freight in making you a worldly wise person. And, of those, only a mere handful really carry very heavy freight."



Pic, above, here.

Wow, no foundation planting, below, or now it can be described, plantings at the house once you've become the Red Queen.  I took the pics, below, in England.  Imagine standing in these gardens, at the house, after a lifetime of USA green meatball landscapes.  Liberating.



Pic, above, here.

My heart was seeking these gardens, instead I received an education in life choices and how to change, adapt, grow.  More than 'feel good' words, they've been codified intellectually by Farnum Street, below.



Pic, above, here.
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The Farnam Street Latticework of Mental Models

Psychology (misjudgments)

Biases emanating from the Availability Heuristic:
– Ease of Recall
– Retrievability

Biases emanating from the Representativeness Heuristic
– Bias from insensitivity to base rates
– Bias from insensitivity to sample size
– Misconceptions of chance
– Regression to the mean
– Bias from conjunction fallacy

Biases emanating from the Confirmation Heuristic
– Confirmation bias
– Bias from anchoring
– Conjunctive and disjunctive-events bias
– Bias from over-confidence 
– Hindsight Bias

Others
– Bias from incentives and reinforcement
– Bias from self-interest
– Bias from association
– Bias from liking/loving
– Bias from disliking/hating
– Commitment and Consistency Bias
– Bias from excessive fairness
– Bias from envy and jealousy
– Reciprocation bias
– Over-influence from authority
– Deprival Super-Reaction Bias
– Bias from contrast
– Bias from stress-influence
– Bias from emotional arousal
– Bias from physical or psychological pain
– Fundamental Attribution Error
– Bias from the status quo
– Do something tendency
– Do nothing tendency
– Over-influence from precision/models
– Uncertainty avoidance
– Not invented here bias
– Short-term bias
– Tendency to avoid extremes
– Man with a Hammer Tendency
– Bias from social proof
– Over-influence from framing effects
– Lollapalooza

Business
– Price Sensitivity
– Scale
– Distribution
– Cost
– Brand
– Improving Returns
– Porters 5 Forces
– Decision Trees
– Diminishing Returns
– Double Entry Accounting

Investing
– Mr. Market
– Circle of competence

Ecology
– Complex adaptive systems
– Systems Thinking

Economics
– Utility
– Diminishing Utility
– Supply and Demand
– Scarcity
– Elasticity
– Economies of Scale
– Opportunity Cost
– Marginal Cost
– Comparative Advantage
– Trade-offs
– Price Discrimination
– Positive and Negative Externalities
– Sunk Costs
– Moral Hazard
– Game Theory
– Prisoners’ Dilemma
– Tragedy of the Commons 
– Bottlenecks
– Time value of Money

Engineering
– Feedback loops
– Redundancy
– Margin of Safety
– Tight coupling
– Breakpoints

Mathematics
– Bayes Theorem
– Power Law
– Law of large numbers
– Compounding
– Probability Theory
– Permutations
– Combinations
– Variability
– Standard Deviation and normal distribution
– Regression to the mean
– Inversion

Statistics
– Outliers and self fulfilling prophecy
– Correlation versus Causation
– Mean, Median, Mode
– Distribution

Chemistry
– Thermodynamics
– Kinetics
– Autocatalysis

Physics
– Newton’s Laws
– Momentum
– Quantum Mechanics
– Critical Mass
– Equilibrium

Biology
– Natural Selection

More Models:
– Asymmetric Information
– Occam’s Razor
– Deduction and Induction
– Basic Decision Making Process
– Scientific Method
– Process versus Outcome
– And then what?
– The Agency Problem
– 7 Deadly Sins
– Network Effect
– Gresham’s Law 
– The Red Queen Effect

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No, I never find garden design boring.  Never.  Ironic the Alice In Wonderland gardens are beautiful, not toxic, help heat/cool the home, improve property value, are less maintenance, and better for our health, and Earth's.  Here's the choice, Certificate of Occupancy garden or Alice In Wonderland garden?  

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If you've read this far, go you, I want to give you a treasured trinity of thinkers.  Farnum Street, Wendell Berry, Christopher Alexander. 

