Questions You Ask: Are They The Right Ones?

What type of landscape is best for you?  What type of landscape are you best for?  What type of landscape do you need?  What type of landscape do you want?  What type of landscape do you have?  What kind of landscape do you have time for?  What type of landscape do you want to have in 5 years?  What will your life be like in 5 years?  What plants do you want in your landscape?  What are the best plants for your landscape?  Describe your perfect landscape.  Describe the landscape best for you.
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Accidentally losing my hair this summer continues to elucidate.  Worse, or is it better, the results are humbling, unexpected, and pure Rolling Stones, It's not what you want.....


Pic, above, here.
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This table, above, is quite dear, and multi-functional.  Used most often for florist staging, it's also a quick lone-lunch destination, and with little more effort, a dinner table.  Table, below, is ready for its florist staging.  Can't know what that should look like florist staged without seeing the interior of their home.
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Both venues, above/below, lean heavily upon simplicity, form, function.

 
Pic, above, here.
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More of the same, below, merely a different proscenium.  What is your proscenium for your outdoor table to have meals, and florist stage with simplicity, form, function?
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Hopefully I've already veered off your path for how you've been thinking about your outdoor eating area, especially if it's not what you want.  Not meaning, you should lean completely in to what you do want.  Outside, spaces want simplicity, form, function.  Nature is giving, yet capricious.  Not the same mandate when designing your interior spaces.
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How do I know these things for exterior dining, yet not my own hair?  It's not often I feel like Providence has treated me to a life lesson using..........  humor?
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Long, fine, Jan Brady blond hair for over 50 years, by choice.  What I know for sure about my newly short hair?  More complements in the past few weeks than all previous decades, combined.  Worse, most complements are from people I don't know.  People I do know pass by, zero recognition.  Both spectrums fascinating.
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More, the new hair meets the outside trinity of simplicity, form, function.       
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Pic, above, here.
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Out to dinner, below, Beloved shot the slick backed hair.  Fun having the choice of slick backed, then loosened, all in the same day, or not.  Behind my head, there is no pony tail, bun, braid, twist, nothing.  And it feels good, no plans to let my hair grow.  After the initial week of drama, who knew that could or would be my consensus?
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At the front end of gardening, in my 20's, this landscape, below, would have been 'off' my radar.  It's on my radar now.  Why?  Easy to maintain, deer proof, accentuates the architecture, structure all year, can easily be dolled up for a party yet doesn't need to be, classic thru several centuries, puts the focus on you and your lifestyle with family/pets/friends, not creating a lifestyle of garden to-do lists each season.
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Pic, above, here.
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These landscapes, above/below, too stark for you?  No worries, start simple, add more later, if you wish.
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Pic, above, here.
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Simpler landscape choices amplify your relationship to Nature.  Not stuff.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Simpler landscape choices let you have more of this, below, than worrying about garden chores.  Whether doing them yourself, or finding the right person to handle the chores.

 
Pic, above, here.
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In Garden Design less is more, yet exceptions exist, sometimes more is less.
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Read those Garden Design questions at the top again, you've already intuited they are about you getting the landscape you need.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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How I lost my hair, the great debacle, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Carolina Herrera, my new hair template, with her combined necklaces.  Adored her hair/clothes/jewels at 1st site.  A freshwater multi-strand pearl with semi-precious stones necklace mom gave me decades ago, lay unworn, until I saw this pic.  Have added several new crosses to my collection and have worn that pearl necklace many times, with various crosses, since the hair debacle.  How did mom know it was the perfect pearl necklace for me?  How did I not know?   And, what a cross Mick Jagger is wearing, above.
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Pic, above, here.
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Another, fashion copy, above, learned during time of hair debacle.  Beloved bought me similar hat, above, in the Yucatan and my college Ray Ban aviators were 'somewhere'.  Have worn hat & Ray Bans dozens of times this summer.  Ray Bans hadn't been worn since college.  The hat, not at all.
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Miss long hair?  No.  Whew.  Why does that get-what-you-need have to arrive, most often, with such drama/trauma?

Why Table Top Plants Have Centuries of Fans

Hurricane Michael came for us, middle rural Georgia, yesterday/last night.


Pic, above, here.
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Hurricane Irma, not long ago, took half our roof, and tons of branches crashed to the ground.


 
Pic, above, here.
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Getting generator placed/ready, check.  Front/back porches ready, check.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Setting potted plants from their table top outside, onto the ground, a few demanded to be brought inside, for the duration of Hurricane Michael.
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Oddly, setting those few terra cotta pots on their table top, inside, supplied quite a few moments of sharing with centuries of cultural ancestors, and my choice, only last year, to throw my lot in with them.
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"I don't know how you people who haven't learned our language do not learn it, because without it you are not a whole person."  Alutiiq Elder 
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"We all have a moral responsibility to carry forward ancestral wisdom & honor our connections to the Earth, wherever our place may be for the sake of community & individual wellness."  Alutiiq Elder
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"....our very well being is interdependent with Nature & each other."  Alisha Drabek
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"Take care of the elder you will become."  Mary Peterson, Alutiiq Elder
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"I am in part the result of ancestral soil communities being unearthed as if they were already dead, as if they were never alive."  Alutiiq Elder.  Since we've lost being agrarian/pastoral in our lives, we've lost more than the perceived drudgery & hardships of that life.  A garden whisperer, I've known where real joy resides, Nature.  Walt Whitman certainly knew, here, and, here. Science is catching up.  Some cultures have never had the need for science to catch up.
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For the Alutiiq the word for 'old' breaks down in meaning to, 'in front'.  Their "cultural metaphor of the past is 'in front', where we can see it, not behind us as in English."  Past forward.   Setting plants inside, on the old mahogany drop leaf table, sharing those moments in community, and communion.  A surprise moment of benediction, felt as strongly as if in the pew with pastor and community, across centuries.  All, not sought, instead, a simple choice made, for what is important, to me.  Bringing a few plants inside for winter.  That was all, nothing more. 
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" The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.  Heaven is not the place to have the experience: here is the place to have the experience."  Joseph Campbell     "
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Preparing for Hurricane Michael, receiving moments of eternity & kindred community, merely moving plants from a table top outside, to a table top inside.  More than mundane, insignificant.  Yet, not insignificant, in the least, to Providence.  

