Decadence at Garden Entry

The first time I arrived to Penny's drive, below, my car stopped as the hydrangeas lay heavy either side my hood.  Had to stop.  To take in what was happening.  More than greeting my arrival, I was being caressed.
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Garden Design's decadent greeting.
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Creating entryways in a garden, perhaps the most overlooked necessity.  Early into serious Garden Design study it was obvious, the more entry ways a garden has the better a garden is.
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Penny took it to new layers.


Pic, above, here.


 

If you've read my missives for a length of time, you know exactly what to do next.  Copy.
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Entry into my backyard, above, entry into my frontyard, below.  Hello.



Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Pics of my garden, above, taken in my previous 30 year cottage garden.  Penny founded the American Hydrangea Society, and the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival in Douglasville, GA is a huge annual success.

What's Missing from this Front Porch?

Sitting on the front porch swing, below, yesterday before dinner.
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Furnishings are functional, still not 'permanent' after moving here 2 years ago.  Awaiting back deck staining & building a conservatory, both may pull furniture from front porch.  Until then, no worries, I like using the front porch.    Floor, below, still needs staining.
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Chair, at front door, below, leverages me coming/going from my car for work and grocery, always something to set down.  Better, that chair has the best packages delivered upon it.  Moving in, a friend told me, because I was now in middle of nowhere, You've got to get amazon prime.  Never considered that a need.  Now rural, it's a need.
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3 ceiling fans are a need.  Rural insects dine upon livestock patties, growing to impressive sizes, while having a higher IQ than their city counterparts.  They're born knowing my name, where I live, and adoring my hide.  Worse, they love going for car rides.  
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Notice what is missing below?
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Huge.
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Ironic for a Garden Designer, yet a point of particular pride.



Posted this pic, above, on my facebook yesterday.  Asking same question, What's Missing?  Got a quick answer from hilarious source.
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Surprisingly got answers that I wasn't looking for, but were true answers.  People are rarely a component of my Garden Design photos.  During my formative era, Garden Design photos rarely had people in them.  But there was a stronger reason for having no people.  Money.  With a roll of slide film, I could only afford usable pics that would last decades.  People & cars date a garden pic.
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Still life pulls me greatly.  Interior/exterior.  An invitation to enter.  Someone noticed that too.  A+ to him, he left me a bit stunned, as if he'd found a 'secret' !
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That friend knowing immediately what's missing, above, was the daughter-in-law of my former boss.  Her father-in-law owned the nursery/florist I worked for doing propagation work for 2.5 years.  Learned much from her father-in-law, and always enjoyed seeing him at industry events for decades.  A good man, gone many years.  Now, she & her husband own that nursery.  It's obvious what's missing right?  Plants.
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Not to that layer yet, excitedly anticipating growing small topiaries in terra cotta pots, a Bunny Mellon layer, and in a funny twist, interesting begonias.  A particular begonia from a friend's grandmother's plant, and here's the twist, that nursery I worked at as a propagator has an outstanding variety of old fashioned begonias.
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Until the plant layer arrives, I'm enjoying the anticipation.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Gabion Walls

Gabion wall, below, taming a slope.



Pic, above, here.


 

Gabion wall, above/below, total environment creation.  Outside the wall, intersection of 2 dusty roads & industrial views.



Isn't it wonderful seeing 'smart' !  More, the arbor, above, probably the variation Beloved & I will use at the back of our home.
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We ate at this restaurant just outside Progresso, Yucatan, above, after visiting the Mayan ruins at Dzibilchaltun last week.  Aside from known Mexican beers, they made, on site, 9 IPA's.  I had their Belgian Blonde Ale.  The food?  Terrible having such a good meal, and IPA, knowing nothing like it back home.
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The restroom zone had a wall of windows, with views into more gabion walls.  Wildly effective, using what's at hand, limestone.  As if the restaurant merely arose from the ground.  A mentor, Mary Kistner, said it best, It's what we do with what we have.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

How Exterior Color Travels Between Continents

Leaving Merida, Yucatan, below, a few days ago.
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Really?
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Yellow walls & a cantaloupe ceiling.
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Alas, there are a few things to know about exterior colors from one continent to another.
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Color, and how the eyes take it in, is affected by where the color is on the globe.  More, local soil,  vegetation, & humidity heavily affect how exterior colors 'look'.  Yucatan is a lot of limestone, and humidity with dusty white particulates floating in air, tons landing on plants.
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Here's what I know for sure about the cantaloupe ceiling, below.  Getting this exact cantaloupe paint color for my ca. 1900 farmhouse will not produce what I see, below.  Light is refracted differently at my longitude/latitude and Georgia red clay particulates float in air, refract from the ground, and land on plantings.  More, Georgia flora grows much taller than in Merida, another factor affecting how colors look.
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Then there are the clouds.  How clouds filter color must be considered too.
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So. This exact cantaloupe ceiling, below, is as much a trip memory as the lunch we had on the drive to Merida.  Unique.  Can't get this at home.



Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Porch Ceiling Blue

Front porch today.  Still life.  Calm.  Gardenesque.  Faces east.
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Bench hasn't been there long, yet already seen lots of use.  Bench & plant stand moved with me from my previous garden, surviving the great purge of Cottage Garden to historic ca. 1900 farmhouse.
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Ceiling has only been blue since Christmas'ish.  Huge surprise once painted.  It's gorgeous from inside the house, looking into the garden.  A good transition.  No, too small, a happy transition.  I had a narrow consideration ahead of painting, from the street inward, or in photos.  Pea brain.  Adore a good surprise in Garden Design.  This qualifies, big.
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Don't paint a porch ceiling blue for how it looks, paint it blue for how it lives.
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Looks vs. Lives.  A new pair.  Balances a favorite pair, Sacred vs. Profane.



Stain, Cabot, Driftwood Gray, solid cover, has already been bought for the floor.
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Time & money getting to simple is a grown-up dry humor.  Friend texted me pic yesterday of her lovely new gravel path, she shoveled into place with her young daughters, signing off with, hvac $12,000.00 just put in.  
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Who sells those T-shirts?  Owner: New Roof $.......   New Insulation $.......     New Car Tires $.........    New Washer/Dryer $.........  New HVAC $.......  New Windows $......  etc.  And, all of that is the normal good stuff in life.  Yep, quite the dry humor.
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More is the victory of a new gravel garden path, or simple still life.
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Filthy lucre.
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A woman said to our historic garden design tour director, in France, what a bother it was to get xyz done in the garden.  Without pausing he said, "Sex is a bother and we don't mind."  She had no follow up comment.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Two Client Stories

Last Friday I walked to our little post office, picked up mail, and waited in line to send a package.  Waiting not an inconvenience in our small rural town.  We know our postwoman, and most in line ahead of us, if that ever happens.  A time to catch up on 'news' or better, gossip.
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I noticed a personal envelope in my hand from a couple I've worked for almost 20 years.  It had to be an invitation, some sort of garden party.  They've always included me that way.
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Instead, I read the typed/copied note, and had to pause, read it again.  Mr. Smith died unexpectedly, his memorial service is....
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Note to self, Wait till you get home to read any future personal notes.



Pic, above, here.
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A few hours later Beloved received a phone call.  Mr. Jones, a longtime friend of his, he had done a lot of work for Mr. Jones over the span of 3 decades, I met Mr. Jones 4 years ago, designing their new backyard/swimming pool, was murdered.  Worse, Mr. Jones's 31 year old son is in jail and charged in the murder.
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Two widows in 2 beautiful homes, surrounded by beautiful gardens.  Children, grandchildren losing their father, grandfather.  Both men, bigger than life, literally pillars of their community, and so much more.
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Beloved had a surprise blow-out birthday party Saturday.  He knew something was up, said he wanted everything called off.  No party.  For several hours early Saturday, Beloved was on the phone with various men friends, Beloved crying, and I heard everyone one of those men crying.  Too late for the party, that show was going to happen.  Several at the party were grieving their mutual friend.  Magic happened.  Their spirits lifted.  The party Beloved dreaded, became a salvation, for those grieving.  The large downtown church was standing room only yesterday.  Later, after the graveside service, we spoke with friends about how the Saturday party truly helped the grieving.
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At the church service something said about Beloved's friend, was a beacon of lite about a seemingly insignificant fact.  Mr. Jones had 130 employees.  Every 2 weeks when their checks were cut, Mr. Jones always signed each check, never accepted the suggestion for rubber stamping them.  Mr. Jones was signing those checks in gratitude, and in prayer for each name on the checks.  Stewardship.
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I could not go to my other client's memorial service, it was the day of Beloved's party.  Have sent his widow a note snail mail.  Will call her soon.  Tough call, but I wouldn't not call for anything.  Selfishly, wanting to know that beacon of lite about her incredible husband.
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Have the same memory of both men, while working for them.  When they asked me questions, walking in their garden, their eyes would be piercing, and the left ear cocked, not wanting to miss a word.  More, they each did everything I designed.  They got that memo too.  Know the memo?  When you're outside your scope of talent, hire an expert, then, most importantly, do what they say.  I was in my 30's getting that memo.  Better late than never.
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Oddly, got the memo about stewardship 5 years ago, really late in life, from the oddest source, my 8 heirloom chickens.  They had finally grown large enough in their garage pin with heat lamp, to put into their big girl Chinoiserie style coop in the garden.  Everything was fun-fun-isn't-life-grand until I closed the coop door and walked away the 1st time.  What had I done?  What if something happens to them?  I'm responsible for them.  This is awful.  A few hours later it sunk in, caring for my chics, and garden are a privilege, washing-of-the-servants-feet.  
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