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Girlfriend Pride

When life fell apart, December 1999, I got the memo.  Every dime earned/invested, home, everything, toast.  Oh dear, cliche lived, 'wife is the last to know'.  Whatever.  Did the bible thing, yet 13 years later, still drinking, his car wrecks arrived.  This time, do whatever, leave.  After all I'd had a decade to sow my field.  As the Cherokee say, 'we reap in one decade what we sow in another.'
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Two months after receiving the memo, above, sinking, badly, I got my deer-in-headlight self to a meeting Lois hosted at a local church, focused on helping friends/family of alcoholics.
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A few meetings in, a woman walked thru the door, sat down, and I had instant girl crush.  That night she/I began.  A couple of years passed before I told her my instant girl crush.  She told me, walking into the room, she saw me & knew she had to know me, girl crush for her too.  A couple of years into the meetings a woman I hadn't met shared her story to the group, before she began, I knew, girl crush again, and that nite we started our friendship.  This 'girl crush' thing, about the best thing ever.
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For a decade these 2 women, local Atlantans too, have been my rocks, we share everything.  Mostly, laughter.  Their alcoholic spouses flamed faster than mine, and they divorced before me.  When I asked one how she 'knew' it was time to get her divorce, she paused slightly, and said, "You know the first time you fall in love and you ask someone how-do-you-know-you're-in-love, well, you will know."  Best answer, ever.  I quit obsessing my choices, actions, the bible, and trusted, you-will-know.
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All 3 of us worked hard, got ourselves out of the financial hole the alcoholic threw us in.  Each of us paid for our divorces, none of us got a dime of alimony, we paid bills owed by the alcoholic, yet there is something bigger we each did.  During divorce, each of us bought our own home.  Help from no one.  Family, nor whining in court for the alcoholic to pony up, for a dime.  Freeing the anchor & its chain, leaving them behind, our boats sailed, under our own steam.  No bitterness in this, instead, a rich journey.  I would marry my alcoholic again, just to get so many lessons learned, and having my girlfriends.  Hilarious story, yes?  G*d gave my wasband alcoholism to get me where I am, happy with my life.
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Something unexpected happened to each of us, after divorce, after buying our homes, without planning, something not imagined.  Who knew our stories would get better?  Within a year of each other, we moved from Atlanta.



First girl crush bought a home off the coast of Georgia on a barrier island.  Visited her last month for the first time.  Ironically, she mentioned having let G*d know she was ready to have a man in her life, to share the daily mundane of living.  G*d provided, her father bought a boat, and is now living at a pier near her.  G*d has a huge sense of humor.



My other girlfriend bought a home on the Gulf coast.



I live between my girlfriends, at a large lake, on a small historic farm.



Miss Gulf Coast called the other day, I was in the grocery store, we caught up a bit.  I have not been to her new home yet.  She bought the land, chose the blue prints, hired the general contractor, and built her home herself.  Have seen pics along the way.  Don't know when but I will be in her home before summer's end.



All pics from The Style Saloniste.