 
Pic, above, here.
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Adding science to this equation of plants moved to a table top & moments of eternity and community received, "Mycobacterium vaccae is a harmless microbe found in healthy soil.  When inhaled it increases the release of serotonin in the brain, boosting mood and decreasing anxiety.  That's one of the reasons gardening is good for you -- it's Nature's antidepressant."  Nicky Kyle.
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Drawn to the beauty of plants on a table top, inside & outside, how could I have known my garden would give me another gift of Providence?
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Resources, E.M. Forster writes of, resources not in the realm of lucre, there lies fortune.  Mine, and yours.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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A couple of hours  without power, and at most 25 pounds fallen tree branches with Hurricane Michael.  Mexico Beach, Fl, where Hurricane Michael made USA landfall, was a honey pot for Beloved & me.  A tiny city time forgot, too small to grow, it retained most layers Beloved & I remember well growing up in the 60's.  We always stayed at the elderly El Governor hotel, all rooms on the beach and with kitchens, zero flash.  Recently we decided to plan a trip to Mexico Beach with our 5th wheel.  Lifting up in prayer all those affected by Hurricane Michael, and especially our sweetest of honey pots, Mexico Beach, FL. 

Is Your Landscape Who You Are Now?

Can you come to lunch this weekend?  We can eat at the Tea Olive Terrace, or if the weather is cold/wet, we can eat in the conservatory with a fire. 
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To get this life, true questions, above, I was mentored by the best, studied for a 2nd college degree, horticulture, then studied historic gardens across Europe for decades, and on the side went to symposiums, filled a library with books, and more. 
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"A woman who has a closet full of clothes, but nothing to wear, doesn't know herself very well.", said Bill Blass.  Looking at your landscape, from inside your home, does it paint who you are now, and make your life better?
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This landscape, below, makes me smile at its wisdom, history, function, simplicity, & beauty.  Invited to lunch in the garden, below, intuition whispers clearly, the camaraderie & food will both be superb.
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Lunch ministry in my garden has been a joy for years.  I target the seemingly un-gardened, those with a soul hearing Nature, but not living it, perhaps having had zero opportunity to experience it.  Casting bread upon the waters, washing the servants feet type of stuff. 
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A few good recipes, especially a killer chicken salad, fresh fruit, etc, a joy assembling dishes/silverware/glasses,  all set/done ahead of my guest/s arrival.  Conversation/laughter and sharing the garden is the goal.  Beware, one of my mentor's had us going on a garden rescue mission after lunch in her garden, somehow a police chopper became involved.  Ladies who lunch?  No, ladies who do-do-do.           
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Pic, above, here.
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Time passes, daylight burns, events happen.  I'm in a new landscape, ca. 1900 home, 3 years now.  Much done in the garden, yet not a Conservatory, especially a Conservatory.  Miss it for lunches, alone or with friends, a place to work, read, nap.  Once necessities completed, Conservatory tops the list.
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Quickly, this summer, without request, pure happenstance disaster, my hair was shorn.  Long hair since grade school, hair gone, who was in the mirror?  Worse, the bits of jagged, erratic hair remaining belonged to a pitiful junk yard dog with mange, unhappy eyes and tail curled under hugging her stomach.   My hair needed another cut, but what style? 
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From Garden Design I knew the first rule to choosing a new haircut/style, Copy.  A life of long fine blond hair had turned to thinning blond hair a few years ago.  Whatever, deal with it, boring, move on.  Excepting now I had to find hairstyles with my same fine/thinning hair.  Haircut scheduled for early morning following my shearing.  Was up till 1am on Pinterest.  Carolina Herrera, Sharon Stone, Michele Williams, perfect trinity of short, fine, thin hair. 
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Mostly, my hair is now Carolina with Sharon.  Collaterally, more than hair was involved with the hair fiasco.  Living with the new 'hairstyle' a few days, still not knowing who I was anymore, realized clothes/makeup did not match head/hair.
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Lucky with the hair choices of Carolina and Sharon, especially.  Their clothing style easy to copy.  Knowing, in Garden Design, dinky-is-stinky, I did a head-to-toe clothing renovation.  Bags to the thrift store, and boxes from Nordstrom arriving on my front porch.  Along with a huge bag bought at the thrift store, shorts/t-shirts (all Ann Taylor) and you're not believing the belts I found.     
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Had already made mental notes thru the years to 'consider' cutting my hair shorter, hitting 60.  Now 58, my hair is shorter than ever would have been considered.  A friend said, "Now you know what you'll look like at 60!"  Best humor ever, adore her more.   
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Pic, above, here.
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Now my hair is slicked back in the morning, above, getting looser by late afternoon, below.
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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Hair typically down, above, by dinner.  Though some days I leave it Carolina Herrera slicked back all day.
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Why tell you all this?  Is your landscape who you are now?  It's important to share how lost I was, shorn of hair.  Forced to see I hadn't had hair/clothes that were me, even before the accidental hair shearing.  Moments of epiphany brought about sideways.  Did I like the process of getting here?  NO.  Glad my life is in a new chapter?  YES. 
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This is where your Garden Design, below, begins.  Inside your home. 


