Create Geometry with Faux Geometry

Within the past month, minding my own business, living in middle rural Georgia, 2 local women, they don't know each other, hired me.  One of the women found me on Houzz, the other thru her builder.
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Both women, and their spouses, have targeted specialty careers, heavy with international travel.   Heavy, for decades.  Both women hired me with strong intent.  A French garden.  Not an American version of French gardens, French.
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Attention to detail inside their homes, not French inspired, French.  Neither woman has hesitated to fill a container, while in France thru the years, and ship it home.
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At one of those gardens, before getting out of my service van at the first visit, I knew faux geometry would be used with major hedges, allees, axis.  Ironic, much can be manipulated, but the property lines, and roads, cannot.  Enter, faux geometry.



Pic, above, here.
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At the front end of faux geometry, especially if you've never heard of it, the concept feels 'wrong'.  Faux geometry is not taught in school, nor have I heard it mentioned at any seminar/class/article.  Faux geometry was learned, on-the-job.  Once learned, it's a sense of magic.


 
Pic, above, here.
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Collateral to faux geometry is a lecture attended decades ago, Sir Roy Strong, and his wife, came to Atlanta.  His garden, The Laskett, has since been bequeathed after he's gone, to live in perpetuity as a public garden.  Of course you can guess my cat's name?  Laskett.  Even Laskett's new vet, moving rural 2 years ago, asked about Laskett's name.  And the vet is from Scotland, educated in England.
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At that lecture, all these decades later, I still hear Sir Roy Strong say, "If you have an irregularly spaced area, put a geometric shape in it."  Game changing sentence.  Faux geometry I had to learn on my own.
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In the renderings, above/below, there are geometric garden rooms, within irregular spaces, and further, faux geometry within several of the geometric garden rooms.  Staying with this?  Got it?
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Garden Design with pixie dust.  A pair of arrows for your quiver.



Pic, above, here.
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Once my pair of 'French' ladies have their gardens installed, I'll match-make them.
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Renderings, above, created by French garden designer, Dominique Lafourcade.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Not my job to tell you how to dig a planting hole, my job is telling you where.  More, if you truly want to know how to design your garden, geometry and faux geometry are a pair of major keys to that realm.

Managing Ugly

For decades, at the front end of a design, a singular object has stood ready to go to the thrift store.  Yet remains, a scene stealing debacle of ugly.
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Most often the quick maneuver is to place it beside a seating group, as a large end table.
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You know what I'm talking about now, yes?


Pic, above, here.
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The large round table.  I know why they stay well beyond their past due date.  Not easy to get a large round table into a vehicle to tote to thrift store, awkward to tote to end of drive for garbage day.  Hoping of course your trash is someone else's treasure before the garbage man arrives.
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A round ugly table, draped with cloth, a winner.  Go team.  Great contrast, above, draped table, and stone table.  Iron chairs with rattan/wicker.
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Completely outside?  I know the cloth will rot, it has a healthy couple of years before dying.  During the 80's a not-brilliant wholesale grower use a type of burlap infused with plastic.  Discovery only made years later, when plants began dying, unable to break thru their plasticized burlap root ball.  Quite sad.  However, that plasticized burlap would be perfect outside over any ugly table.  Oh, to find it now.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Layers of Nuance in a Stone Wall

Perhaps for a party, below, the pair of potted hydrangeas?  Love of hydrangeas, past president of the American Hydrangea Society, here, the beauty of meadow, woodland, and sloping hills are too great, to me, to stop the eye with potted hydrangeas.
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Well before these thoughts, there was conversation, deeper, about how to cap the stone wall at entry to meadow-woodland-sloping hills.  Did you already notice that delightful, well constructed, expert nuance?  More, the strong choice made.  Beyond subtle, yet their minds didn't stop with the cap on the wall.
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Did you see that too?  I'll go slow.  Wanting your eyes/brain/heart to see, on its own.


Pic, above, here.
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Hope it sails a thousand ships.
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Quite a sure hand with stone capping, all at the same height.  Yet the crescendo accelerates.  Imperceptibly, the pair of hydrangeas rest upon stone 'columns'.  Notice their slight corners blending into the wall?
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Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
  

Color: Minimal Use Maximum Impact

Small gesture, grand statement, below.