A Fine Prospect

Last of the Piedmont, below, heading into the Coastal Plain.  Earlier this month Beloved helped me place my 6' teak bench.  She had been a garden focal point for years, later, placed in my Conservatory for a couple of years, then I moved.  Now, she's subtle, purposefully insignificant, a perch for this fine prospect, below.



Look close, below, and you'll see her.



Invasives were impenetrable when we bought the property.  Getting to the pond not an option.  Beloved hacked a trail immediately upon closing on the property.  For months we thought the far side of the pond was the end of our land.  We discussed offering to buy more land from that owner.  Then we got a survey.  Great news, we already owned a nice amount of land behind the pond.  A bottle of champagne had been in the fridge far too long.  We toasted our good news.
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Last weekend was full, by early Sunday evening I was craving solitude, wildly.  My DNA spoke, Get yourself back to the pond bench.  Six feet long, I sat in a corner of my bench, cradled by an arm & back.  Old friend, you came to me as a Christmas gift from a pair I loved, now gone, how was I to know it would be just you & me, and you would give an embrace of solace?
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Pic, above, here.
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Beloved found me on the bench, he had ridden in on the Gator.  Sat next to me for a few very short minutes, said a few things about clearing the growing underbrush.  He finally became aware of my face, above, and drove away.
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Not an introvert, he will never understand my need for solitude, but he did understand my eyes, leaving me to harvest my riches.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Annuals: Easily Have Them or Not at All

Great lip service is given to the quote, "I want my garden to be low maintenance."  What follows that request, as a professional listening to a new client, is the full monty destroying their request for low maintenance.
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I want to look out the windows of my home and the garden views, each and every one, are, "Oh wow."  More,  I want to enjoy myself in my garden.  You know, "Come for lunch this Friday, we'll have lunch in the garden."  In a few days it will be Saturday.  Zero thoughts contemplating garden chores, instead, "Should be a good Saturday to sit in the Adirondack overlooking lake, woodland, chickens, and begin reading my new book that arrived last month."
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About garden chores.  The few I do have are not 'chores', instead they are the gift of stewardship in partnership with Nature.  Best metaphor-come-to-life, to me, for washing-of-the-servant's-feet.  'Gift' is too small in scope, an honor.
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Back to low maintenance gardening.  A garden to be enjoyed, below.


Pic, above, here.

Colorful annuals have their place.  Somehow they've become the go-to-must-have landscape design ingredient.  Before epiphany, stewardship-not-chores, I knew if a residential landscape design 'needed' annuals, the design was a failure.  Commercial landscape design is another beast entirely.  Yet, thought thru, even they don't need annuals swapped 2x yearly.

 
Pic, above, here.

If you want annuals in your garden, above/below, fabulous method to make it easier.  Before eco/sustainable, having worked professional propagation for years, I knew how toxic the annual flower industry is to Earth.  Packaged soil, wooden pallets shrink wrapped with goods, plastic plug trays, plastic hoop houses, heating/cooling, fungicides, insecticides, pre-emergents, trucking/transportation, mulching.  Nope, nothing eco/sustainable there.  Instead, self-seeding annuals are my choice, if needed at all.
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Pic, above, here.
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Annuals could go into the garden, below.  But they don't 'have' to.

 
Pic, above, here.
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And the conceit of low maintenance, above, in this garden flows around the entire property, below.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Great use of colorful annuals, below.  You are in charge of adding the color, as needed, not the garden with a swath of dead annuals due to a change in season.