 
Pic, above, here.
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There was a secondary reason for buying a new wardrobe, beyond the new hairstyle.  After my 30 year marriage I gained a bit of weight.  This year, 6 years later, I accidentally lost my divorce weight.  With the new hair, new clothes & weight loss, you can imagine the biggest response, weight loss.  How?
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Long story short, pickled refrigerator mixed vegetables.  My own recipes.   

 
Pic, above, here. 
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Excepting this refrigerator pickled ripe pineapple with fresh jalepenos and fresh cilantro.  OMG.  Knew the recipe was a winner first time reading it.  Eating it, beyond sublime.  A great relish, or to mix in with my refrigerator pickled black bean salad.......
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Will write soon about the refrigerator pickled mixed vegetable (accidental) diet in detail.  Yes, getting that many questions/requests for it.  No, I was never hungry.  No, it's not for everyone, I've always loved lemons, limes, pickles, vinegar.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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No, there are zero photos of original hair disaster shearing.  Why would I do that?  Will get pics of clothes/hair now with pics copied from.  Cannot imagine not having my Garden Design background for this life chapter, there was zero time to hire an image consultant.  Beloved was out-of-state working during the worst of this story, surprisingly, he likes the short hair.  Beloved is the original, Let your hair grow longer, type of man.  I did ask him later, "Do you really like my short hair, or are you being a good man?" 

3 Ways to Stage Your Table

Garden where you're at.  Be who you are.  Fake it till you make it.  Good enough, will stop at that trinity.  Already know not to force a solution. 
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Three years after moving into our ca. 1900 home on 5 acres we're still doing Daniel Boone gardening.  What does that mean?  Ornamental gardening is something for another day, probably another year, or two.
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ET-phone-home, exactly how I've felt.  And that little potted plant, wilting throughout the movie, until the end, when ET does go home, the plant returns to lush vigor. 
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Two years into no-ornamental-garden I began to sense something larger, Life.  The Life memo this time, Your field is being enriched, trust.  A stinker, feels like sinking, trusting this particular fallow field.  Excepting the creeping in of major new garden passions. 
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Go past many decades of US government intervention with farmers and their definition for fallow fields, you'll arrive at my fallow field, laying fallow to gather strength.  Trusting this 'gathering strength' feels woozy, the frenetic desire to phone-home-my-plant-is-wilting has been strong & enduring.  Thrust by Providence into a new life chapter.  Great sense of humor, dear Providence, considering who freely & with intention made the move from their beloved 30 year garden. 
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Another take on Dante's Inferno, finding myself lost in the woods, trying to get out, can't find my way out of the woods, yet it was me, taking the fullness of my days, years, walking into woods.  Not my first Rodeo.  Two questions to ask when you're stuck in the woods, looking at paths out, "Does this path enrich me, or diminish me?"     
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Odd new garden passion, staging garden tables in the florist style, below. 
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Staging this harvest table, below, is a twofer.  Aesthetics, and function.  Smart/witty siting huge pots/vases with greenery at zones unable to seat anyone due to chunky table legs.  More, the vignette of plants highlights those chunky legs as desirable, instead of a hindrance. 


Pic, above, here.
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Why not have a table, below, in the garden 'always' staged in Florist style?  Florist style, beauty with huge impact, little input. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Finally, a table in the garden, below, staged as your life needs.  Not a fixed Florist vignette, above, nor the fixed tableau in the top photo,

 
Pic, above, here.
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Harvest tables, above, staged 3 ways.  Which staging is yours?
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Me?  All 3.  At 5 acres there is room.  One of the tables is merely laying about, at present, in pieces.  A large old wood gate from a shed we renovated, and old galvanized garbage cans, for legs, awaiting in the materials yard. 
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

A Backward Method of Design for Your Backyard Dining Table

Nothing in your backyard?  Want a pretty backyard?  Begin backwards.  Install function first, do not consider overall form, nor a single plant.  Seriously, this is a zero plant Garden Design first round.
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Consider this your backward backyard Garden Design Mini Course.  Free.
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Site first your table/chairs/umbrella & brick pad, similar to, below.   Siting near house, sited near a door of the home.  Ease of use.  Rectangular or square tables are best, they have multiple uses beyond dining, and for dining, can be placed end-to-end for larger groups.
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Choose table/chairs/umbrella hardy to life, and aesthetics to your interior.  Aesthetics includes style & color.  Little funding?  No excuse.  To me.  At a minimum copy Martha Washington's strategy at Mount Vernon.  It was expected she would host/entertain whoever showed up at her doorstep.  Many did.  Martha Washington used saw horses with planks atop, and a tablecloth.  Done.  More than economical, functional, pretty, easy to set up, easy to remove.
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If you are field gathering table/chairs for your backyard, aka thrifting, garage sales, curbside garbage collection days, & online no worries about their scavenged appearance.  None.
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Choose your exterior color trinity, Green-Brown-White, is the historic exterior color trinity, and paint/stain table/chairs, all, one of the colors from your trinity.  Poof, scavenged becomes curated. 



Pic, above, here.
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Once your table/chairs/umbrella/pad are in place, at least a year, you're ready to think about phase 2.
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Phase 2 considers shapes, not plants.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Perhaps, above, a hedge of evergreens and an allee of trees for shade?  Scaled to your site/needs.  Considerations are mature tree height, speed of growth, how you will prune your trees (pleached/natural/etc.), how tall do you need your hedge, how many openings do you need in your hedge, and etc.