Pic, above, here.
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Gardens, above, templated since BCE.  Long before.  Tapping into the templates quite a simple recipe.  Exposed for years, here.  Nothing difficult, merely a choice to see.
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Pic, above, here.

A thread amongst those who have figured out how to have a garden, above.
 
Pic, above, here.

A competitive tennis player from ages 11-17, won tournaments & titles, never played again.  Why?  Found a bigger game.  Gardening has no opponent, instead a partner, Nature.  Decades gardening, still learning, huge gulps.  Humbling.  At most my gardening is smiled upon, Nature allows it within her domain, for a time.  Nature, in honesty, CEO not partner.  I cleave to that fact, in all my gardening.  Had thought of this as a 'good selfishness' for decades, until realizing, it is grace.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Doesn't matter, above, if photo shopped.  Its sentiment true.  Serendipities a Garden gifts arrive upon the wind, without ceasing.
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If you've read this far you are aware this is about gardens, not landscape-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-touched with monthly contract.
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My clients are of 2 stripes.  Already whole & thriving or recently spit out by life into their new chapter/book of living whole.  I know you're smiling.  Becoming whole is the story of the Velveteen Rabbit.  A lot of roughing up, it takes, becoming real, living whole.
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Two spots of red, top pic, for those who see the whole picture.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T

In Praise: Galvanized Buckets

In praise of galvanized buckets, tubs, pails, garbage cans.  Myriad sizes, no cracking, better looking as they age, relatively easy to find, flow with every house color, light weight, handles for carrying, good price points, stack easily for storage.
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Hammer, nail, easy tools to put holes in the bottom.


Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Side Yard Real Estate

Commonly, side yard real estate is ignored.  Perhaps a nod to creating a 'nice' pass-through, at most.
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They got the memo, below.  An entire garden room in their 'side yard'.
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More, they completed every layer of the memo.  Gravel to the house, no foundation planting, and a wall, evergreen shrubs, for privacy.  Pure architecture.  


Pic, above, here.
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Off topic, a sign of the current era of nursery plants, above.  Since the debacle of 2008, commercial nursery contraction, retail nursery contraction, wholesale grower contraction, decent plants are rare.  Plantings at the edge of the graveled garden room, above, are the new normal.  Prior to 2008, my team would have returned those plants as culls.  Worse, guessing from the photo, in addition to fertilized spindly growth, they're probably loosely rooted, perhaps a season or 2 from being bumped up into larger containers.  In the era prior to 2008 it was considered unethical to sell plants newly bumped up/not rooted in.  Now, normal.  It gets worse.  The new normal costs much more.  Labor a huge cost burden to growers, then, again, labor a huge cost burden to crews planting.  Patented plants add another layer of cost.
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A new generation of labor crew leaders has arrived since 2008, how are they to know the new plants at the edge of the gravel garden room, above, are culls?
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For decades, new plantings had to be turned for their best 'front' at planting.  Humorous concept, now, when plants have no 'front' at all. See the gravel, above, thru the foliage of plantings along the concrete?  In the past, plants were so full of vigorous lush foliage, zero gravel would be visible thru them.
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A recent job, we indeed received gorgeous thick lush plants, heavy in their pots & well rooted.  Good timing.  The wholesaler is probably weeks from bumping up plants that haven't sold, into larger pots.  
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Of course Home Depot, Lowe's, and Wal-Mart each forced consolidation of the retail nursery sector prior to 2008.  Most of their current plant purchases are on contract, with the plant wholesaler agreeing to unload/stock shelves with their employees, and take back plants that die or look poorly.  Another layer of cost to you, the retail plant buyer.
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Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.  Could not have imagined these industry changes when I began working it ca. 1985.  Of course back in those days, it gave me my Garden Design career.  The family nursery I worked for did not offer Garden Design, nor keep any employees who did Garden Design.  Why?  Their attitude was an employee doing Garden Design, on their own time, would steal plants.  Why didn't they think an employee doing Garden Design would be buying plants from them?  A customer, not thief.  Their thinking proved detrimental, they bankrupted & had to sell.  Our nursery team mentioned more than once, 'wish they would give us a pay/purchase option in company stock'.  Ironically, the company owning that nursery now, is employee owned.  Go team !  
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Florist: Sleeved Flowers