These women are my team, my family.  We did it.  Without trying.  It has been, always, one-day-at-a-time.  Everyday with laughter.  It's odd, in my new farm house, ca. 1900, it feels like living someone else's life.  Miss Barrier Island said the same thing.  We are floating.  Alas, 'father' is literally floating at the pier.  We didn't see that coming.  Beloved thinks he's the coolest man EVER.
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Jeff, at one of Lois's meetings, said, "I can't think myself into better actions, but I can take actions to make my life better."
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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Since it's tax day a bit of tax advice if you're married to an alcoholic flaming out.  Do not sign a joint return.  You will be liable for everything, past/present, if alcoholic walks away.  IRS can legally come after you, and will, for all their unpaid taxes and penalties.  When I got my memo I never signed another joint return.  Would not have been able to buy my home, and would have lost all my savings, again, if I had.
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Credit card experience immediately after the memo.  Blessedly I had no credit cards with my alcoholic spouse.  However, my name was on one of his maxed cards, but I was not an 'obligor'.  Saved money for a year to hire an attorney.  I had designed her garden years ago, and liked her demeanor.  It took months to get my name off the card.  She called monthly with updates.  My fear grew at the expense.  But I had to get off that card.  Finally, I was legally off.  If I had not done this, I could not have bought my home, debt on that card, entirely his, would have wiped me out.  Back to my attorney.  Told her, when she called of her winning news, to send the invoice.  Without hesitation she said, "I'm not charging you anything, this was a pleasure for me."  Then her story poured out.  When I designed her garden, she had just divorced her alcoholic spouse.  Much later, she remarried and moved out-of-state.  I designed that garden too.  Alas, last year, her beloved husband died.....
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Little did I know the sisterhood of help that would cleave to me, in great love, and joy, consistently arriving, consistently.
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When a girlfriend, a couple of years ago, had alcoholic spouse issues, I was able to offer her a home to live in, her own space, no charge.  She didn't take the offer, but it felt awesome to offer.  Years before this, I had a girlfriend offer me a home to live in, no rent.  I know what that offer feels like on the receiving end.
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Here I am, with Beloved, in our new home.  We've, mostly Beloved, been working the back acres, and finally this summer, I can begin my acre, nearest the house.  I can begin my acre, nearest the house.  I'm gardening.

Changes: You be the Designer

The first, known, gay friend I ever had was working a Garden Center in the 80's.  Most days my stomach ached when I got home, it hurt from laughing so much.  "He" was most of the reason, along with the rest of our perfecto team.  Of course our Garden Center won major awards, we all pulled our weight, and it was fun.  You haven't lived until you've unloaded 18-wheeler trucks from Florida, on  hot summer southern afternoons, full of plants and a few snakes.
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Will never forget "Him" saying, "Oh no honey, I wasn't born gay, it happened when I joined the Navy !"  Then dancing away.  Mostly he never walked away, he danced away.
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"He" was so good at Garden Design, excepting, knowing when to stop.  Whenever he created a display we all sighed in disbelief at its magic, but then he didn't know when to stop.  We waited till he clocked out, then removed a lot of ingredients, exposing the magic again.  The next day, seeing what we did, he'd be miffed, but ignore it, with the most hilarious rat-faced expression.
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I love the garden, below, but the plants at the front porch look like "Him" before the reduction.  We would have taken the plants to the right of the step OUT.  And added more stone steps along the front.
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Pics, above/below, here.
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But you already knew that about plantings at this front porch, right?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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With the porch plantings, above, you're caged in.  Remove the plantings, freedom, and flow reign.  See more pics of this beautiful home, interior/exterior, here, it's worth it.  Also, note the caption written for this same picture in the original article.  I hear AC/DC, B-A-D.  Captions should take the narrative of an article/picture, and add another layer.
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I show 'Changes' pics because it's how I learn best.  Hope you realize I'm not bashing this home/garden, in the least.  Heart on my sleeve with gardens.....