  
Pic, above, here.
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Maybe you don't want a rectangle of hardscape for your table/chairs/umbrella.  All gravel, above, hardscape connected to other backyard hardscape, below.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Plants in containers, below, create super fast plant scale.  Add drip irrigation to your pots, easy caretaking.  Skip planters with drama, go classic with evergreen button tops, below.

 
Pic, above, here.
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All gravel, below, for your backyard table/chairs/umbrella and allee of trees with square green boxes at base.  Scaled appropriately for your site.
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Lighting.  If you have spotlights, put them on dimmer switches, first making sure light bulbs used can be used with dimmer switches.  Strands of LED lights needed.
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Pic, above, here.
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If you've been in your home awhile and still don't have a pretty & functional backyard, no excuses now.  None.
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Almost off topic, plants.  Consider only plants that are drought tolerant, deer proof, disease/insect resistant, and speed of growth for ease of maintenance.  Consider your age, and the size of plants you purchase.
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Hope you already have meal ideas swirling in mind for serving al fresco.  And the fun of assembling plates/glasses/silver/napkins/candles...
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Backyard is public-speak for the garden behind your home.  A sacred space.  If it's not, to you, why not?  If you've read this far, it's obviously in your heart to 'do' something to make it so.  Life is short, daylight's burning. 

Flow: First Layer of Design

In college, Garden Design taught flow, flow of turf, and flow of beds.
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Pitiful.
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Pic, above, here.
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At the time, I knew the education received was no good, for me.
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Flow was not on my radar, up front.  Intuitively knew, turf and beds with their in-curves and out-curves were aliens.  To me.
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Decades of touring historic gardens across Europe, with a horticultural guide, taught the methods of designing a true Garden.  If you want turf, foundation plantings, in-curves/out-curves, mow-blow-go, annuals, don't stop at this blog, keep moving.  Plenty of resources want your business, and happy to have you sign their contract.  I'm not for you.
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Historic gardens flow from your home, historic gardens flow from your life, historic gardens flow richly, adding layers of joy, grace, beauty to the site, more importantly to your life. 
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Seeing the quote, above, made me smile.  First thing I do, designing any garden, is consider Flow.  Not plants.  Flow.
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Is Flow in your quiver of Garden Design arrows? 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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What would be best, to teach flow, is have a real garden, put it on paper, begin its Garden Design.  And talk you thru it as you watch, in a seminar format, no more than 20 students.  Of course, doing this after power points on each layer of Garden Design.  Your first assignment?  Entire class must design a garden, the same garden.  No peeking at each others work.  No worries, anyone wildly out of flow, I will nudge in proper direction.
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No names on any design.  All designs go on the wall.  We walk/talk them all.  What you learn from wrong choices in the works as important as what is correct/magic in the designs on the wall.
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Heads-up, the hardest garden to design?  Your own.

Pop the Champagne: Surprise Double Axis

I was in the shed a couple of months ago, and this was the view, below.  Interesting.  The table/chairs/gravel/trees were designed from another vantage point, from atop the deck, with zero relation to the shed.


Pic, above, shot from inside the shed, below.
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Speedy Double Axis views, above, no waiting a decade, or more.
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Seems an accident, but this is what I know about designing historic gardens, they are simple, yet historic garden design is playing 3-D chess, with the international champ.  Simplicity of both pics, above, took every layer of my skills, fearlessly wielded.
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Fearless?  My Garden Design must be deer proof, drought proof, bug/disease proof, little maintenance, gorgeous, maximum use alone & with groups, easy to manage when I turn 80, pair of trees for summer shade/winter sun, most importantly, NOW.
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Bought the variegated Boxwood, above, upon a whim over a decade ago, had never seen one before, expected it to die.  Instead, thriving.  Moving from my 30 year garden, 3 years ago this month, I only brought the few plants in large terra cotta pots, this variegated Boxwood included.  Feels incredible having it back on the job.  A dear friend, dignity returned. 
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With Historic Garden Design, good surprises included.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Wrote about creating this Garden Room, above, here.
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Double Axis?  If you have a focal point, you must be able to stand at that focal point, turn 180, and shoot another focal point on that axis too.
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International Champ?  Nature, of course.
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Cannot wait for my Kentucky garden friend to come visit, she understands the need to celebrate this surprise Double Axis appropriately, champagne.  Perhaps you don't think it's a big event, just wait until it happens to you.  Pop the cork.

Why the Classically Designed Garden is Today's Modern

At the front end of designing your garden there's a common halting point.  Language.  No words to describe the form, function, style, flow, Nature, abiding your life to house to garden, and etc.  There are layers of meaning in what is lost.  A trinity of margins listed, above.  Life happens in the margins. 
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Somehow, that language is in your soul's DNA.  Once heard, immediately, "Of course."
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Several generations of Americans have grown up with foundation plantings needing harsh pruning, lawns needing toxic fertilizers/chemicals, annuals swapped 2x/year, put it on contract, mow/blow/go. 
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Back to language.
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What Garden Design language do you see, below?
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Made me smile seeing this pic.  Have seen 100's of gardens designed in this manner.  Humble cottage, to manor born.
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If you had to label this Garden Design, below, what are your labels?  No worries, it's your head/heart, and those labels may be far better than mine. 



Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design, above, Gravel to the House, Formal, Wildwood.  Margins at house to garden, gravel to formal, formal to woodland.
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A trinity of Garden Design styles, a trinity of margins.  Where margins meet, pop.
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Beyond intuiting classic Garden Design, above, decades ago, I was a slow learner about its true depth of purpose.  Do you know what I'm about to say about this style?  Go you, hope you do, Earth is a better place for you knowing it.  And I'd adore knowing how you learned it, intuited it, how old you were at the time.
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Classic Garden Design, above, is also designed for maximum pollinator habitat, Wildwood next to open meadow. 
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House & Garden are one, Vanishing Threshold. 
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Another value to Classic Garden Design?  No toxic fertilizers/chemicals, less maintenance, lower HVAC expense, increased property value. 
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Ironically, classically designed gardens are unique in every permutation.  Guaranteed. 
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More, classically designed gardens are 'fast' to 'show'.  Instead of a decade, or more, classically design gardens are felt/seen upon completion of gravel, planting, etc. 
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Sustainable, eco, organic, pollinator habitat, potager for yard to house, and other buzzwords, each contained, inherently, in Classically Designed Gardens. 
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Classically Designed Gardens are Today's Modern.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Already spot Virginia Woolf, above ?  Cannot count the times I've read, To the Lighthouse.  Look forward to reading it many times more.
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Decades gardening classically, a new layer was reached, without anticipation, once I got chickens, 8 heirloom chickens.  I scoop their poop from the coop daily, and toss around plant margins, not atop the roots.  Cannot imagine, decades missing out on this.  No regrets, at least I know it now.
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Once Chickens arrived to my garden I also gained a gift, a change in perspective, away from merely  'gardening' to one of Stewardship.  The honor of Stewardship.  Washing of the servant's feet.
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The door of Stewardship is all encompassing.  In every good way.   

Hubert de Givenchy & Bunny Mellon: Garden Design Titans

Grandeur of place, below?  Yes, in the mundane ubiquitous manner of magazine writings.  All nice, especially the teaching/learning of color, scale, flow, function, contrasts, axis, light & etc.  Extrapolated by you, from magazine writing focused upon material goods and their rarity/quality/cost, not spirit of the life lived in this home.
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Grandeur of place, below?  Yes, in a life of joy and stewardship, anticipatory, participatory, simplicity.  Accoutrements describing a pace of life lived, below, no words needed.  Garden beyond brought inside, Vanishing Threshold.
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Heart of a gardener, in that basket, below.
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Knowing there is time, soon, to go into the garden, with everything needed.  Perhaps the basket was set the night before, or early in the morning.  Items set in the basket across moments of time, and thought, wanting to be sure nothing is forgotten.  Is the basket set and ready to go?  Is the basket set after coming in from the garden?  Don't know, and adore the not knowing.
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Perhaps that basket a gift from a dear friend, Bunny Mellon?


Pic, above, here.
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Finally noticing the garden beyond the doors, above, so much delight in the basket, a kindred spirit.
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Had seen a similar garden, above, and saved it, also deposited to Garden Design of the Ages brain file.
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Garden Design of the Ages, below.
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Without searching for the creator/owner of the garden, below, I had found it without intention, above.
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Hubert de Givenchy, home/garden, above/below.
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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Door to the garden, from Bunny Mellon's home.  Birds of a feather.
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From the Sotheby's magazine, A World of Her Own, by Sarah Medford,
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" Nearly 50 years ago, when couturier Hubert de Givenchy was at the height of his career, he set about improving the gardens at Le Manoir du Jonchet, his estate just outside Paris. A keen gardener, he nonetheless sought help from his close friend Mrs Paul Mellon, who understood the transformation that would be necessary to bring the landscape, which had been laid out in the Louis XIV style, into keeping with the Renaissance-era manor house. “Bunny helped me with plant choices, placement and juxtaposition,” Givenchy recalls. But in a move that took his breath away, she also helped him with the larger precepts of suitability and scale. “She had a model tree made of wood that she would fix big and little arms onto,” he says, noting that they would move the replica around the grounds as they worked. “She wanted to see how each silhouette would fit in. The end result always appeared to be simple.” He pauses for a moment. “She went for perfection.”
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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How do I know so much about the basket at the front door, top pic ?  Exactly how I garden.  A basket is set, filled over several hours, finally, life at its richest, out the door with my basket, into the garden, cats following.  Eternity here, begins.

18 Garden Design Rules You Need to Use: All in This Seemingly Simple Garden

Get 'the' Garden Design memo, below?  Aside from 'the' memo, what are the bullet points for the memo in macro, not merely micro?
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Garden Design course in a single photo, below.  Not the entire curriculum, but enough for major memo about Garden Design.
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Seriously, if you were teaching this Garden Design course today, what bullet points are in this photo, below?
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Wish I had you in a real classroom, no more than 20 of you.
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I was a fully fledged adult arriving to Garden Design, the engineering degree not-so-much help.  Aside from intuitively knowing Garden Design was a process, its machinations were so magic in effect, layers remained indecipherable.  No words, no language to process a good Garden Design.
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Worse, went to get another degree, this time horticulture, and the same thing happened, zero language or understanding of historic Garden Design principles were taught.  But , baby I had 'credentials'.  Junk in the trunk.  Monster junk, harmful to Earth, body, spirit.  That's another book/article/lecture/post.
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Off to Europe, late 80's, studying historic Garden Design 20+ years.
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This garden, below, made me smile at first site.
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Why do you think it made me smile?