My 1st horticulture job was at a nursery selling interior/exterior plants.  Think Jimmy Carter & 21% interest rates.  More than knowing a bad economy, graduating college, it directed my life's path.  By the time I left nursery work, 5 years later, I had another degree, horticulture.  Punching a time clock and driving a forklift, among other such, were not on my list of life expectations.  How often have you fallen into a dumpster during your work day?  Days were tiring, these were years of mostly being in bed by 8:30pm, and having a sore stomach most days because of laughing so much with co-workers.
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Bonding while unloading 18-wheeler trucks loaded with plants from Florida, a stray snake or two, a foot thru the floor, temps in the upper 90's with humidity the same is not to be scoffed at.  Our company did not have to send us to team building camp.
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Saw this, below, and it stopped me.  Thru the years I unloaded many trucks with flowering interior plants, and they were wrapped exactly the same.  This wrapping protected the plants, but more importantly, made it easy to move them from truck to cart to building to staged for sale.
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Unless you've done it you have no idea the beauty of thousands of myriad blossoms at your feet, and on counters.  They were mine, all mine to stage.  Hours with them, just me & the flowers, blood fizzing with a bolt from Zeus, now understood as the relationship from Providence, no different than the honey bee to its garden.  Poof, all the flowering plants would sell, me-shop-girl, I placed another order, its truck arrived, and so it went.  Between trucks, watering the flowering plants, pinching spent foliage & blossoms, sales girl.
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Looking back across decades, at that work, I especially miss the 1-2 days of bringing those plants off the truck, and having them to myself to stage.  Life moments.  Tearing the paper wraps off the plants made mountains of crumpled paper, mine to put on the same carts I brought the flowers inside with, and roll to the dumpster.  To Providence, thank you for those moments.


Pic, above, here.
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The painting is by, Frederick Childe Hassam, ca. 1889. At the Florist.  Cannot believe I had a job little changed from this painting.  Nor, I now live in a house ca. 1900.
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More amazing, during the years working at the nursery my mother-in-law gave me a book, An Island Garden, by Celia Thaxter.  Read many times, and recommended, including now.  Guess who did the artwork for Thaxter's book?  Exactly, Childe (Frederick) Hassam.    More, more.  Discovered the painting on Barbara Wells Sarudy's site, It's About Time.  Sarudy is the top living garden historian in America.  Her book, Gardens and Gardening in the Chesapeake, 1700-1805, a must for any serious gardener.   Sitting on a bookshelf in my office.  Of course.
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Odd & delicious, simply writing about working with those sleeved flowering plants, makes the blood fizz.  Grateful to have that job in the memory bank.  Glad of the 21% interest rates, seems wicked the entire country had to suffer, for me to have a career course change lovingly directed by Providence.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Garden Stewardship: Lunch Ministry

At the front end, a fat percentage of my clients are targeted for my own 'diabolical' ministry purposes.   Diabolical?  Early, they're not ready for the message.   Lasso set, patience, yank.  Never do I consider 'guilt' as a means, too embarrassing to consider, rather low IQ method.  Full frontal, heart on sleeve, throw it out there, Lunch Ministry.   Further, Lunch Ministry merely a tool of Garden Stewardship.
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For whatever reason, IMHO, Providence sprinkles those with a gardener's heart sparingly across every century.  Part of my mission is to get those hearts into larger/larger circles of impact.


Pic, above, here.

Whether 1, 4 or 10, lunch ministry is easy, once your garden is leveraged for it & a bit of mentoring, aka, in my world, "Soon you'll be having lunches and showers in your garden."  Not a member of local Garden Club?  Join, put your name on the list for upcoming monthly meeting to host.  Friend's child getting married?  You must have a shower.


 
Pic, above, here.

The metaphorical breaking of bread, when 2 or more are gathered, indeed, packs a wallop in a garden.  Oddly, the further away from being a gardener one of my guests is, the more likely they are to cry during some point at lunch.  Tales I've been told thru those tears, oh my.  What is it about hospitality in a garden pealing away at the myriad layers the-world wraps us in?


Pic, above, here.