A Civilized Garden

Lilly is my tax accountant.  We met yesterday morning, last of everything done, filed.  Go us.  Her office is a sweet little house, ca. 1930, renovated for her work.  Believing in a spoon-full-of-sugar I made an appointment afterward to finally peruse the huge antique shop on the main street, a former dry goods business built prior to the Civil War.  Yes, I bought a couple of things.
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A farm stand with homemade soups/sandwiches/teas/cookies, around the corner, was part of that appointment.  Wanted to stop there since moving in almost a year ago, 1st time was the charm.  Eating on their front terrace filled with plants & willow furniture I was able to check email and return calls.  Then a text from a client, her garden on the way to my afternoon appointment.  How amazing, I could answer her text in person.  Leaving the farm stand I bought a frozen quart of homemade chicken/sausage gumbo for dinner and stopped by home to put in fridge.
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The afternoon appointment was graciously easy, the client lives in NYCity, and was not at her farm, the timing flexible.  Since moving to the country all of my pedicures have been well past their sell-by-date.  The salon is near the copy shop where I had to pick up construction drawings for another client.  At the print shop I discovered the lady who most often helps me is from California, and her father, now in his 80's, was a gardener for movie stars.  Designing, installing, maintaining.  Cannot wait to learn more about his work as time passes.  Pedicure acquired, construction drawings secured.
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Stopping at the client who texted, we had time to walk/talk her garden, with her young daughters & dog Lilac too.  Then we all walked a few houses away to her neighbor who had offered her his custom tree house that his children had outgrown.  Beyond perfect.  Of course it is up in the trees.  Cannot wait to see how this is figured out, without destroying the tree house.  Once moved, it will be renovated into a chicken coop.  Another, go us !
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Her daughters were whittling sticks at a patio table on the gravel terrace off the kitchen when I arrived.  Youngest daughter had a pocket knife just like the one I carry.  Dad gave it to me over a decade ago.  She asked to investigate my knife.  Quickly she pulled a small pair of tweezers from it.  Quite rich, 1st time it was ever removed, had zero clue it was there.  Dad would have enjoyed this, he's been gone 4 years.
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After finishing homemade rhubarb tea it was time to check construction at Miss New York's farm.  I was sent packing with fresh asparagus from the garden, and a slice of cake.  Perfect for dinner with the gumbo.  
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Beloved phoned, he was near.  We could meet at the old cemetery and then start Miss New York's 2 mile driveway thru the woods.  There had been a bit of a 'panic' call, last Friday, from the ASID working inside the house about how her steps were landing into the garden.  Beloved shot the level, I told him my vision for the stone steps coming up to the ASID steps from the new side porch.  All is good.  No 'panic' necessary.
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Guess who was not thrilled with gumbo for dinner?  Beloved.  He felt guilty about it too.  Both of us garden dirty, him more than me, he suggested eating out.  We did.  Girasoles, in Watkinsville.  Glad it's in Watkinsville, not our little farm town.  It's too good.
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This wasn't all of my day, but enough to share.  Amazingly, this is the first day since we moved, about 10 months ago, life feels 'civilized', again.  Work schedule & our farm have been in charge of everything.  Their demands rigid.  Knocked off my feet.  Yesterday, I stood up.
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Before leaving Lilly I asked what she had blooming in her garden.  Her answer, exactly expected.  Left her with a hand written list of flowering shrubs, a succession throughout the year.  Today, will email her nurseries where she can find them.  I make gardens wherever I go.  It's my job.
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Pic, above, garden by Robert Broekema.
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Close to what we've started to construct/plant at our farm, above.  Quite civilized, yes?  Finally, getting a garden back in my life.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara  

Copy Valentino

Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.  Check the ego, earn your Cheshire Cat smile, once realizing, there is no such thing as copy-exactly, each site is unique, hence the algorithm proves you a genius, each time you copy.
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Valentino, below.  Yes, 'that' Valentino.  More than clothes, his gardens.  At his home outside Paris, Château de Wideville, below.  In your garden, you are safe to copy anything Valentino does.  After all, it's the exact method Valentino uses, copy-copy-copy.
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Catching a hint of Furlow Gatewood, below, in Valentino's garden?  It's no accident the pots, below, have cone shaped evergreens contrasting with the weeping focal point.  Classic Garden Design.



Garden Design course, below, moving from formal at the house, to less formal, and though not in the photo, below, I know a Wild Wood ends the progression.



" at the Love Ball, the estate got a fairy tale makeover courtesy of famed set designer Alexandre de Betak, who created a magical, Dr. Zhivago-inspired mise-en-scène. Bryan Ferry performed, and guests such as Carine Roitfeld, Stella Tennant and Daphne Guinness were treated to a unique fashion show featuring one-of-a-kind dresses from 45 international designers. Mistress of ceremonies Anne Hathaway wore Valentino, of course. ", from, pics too, Valentino Garavani Museum.    

Why didn't I think of this?  A Dr. Zhivago-inspired mise-en-scene themed garden party?  And, every bit a tax deduction.  What I would really like to know, is how they mow perfect stripes, below, at the stone focal point.  Do they move it ahead of mowing?  Amusing, I really don't know how they do it.