Pic, above, here.
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Pair of stone animals, (are they cows or horses?), at the entry, above.  At a distance, even, performing their duties.  Sentinels announcing, "Yes, come this way, enter, you're welcome, we want you to walk this way."  In their wordlessness of welcome, and direction, a benediction, grace.  Remember, if you need words in your garden, it's a fail.
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Already, you're getting a Garden Design bullet point from the garden, above.
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Imagine the same pic, above, yet a small sign placed at the front of the steps, Entry.  Oh dear, that would be banal, gauche, worse, lacking in grace.
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Walking a garden with a kindred spirit, seeing such a sign, 'entry', in an otherwise beautiful setting, we'd merely make eye contact, make a face, move on.  Pure understanding.  However, walking in this garden with a kindred spirit, our feet would not be touching the ground.  Looks between us, total joy & grace, move on, hungry to see more, time & reality have ceased to exist, life is only the garden at hand, and perhaps a good cup of tea with a scone, or such, when we alight on a chair.  Perhaps a glass of wine, cheese/crackers, freshly quartered blood oranges?  Exactly what happened with friends while visiting a private garden in Alabama last week.  Another post, promise.
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Notice the world's most historic Garden Design Color Trinity?  Green-Brown-White.
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Contrasting foliage, above, large leaves next to small leaves.
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Foliage at the far right column following the Garden Design Rule: Just Let It Touch.  Especially love that rule, made it up myself, one of many, noticed across Europe yet never put into words anywhere I've read, or heard in conversation, lectures.
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Garden Design Layers: Canopy, Walls, Floors, each designed & executed.  Better, purest simplicity.
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Crunch of gravel underfoot, Sound in the garden, in addition to wind thru foliage, and hopefully the sound of water is in this garden, above, too.
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Subsidiary color to the main Color Trinity?  Noticed already?  Lead color for pots, bench, windows/doors, railing.
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Pruning shape, rounded, for plants in pots, contrasting formal with the informal of canopy tree foliage at far right.  Furthermore, choosing to prune potted plants rounded, in contrast to the square columns.
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White chosen is creamy.  Bright white would jump forward, making the space feel smaller, especially the terrace.
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Repetition of pots and their plantings.  Repetition of Green.  All Green gardens are the fastest to achieve their goal, and the most serene.  A simple plant selection, not too much diversity, calm, and tough plants too, less maintenance/disease/watering/bugs.
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What did I miss for this Garden Design course in a single photo?  What shouts to you?  What makes you smile?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Garden Design Rules Executed in the Garden Above:

1.  Pair of focal points announcing an entryway.
2.  Color Trinity chosen: green-brown-white.
3.  Canopy-Walls-Floor designed, executed.
4.  Contrasting foliage sizes, large leaves next to small leaves.
5.  Contrasting foliage pruning, formal & informal.
6.  Sound designed, wind thru foliage, crunch of gravel underfoot.
7.  Subsidiary Color chosen, lead, for pots, furniture, windows/doors, rails.
8.  Creamy white chosen instead of bright white, creating a large space for a smallish front porch.
9.  Small variety of plants chosen, simplicity, greater visual impact.
10. Tough plantings chosen for ease of maintenance, no bugs/fungus/watering.
11.  Repetition of pots chosen, and their scale, color, shape.
12. Repetition of green.  All green gardens are the fastest to achieve their goal, and serene.
13. Last column, foliage barely touching, Just Let It Touch.
14. Needing words in your garden a 'fail'.
15. Hospitality a layer of expectation good Garden Design provides.
16. Using grace as a design layer.
17. Big impact Garden Design visually, yet simple ingredients, few ingredients, easy to maintain.
18. Keep it simple sweetie.  This garden's simplicity is its super power.  Intellect oozes from this
      Garden Design.
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Up front, I bristled at Garden Design Rules.  What would I tell that girl now?  Get over it, waste of time, you won't reinvent the wheel, better, your originality lies within every Garden Design rule.  Promise.  Most importantly, learn how to break any Garden Design rule, that's a bit tougher, yet necessary.  Pay attention.  Pay more attention.  Pay closer attention.  See all.  See what's not there.

Work in Your Garden? I Never Work in My Garden.

Another classic permutation, below, of classic/historic Garden Design's most popular & effective Color Trinity: Green, Brown & White, subsidiary color, blue.


Pic, above, here.
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Search thru years of postings about my Garden nattering, you won't find how-to-mow, how-to-prune, & etc.  Why does Garden Design receive that curse from the majority of its writers, at all layers?  Interior blogs, magazines, books do not show pretty interior pictures, then describe how to vacuum a sofa, spot clean a wool rug, remove spider webs from outdoor ceiling fan blades, you catch my drift.  Why curse the Garden with that mundane minutia, to the, almost, exclusion of the way to have a beautiful Garden?