This has been my year receiving phone calls with wild tales of showers.  A special shower for the bride, for everyone who will not be invited to the wedding.  Whew, thought I was 'diabolical'.  Other showers, switch boards lit up.  One person rescinded her offer to give a shower, the intended princess asked a bit too much.  Who knew Miss Manners still alive/kicking, at a minimum, to those being gouged?   Reddit should run this query !  What is your worst bridal/baby shower story?
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My oddest Lunch Ministry, a baby shower, it snowed hard the nite before and all morning.  No one could come, roads blocked.  Table/food were ready.  To enjoy the snow, I knocked on neighbor's doors inviting them to lunch.  We had a great time.  All wondering why none of us had ever had a neighbor's snow day luncheon.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Martha Washington never knew how many she would be serving each evening.  Not uncommon for her to use long boards on saw-horses with a cloth.  I've had my harvest table since late spring, no Lunch Ministry yet using it.  Pic, above, informs me I do not have a table cloth long enough, a bolt of fabric must be sourced.  Linen napkins are easy, they've been acquired junking for pennies on the dollar, vintage, with monograms, for decades.
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The joy of Lunch Ministry is following thru with my Garden Stewardship.  Zero expectation of return hospitality, none.  Casting bread upon the water.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Oh that low IQ thing.  Dread when it pops up, just when you think you've passed the age for getting into pickles.
 

1960's Houses: Before & After

When I was 3'ish, living at Cape Canaveral, dad was transferred to Houston, the newest site for a NASA installation.  We rented a home in Pasadena.  NASA construction was not complete.  Many engineers worked across Houston in a hodge-podge of rented buildings.  Not enough homes had been built yet to house NASA workers.  Finally, dad zeroed in on a home.  Living on a government salary, wife/2 kids/poodle, in his late 20's, dad had zero family financial help or inherited funds.  He wanted the brand new home, directly across the street from NASA, but could not afford it.  What to do?  He phoned the builder, asked to meet him at the house.  The builder, an older gentleman, had retired from his building career, moving to the little neighborhood on salt water.  His retirement income, building a few homes.  They walked/talked, dad sharing his story.  Finally, dad lobbed his hail Mary low ball offer.  Accepted.


Pic, above, here.

Loved my time living in Pasadena, TX.  Ellington Air Force Base was not far, and ADORED the pool, above, and rows & rows of old white wood buildings, below, with streets in perfect grids.  We had access to the pool, BX & commissary, with dad in the Air Force Reserves after being a test pilot.
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Occasionally, when mom would take sister/me to swim, the pool was not open.  Yes, I was as miffed as could be.  The pool would close for the astronauts to practice, above, their boring stuff.  Odd men, not working in offices.
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Once we moved into our new home, no more pool worries with those odious astronauts closing it down, the neighborhood had its own pool/marina.  Perspective/priorities are everything.



Pic, above, here.

Interesting planes flew from Ellington Air Force Base.  Adored seeing the Flying Guppy, below, over our house.


 
Pic, above, here.

Visiting mom, she's still in the house I grew up in, it's obvious her neighborhood is ripe for a new era.  More than updating with light fixtures, paint color on the trim, a new front door, the homes are worth architectural renovation.  A pair of before/after, below, renovations.  Incredible vision.  Mom certainly won't be renovating, girl-don't-like-change.  We all have our quirks.


 
Pic, above, here.


 
Pic, above, here.
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Go team, above.  Earned every penny of raised property value.
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To be fair, several homes in mom's neighborhood  have already done the total architectural renovation, mostly the homes on salt water.  They are in a class separate from the rest of the neighborhood, for obvious reasons.  In the 60's the price variance from salt water to interior of the neighborhood was minor.  The world doesn't operate that way anymore.
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Aside from astronauts in our neighborhood, and most of the team designing their rockets, a high profile murder case moved onto a prime salt water lot.  Gossip was thick about him, Melvin Lane Powers.  His home had a helipad and the ocean going yacht from the estate of Coco Chanel parked in back.  
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Obituaries throughout adulthood have given a clearer picture of many childhood neighbors.
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From the New York Times, October 18, 2010.

Melvin Lane Powers Is Dead at 68; Cleared of Murder With Lover-Aunt

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"Mr. Powers also drew attention in the early 1980s by adding 23 feet to his 142-foot yacht, said to be one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere. He cut it in half and put in a new midsection with a Jacuzzi, underwater viewing ports and a mirrored ceiling.

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Atop the building was his 20,000-square-foot penthouse with a 360-degree view of Houston, a rooftop swimming pool and a helipad."