Wish we all had Valentino's gardeners, in our own garden.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Furlow Gatewood, below, just in case you missed the iconic shot.
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Pic, above, Veranda.

Subdivision vs. Manor Home Landscape

Subdivision home vs. Manor home landscaping.
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Do you see both within the landscape, below?  Which elements are the manor home plantings, which elements are the subdivision plantings?
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Easy change, below, to go from USA gated subdivision plantings to historic European manor home.



Pic, above, here.
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Once you 'see' the change, above, and understand 'why' the change, you won't/can't ever go back to this moment, not knowing what is off-kilter, above.  More, you'll realize how much easier, and affordable, historic manor house gardening is and why it's more than 'gardening' but an intellectual pursuit within your quiver of life skills.  The gift of stewardship vs. amusement, conviction with humility.
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Replace annuals in the pot with a simple mushroom top evergreen, matching what is already in the garden.  Replace annuals at the door with another row of evergreens, matching what is already in the garden.  Done.
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Annuals, above, are vestiges of ca. 1983 high-end apartment complexes across Atlanta, GA.  Still a beautiful garden design conceit, for that niche.
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Historic manor house gardening is the ultimate status symbol, and eco, and sustainable.  If you like eco/sustainable you don't even want to think thru the footprint of cell-pack annuals upon this dear sweet Earth.
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Garden & Be Well, XOT
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Why the drama of conviction with humility?  Remember well, in my early 20's, degreed engineer, no horticulture degree yet, and heading to the garden center with a mission, I was going to buy flowers & a few bushes, come home and plant everything, creating the best landscape ever seen by mankind.  My heart/efforts were in such earnest, what else but smiling in memory?  That garden?  Worst ever seen by mankind.  The 1st major humbling in my life.  Humility arrived, thick, upon that garden lesson, I had wanted my pretty garden so badly, THAT DAY, instead, whooped by a mere horrendous garden.  Oh my the humor of it.
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1st visit to many of my clients thru the years?  There is so much laughter.  Bearing witness to conviction without humility.  It's human nature, to begin gardening with conviction, humility not upon the horizon.

Front Door: A Course in Beautifully Scaled Details

Off the edge of perfect, below, beyond perfect.
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Have never understood the predilection for oversized lights at a front door.  Studying historic gardens across Europe for decades, diminutive lighting, compared to USA, is the memo.
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Tara Turf, below, to the foundation.  Alone, enough to instigate a nastygram from any HOA.  Here's the deal with Tara Turf, it's a rich way to live, according to Providence.  And me.
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Opulent patina, not pressure washed away, on the walls, below.



Pic, above, here.
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Who knew I would ever think a collection of little green meatballs was charming?  Indeed, these are.  Here, they are a whimsical pun.  You already thought the same thing, right?
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The pair of small spheres.  Swoon.  Their plinths, double swoon.
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Notice the climbing roses?  Not the physical plant but what they do for the design.  Taking very little space, espaliered, they give maximum lush.
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Tiny gravel, above, color of the house, drifting into most-of-a-circle tiny flagstone, again colored to the house, terrace.  With no edging between gravel/plants or gravel/flagstones.  Your already picked up on this huge detail, edging, right?
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Enfilade, above, is something we have at our ca. 1900 American farmhouse.  Ours, 80' long, with heart of pine floor, I'll have to figure out how to get the shot, we even have the trees in back, but our pond is behind the trees.
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Our house, now, has a small gravel parking court in front, we kept the previous owner's half-round of bricks at the front steps.  Unbelievable, the vernacular language is the same, this home, above, and ours.
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This front door, above, says the most important thing, "Welcome."  And, "You want to come inside, this house is interesting, the people who live here I want to know and see more, the garden, and....."
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Beloved is a pressure washing fool.  One of these days, at present I leave the premises when he pressure washes, I will stand my ground, and instead of crime scene tape outlining a body on the ground, Beloved will pressure wash around my body on the wall of our home.  If this were our home, above, I know his pressure washer would have something 'wrong' with it each time he tries to use it.  Buy a new one?  It would have something 'wrong', always, too.