 
Pic, above, here.
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This topic, having a beautiful garden, in my heart since birth.  A primal drive.  Not knowing I was a garden whisperer until my 20's.  How did I learn?  Realizing other people don't speak of trees, bushes, meadows, yards, flowers, birds, insects, seasons, in any depth, depths I've known since, again, birth.  Alas, years of being a Garden Whisperer, without a language for speaking it.
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Wish I could say I've knocked it out of the ball park knowing/sharing the full Garden Whisperer language.  I try to in my posts. 
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Gardens, beautiful classic historic Gardens, are in the realm of Nature, and the realm of the unspeakable.  Grace, joy, peace, in their depths, are experienced actions, no words can describe. 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Into my 40's, a sweet gardening epiphany arrived.  Creating & taking care of my own garden is pure washing-of-the-servants-feet.  Not a chore, not a to-do list, not something to get accomplished, not accomplished only because of homeowners association rules.  Collaterally I've been searching for the correct word, to replace 'work', "I work in my garden."  No, I never 'work' in my garden.  Time in my garden is, as Joseph Campbell shared, "...eternity here."  Working in my Garden is pure blessing.
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How does a person get from 'working' in their garden, to knowing time in their garden is the gift of eternity, and a blessing? 
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Moving along to Sunday School last Sunday.  Over a century old, my tiny local Baptist church is within walking distance of my ca. 1900 home, and I can hear its steeple bells from my house. 
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Interestingly the word 'servant' was specifically brought up in our lesson.  Our teacher saying the bible translation for 'servant' would more accurately, now, be translated as 'slave'.  Not debating this in the least, instead, enjoying its scope-for-the-imagination.
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The changing of a long known metaphor, using 'slave' instead of 'servant'.
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How many thousands of hours have I been in a garden, mine, clients, friends, my grandmother's ?
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At some point, no specific eureka epiphany, instead, a 'knowing' learned in my Garden.  The bible is the word of G*d written by man, inspired from G*d.
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Nature, a Garden, has no intermediary with man.  Gardens speak directly to us.  No translations needed.   
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A few months after moving into our historic home, 3 years ago, I was in the garden, on my rear, legs spread around azaleas, pulling weeds, sliding my rear down the hedge as I pulled.  A cobalt blue flash sparkled between my forearms, then flew away.  Odd.  Thought I was seeing things, a cobalt blue dragon fly, really?  Realized I may need to go get some water.
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Kept pulling weeds, and back came that cobalt blue dragon fly, landing on my forearm.  Something I knew could not exist.  Happily informing me, Wrong.  Incredible life lesson.
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Don't understand this life lesson?  No worries, understanding arrives in the drive to have or understand beautiful historic Gardens.  Promise.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Another word my Sunday school teacher mentioned, 'fellowship'.  Saying it would probably be translated now as, 'partnership'.  Again, not debating this, totally enjoying the meandering thought paths.
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Again, something as simple as going to Sunday school, I received as a Garden Design class, completely geared for me.  Happens most days, every decade of my life.  Had thought of these moments, cheerfully, as selfish.  Blessedly, about 2 decades ago, realized those moments not selfish in the least, instead, those moments are pure grace.
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No, I never work in my Garden, instead I take from my Garden, and, remain open to receiving from my Garden. 

Fruit Trees Need Guilds & Why You Must Know

Lovely, below, excepting why is the guild missing?  Before learning what a guild is, I would have thought this garden, below, 'complete'. 
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Do you know what a guild is?
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No?  Parlay what you know a guild to be, in secular life, into the orchard.


Pic, above, here.
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From Google:
"guild

ɡild/

noun

noun: guild; plural noun: guilds; noun: gild; plural noun: gilds

1. a medieval association of craftsmen or merchants, often having considerable power.

   • an association of people for mutual aid or the pursuit of a common goal.

     synonyms:

     association, society, union, league, organization, company, cooperative, fellowship, club, order, lodge, brotherhood, fraternity, sisterhood, sorority "the copper craftsmen have formed a guild"

   • ECOLOGY

     a group of species that have similar requirements and play a similar role within a community.

Origin

late Old English: probably from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch gilde, of Germanic origin; related to yield."

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Obvious now, what a guild is?  No, at the front end, I still would not have understood what an orchard guild is.
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Orchard guild, below
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Pic, above, Long Barn, here.
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Seeing the orchard guild, above, can you describe what the guild is doing?
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No, I couldn't either at the front end.
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An orchard guild is a mix of plantings, blooming at the same time the fruit trees are blooming, increasing pollination.  Increasing fruit tree yields by 80%.
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Do the math. 
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By weight & lucre, a fruit tree guild is your best employee. 
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Looking at the Google definition of guild, above, the mention, "related to yield." 
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So. moving along, knowing what a guild is, seeing this orchard, below.  I would like to see this orchard in bloom, trees & guilds.  The guilds, below, seem more appropriate to pleasure gardening not agriculture.  What percentage of the guilds are flowers blooming before/after the fruit trees, not providing support, pollinators, to fruit tree yield?


Pic, above, here.
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Guilds in an orchard are a symbiotic wilding.  Excepting the skills/knowledge of fruit tree guilds has become re-wilding. 
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Pic, above, here.
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Nice sentiment, above.  Excepting we're more than 1 generation past agrarian & pastoral knowledge in the macro. 
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Zenobia Barlow, has created a system of ecoliteracy.  Actively educating about ecoliteracy.  Rewilding knowledge.  What are the bridges needed in Ecoliteracy?  Barlow has been drawing the map, aiming for territory.  Fabulous start.  Dozens more strategic voices needed.  We don't know, what we don't know.  More, Barlow's map covers myriad disparate layers, she knows she doesn't know & creates space for unknowing to become knowing, on the map to territorial knowledge.
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Decades I've been teaching at the local college, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Extension Service classes and Master Gardener's training.  Never a day passes I don't learn something important about gardening ornamentally or agriculturally.  More, much of the learning is counterintuitive.  What a ride !
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I add, below, for anyone interested in working with schools and ecoliteracy.  Learning from what they've already done, and adding to their knowledge.  A system designed with stewardship.  Another arrow for your quiver. 
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Why you must know what a fruit tree guild is?  Ecoliteracy.  Know this, get significantly more fruit for less money, less effort. 
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From,  The Center for Ecoliteracy, below.     
"The first guiding principle of the Center for Ecoliteracy's framework for schooling for sustainability — Smart by Nature™ — is "nature is our teacher."

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The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. --W.B. Yeats

7 Lessons For Leaders

--by Michael K. Stone, Zenobia Barlow, syndicated from ecoliteracy.org, Dec 12, 2013

The first guiding principle of the Center for Ecoliteracy's framework for schooling for sustainability — Smart by Nature™ — is "nature is our teacher."