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Fabulous obituary.  When Powers first bought the yacht, cars/trucks of the workmen renovating it lined the streets of our neighborhood.  For months.  Had no idea they chopped the yacht in two.  His helicopter became such a nuisance it instigated its own discussion at our local city council meeting.  Restrictions were applied.  

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I worked at a local high-end clothing/jewelry store during those days.  Made top sales several months in the jewelry department.  (Most of the jewelry came from Europe.  Still happy to have had exposure to it.)  One afternoon a tall thin tanned barbi doll, of obvious profession, came in to shop for clothes.  More perfect than her namesake doll, excepting a single feature.  Her face was football leather.  Said to my co-worker, "I don't get it.", she said, "Imagine her in a bikini on that yacht."  I got it.  (No judgement on her profession.  Loved what it did for the shoe department at Sakowitz, my favorite shoe department.  A shoe saleswoman mentioned that it was the hookers allowing them to carry such exotic expensive sexy shoes.  Not that I ever afforded any of those.)

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Never saw Melvin Lane Powers, until the obit pictures.  

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"Mr. Powers with Candace Mossler, his mother’s sister, after they were acquitted in the 1964 killing of her husband, Jacques Mossler. CreditUnited Press International"
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Oh the irony of childhood, bored by it all.  Little knowing it made me immune to much.  Most amazing thing I took for granted during those go-go years?  Pristine beauty of growing-up on Galveston Bay.  Few inhabitants during that era.  Skies, water, beaches, birds, marsh, tides, pastures stuffed with Longhorn cattle, scents.  Views for miles without man-made interference.   That is a hunger, that landscape.  
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Table Tableau: In the Garden

When friend-client-mentor Mary Kistner invited me to lunch, most often it was the 2 of us.  Her table, whether inside or on her porch, always had a fresh tableau created along the span reaching our places.  Lovingly, a fresh arrangement from her garden, she had 50 acres, a perfectly chosen textile, a book, opened to exactly the right photo/s, color as important as form, other magic.
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Mary was the 1st female leading Rich's department store interior decorating department,  she created all the store windows & department vignettes during WWII.  Times were dire, there were no men for the job.
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Blessedly, I knew at the time how special every moment of our time together was.


Pic, above, here.
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I would send this pic to Mary today, if she were still alive.  Instead, it is sent to you.
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"It's what we do with what we have.", Mary Kistner.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Garden Design Layer: Wonk

Perfect settings are a delight, think Carolyne Roehm, but the every day do for myself must have a touch of wonk.  No, that's too narrow, I put wonk into every Garden Design.  Specializing in creating new historic Garden Designs, wonk is a layer of narrative.  A given.
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What is wonk?  Most often wonk is completely je ne c'est pas.  Wonk arrives to you, a gift.  Once wonk arrives, like love, you'll know.  Become a fertile pasture, wonk arrives as the honey bees do in South Georgia.
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A new wonk, below.
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Love me some new wonk.  Plonk that tree on the table.


Pic, above, here.
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Made my first bonafide roux last nite.  The house is still swimming in its perfect dark dark brown fragrance early this morning.  My hair too.  Heaven.  I can smell the kitchen, above, it's last night's wild caught South Carolina shrimp etouffee made without a recipe.  A meal from my previous life, and apparently I paid attention.  Beloved paid attention, eating speaks louder than words.  Few leftovers, and I cooked enough for all the dishes set on the table, above.  
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This trinity of wonk, above, potted tree/cut wildflowers/nursery herbs, set onto the harvest table, already embedded into my Garden Design DNA.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T  

House Numbers & 911

At a client's home, many years ago, they mentioned their neighbor had died at home.  The cause, 911 ambulance was too late, if it had arrived earlier the neighbor would have lived.  The ambulance was late because house numbers on the street were wildly hard to see/read at too many of the other homes.
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The ambulance was not at fault.
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Since that appointment, my DNA scans on site appointments for ease of reading house numbers.  If it's difficult I mention it to the client, and ask them to pass on the info to their HOA.
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Today, I'm doing it with you.
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If you've ever had to dial 911 you know how awful it is, the fear, the need, wanting that ambulance in your drive.
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House Numbers, my personal PSA.


Pic, above, here.
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Size, font, color, placement, all matter when choosing your numbers.
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This is not a paid post, just another arrow in the quill of Garden Design.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T