 
Pic, above, here.
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I'm giving a garden talk in April, they requested a certain title, Color in the Garden for Sun/Shade.  Sure I'll do some annuals, don't want to alienate any newbies.  Remember, stewardship.  In addition, I will include plenty of color used historically, green.  My hope is to widen horizons.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Tabled Pot Cluster: Simple Beauty

Always a good day, learning something new.  Pot cluster in terra cotta drew my eye, then saw the scalloped metal trays to catch water.  They seem to be from the kitchen, a tart tin?
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Where I would like to place a table top pot cluster, front porch or back deck, both have same issue.  Living rural, winds across pastures are a 'thing'.


Pic, above, here.

Great table for a pot cluster, below.  Learned long ago how to keep the wood from rotting.  Do you already know too?  Brush boiled linseed oil on it once a year.  Once Beloved has his pole barn built, I take ownership of a delightful shed with double, large lean-to tin roofs, one facing east, the other west.  Each side will have a pot cluster on a table, with a rolling barn door built of conservatory windows, blocking pasture winds.  Toad of Toad Hall was never more joyful in an adventure, or planning in his garden, than I, and this little shed.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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One table in my garden, a harvest table made of historic tobacco barn wood, receiving fierce winds, I will use large pots, above.  And, in the category of living a simple life with a fabulous garden I know exactly what choice morsels to plant in them.
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Big impact, little input.  Every layer of my garden, its full narrative, has rent to pay.  Don't pay the rent, you're gone.  What's the rent?  It must make me happy.  Needy for attention, not beautiful, don't tell a story, too much down time, poof, voila, gone-gone.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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“Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.” 
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Deep Future Planting

Yesterday, walking the sidewalks in our tiny historic district, I was stopped in my tracks.  Curiosity at first, then, seeing it was 'real', a remembered line came to mind, "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot."   And, I did see, hands long gone from Earth, giving me, and anyone who sees, a gift.  The gift?  Beauty.  Joy.  Camelot in the present tense.  Not least, a memory of those particular hands once toiling in soil.  In return, I gave thanks, to all of that.
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Made me realize, I must hop on it, in our garden.  Planting for the future, the future I won't see.
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Daffodils are my choice, the historic daffodils of Wordsworth.  And, after yesterday's gift, white iris.
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Both are deer proof, drought tolerant and live for decades and decades more.



Faint but enough of a hint, above, I didn't see it either until walking close.




First thought, above, a wind blown tissue.  Closer view, a white iris.  Through time and Nature, that iris gave its message.  The original house is gone from this property.  Judging its trees, the home was late 19th century.  Contemporaneous with several other homes in our historic district.
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Visiting mom on Galveston Bay, where I was raised, during my morning walks I always wend by the many Georgia loblolly pine trees my father planted as seedlings in the early 60's through out the neighborhood.  They are too large for me to get my arms around.  Amazingly, they've survived several hurricanes and floods.  Salt water flooding.
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Dad would stop the white wall tires of our 4 door white Buick Electra 225, with blue brocade interior, loaded with 2 kids, Puppet our toy poodle, and Argyle our standard poodle, along an empty Georgia 2 lane road, gather pine tree seedlings, wrapping them in any type of paper on hand in the car.  Back home I would tag along as he planted them, topping out at maybe, 2" - 3" tall.  How could I know then he was planting such a gift for me now?  The now that includes him not here.
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Ironically, I had already thought white iris must go into this garden, so many thrive throughout our county.  Grand proof, deer won't bother them.
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Next time I go to Galveston Bay I'll offer my Camelot quote in thanks at each of those pine 'seedlings'.  Yeah, I got this life memo !  Gratitude for those moments with dad, still alive.
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Curious, what's good in your zone, to plant into the deep future?
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Color: Parts Department Overhaul

Today, yesterday also, and rest of the week, our parts department is awaiting paint.  Finally.  Amazingly, I keep finding chairs/tables to tote over to the menagerie.  This phase is metal.  Colors you see, below, robin's egg blue, from my previous 30 year garden, oak leaf green, from a flower show display festival garden I created, and the brown chairs are newbies from Restore, $5 each and the best quality chairs in the pic.  Soon, hodge-podge-lodge will be the same green already used on the shed doors of our ca. 1900 farmhouse.  Historic Garden Design Rule: Choose a Color Trinity, overdose on that theme, green-white-brown is the classic, but go with whatever your heart speaks.
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Major land renovations put this phase low on the list, exciting to finally be here.  The chaos has scrambled my brain.  What is the line from Beetlejuice, "I will go insane, and take you with me."



Choosing our green, below, last year was unexpected.  We were at Lowe's, Beloved turns and says, Get a color for the exterior doors.  Yes, the man thinks I can pull the right color from my quiver within 10 seconds.  Not my first rodeo, I knew he needed 'choices'.  Grabbed a few color chips, went back/forth inside/outside, gave him choices, voila, Ginkgo Tree, below.



Last weekend, below, the cedar & teak furniture was stained Ginkgo Tree.



Where I'm headed, below.  A return to sanity.


Pic, above, Penelope Bianchi's garden, slide show here.

Beloved built this deck last year, it's cured and ready for stain.  When we bought the property almost 2 years ago invasives were so thick the lake was not visible.  Yes, Beloved did all the clearing and burn piles.  Easier to understand why painting is low on The List.



(Laskett at right, above.  He's my CEO, and knows it.  Laura was conceived and born in my previous garden, she's my sprite. )
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We're matching the back deck to our historic front porch.  Flooring, Cabot, Driftwood Gray, solid cover, same as shingles, below.  Rails, Cabot, Thatch, similar, but better, to garage doors, below.  Thatch is new to me.  A client's interior decorator used it for the interiors of an enclosed porch I designed.  (Always a good day getting a new color trinity, especially one working with a 'historic' look.)  Beloved was not sold on Thatch with my descriptions, nor laptop or phone pics.  Took him to the client's site, sold.
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Happy for this chapter to turn.  Do take the Penelope Bianchi link, you'll love it, promise.
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Did you notice the garden furniture is Field Gathered?  No worries, color brings it into focus, aka, stopping the insanity.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Controlling an Unsightly View in the Garden

Almost 2 years in our ca. 1900 farmhouse, the pantry still has issues.  Two rotting shelf boards were replaced and the entire pantry painted, but beyond that point of necessity, work remains.
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Another issue, is the pantry window & its view.  Living historically, includes being close to the road & hugging a property line.  Next door is our neighbor in his ca. 1890 home.  



Meet our neighbor, below.  An evergreen tapestry hedge has been planted, drip irrigation, and we've already pruned hard last summer, will do a last hard prune, making them flush full and fast this spring.  A mix of tea olive, holly, azalea, hydrangea, anise.  Not chosen or designed, left over from a mix of jobs.  A friendship path for neighborly walk thru was put in, and used often.






Three years ago, never imagining I would move from my 30 year Cottage Garden, I found a toile linen curtain panel.  Custom made.  Junking, $5.






Now, still adoring my neighbor, above, I only see magnificent aspects of his garden.  Once the hedge is grown, it's evergreen, the toile curtain will probably be taken away.  What's not to love about a tapestry hedge blooming throughout the year along a gravel drive, capped with century old trees & sky?
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Every bit of this mundane story, a truth, currently, for all my garden views.  Looking up, until renovations higher on the priority list are completed.  Patience.  Learning too, more specifically what I moved away from.  Simple, potent, joy of walking thru my home and feeling the love of a garden pouring into the windows.  A friend, a loving friend.   I don't stay there, I stay in my new chapter, it's exciting, joy is different, but no less, joy.
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The pantry is large enough to put a cot in for an emergency guest room, has its own window, door, lighting, with 11' ceiling.  From 1st seeing the pantry, I've wanted to lay on the floor with a comfy pillow and read.  Undisturbed.  Nap a bit, wake, read some more.  While waiting for the garden I must really give myself at least 1 pantry afternoon.
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At this juncture, Beloved would point out a huge gap, no fantasy for stocking the pantry & cooking a great meal.  His point larger than mentioned so far.  Our house has a 2nd kitchen.  My gardening never lessens, merely increases in scope.  That 2nd kitchen will make a fabulous floral arranging stage.
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Books I would bring into the pantry?  GARDEN books.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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We were probably the 1st owner in over 50 years to remove every layer of contact paper lining the pantry shelves.  Two of the boards, once exposed, disintegrated into tiny pulp fibers.  Never seen anything like it.  How had they been holding the previous owner's provisions !  Need to source a wood step ladder, put rarely used things on the top 2 tiers of shelving.  Perhaps the better choice is to leave those shelves empty, take more stuff to thrift store.