Taking nature as our teacher requires thinking in terms of systems, one of nature's basic patterns. Systems can be incredibly complex, but the concept is quite straightforward. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, for example, defines a "system" as "any collection of things that have some influence on one another." Individual things — like plants, people, schools, communities, and watersheds — are all systems of interrelated elements. At the same time, they can't be fully understood apart from the larger systems in which they exist.

Living systems have their own dynamics. Observing systems reveals recurring properties and processes. They resist change, but they also develop, adapt, and evolve. Understanding how systems maintain themselves and how they change has very practical consequences that go to the heart of education for sustainable living. Much of the Center's work over the past two decades could be thought of as applied systems thinking. As an offering for leaders engaged in systems change, we report in this piece on seven important lessons we've learned.

While the work of the Center has been profoundly affected by the insights of our cofounder, systems theorist Fritjof Capra, as well as by other notable thinkers including Margaret Wheatley, Joanna Macy, and Donella Meadows, we will touch only briefly here on their important theoretical work. At the end of this report, we've listed a few sources for readers who want to pursue these ideas more deeply.

Seven Lessons for Leaders

For educators and change agents who are tackling the challenge of changing systems, some of them deeply entrenched, we are pleased to offer these lessons, based on our work with thousands of leaders.

Lesson #1:  To promote systems change, foster community and cultivate networks.

Most of the qualities of a living system, notes Fritjof Capra, are aspects of a single fundamental network pattern: nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities. Lasting change frequently requires a critical mass or density of interrelationships within a community. For instance, we've seen from research and our experience that curricular innovation at a school usually becomes sustainable only when at least a third of the faculty are engaged and committed.

"If nothing exists in isolation," writes famed essayist Wendell Berry, "then all problems are circumstantial; no problem resides, or can be solved, in anybody's department." Even if problems defy solution by a single department, school districts are often structured so that responsibilities are assigned to isolated and unconnected divisions. Nutrition services may report to the business manager, while academic concerns lie within the domain of the director of curriculum. To achieve systems change, leaders must cross department boundaries and bring people addressing parts of the problem around the same table. For example, we're currently coordinating a feasibility study with the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). It requires looking simultaneously at ten aspects of school food operations (from teaching and learning to finance and facilities) identified in our Rethinking School Lunch framework.

In the push to make decisions and produce results quickly, it's easy to bypass people — often the very people, such as food service staff and custodians, who will have the task of implementing changes and whose cooperation is key to success. It's necessary to keep asking: "Who's being left out?" and "Who should be in the room?"

Lesson #2:  Work at multiple levels of scale.

"Nested systems" is a core ecological principle. Like Russian "matryoshka" dolls that fit one into the other, most systems contain other systems and are contained within larger systems: cells within organs within individuals within communities; classes within schools within districts within counties, states, and the nation.

Changing a system affects both the systems within it and the systems in which it is nested. The challenge for change agents is choosing the right level, or levels, of scale for the changes they seek. The answer is often working at multiple levels: top down, bottom up, outside in, and inside out.

The Center for Ecoliteracy is applying this strategy in Oakland. We're supporting a pilot school, Cleveland Elementary, on garden and classroom projects that can be accomplished on a single campus. We're helping to facilitate the Oakland Food Web, which is a network of teachers, parents, and staff members from several Oakland schools, the district's food service, and the County Department of Public Health. The OUSD feasibility study, meanwhile, is taking on changes that depend on centralized administration, facilities, economies of scale, and coordination possible only at the district level.

Lesson #3:  Make space for self-organization.

Fritjof Capra writes, "Perhaps the central concept in the systems view of life" is that the pattern favored by life "is a network pattern capable of self-organization." He adds, "Life constantly reaches out into novelty, and this property of all living systems is the origin of development, learning, and evolution."

Networks that can effect systems change will sometimes self-organize if you set up the right conditions. Our seminars and institutes are designed for teams representing schools and districts rather than for individuals. Parents, teachers, administrators, and community volunteers — sometimes including people who had not met before the seminar  — have organized themselves into effective ongoing collaborations, such as the Oakland Food Web, which still continue.

Lesson #4:  Seize breakthrough opportunities when they arise.

Living systems generally remain in a stable state. That's a good thing; otherwise, we'd be living in chaos. But it's also why systems change can be so difficult. From time to time, however, a system encounters a point of instability where it is confronted by new circumstances or information that it can't absorb without giving up some of its old structures, behaviors, or beliefs. That instability can precipitate either a breakdown or — due to systems' capacities for self-organization — a breakthrough to new possibilities.

Remember the adage of former White House Chief of Staff (now Chicago Mayor) Rahm Emanuel: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Take the epidemic of obesity and nutrition-related disease. It's a serious crisis that could precipitate a public health breakdown. At the same time, authorities who once viewed school food reform as a frivolous issue being promoted by foodies have now become more willing to look at the role that school food plays in an array of related problems ranging from rising health care costs to disparities in academic achievement. And that willingness in turn has created opportunities to use food as an entree for introducing a variety of sustainability topics into the curriculum, as we addressed in our book Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment.

Lesson #5:  Facilitate — but give up the illusion that you can direct — change.

"We never succeed in directing or telling people how they must change," observes Margaret Wheatley. "We don't succeed by handing them a plan, or pestering them with our interpretations, or relentlessly pressing forward with our agenda, believing that volume and intensity will convince them to see it our way."

So what can you do? In the provocative maxim of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, "You can never direct a living system. You can only disturb it." How do you disturb a system? By introducing information that contradicts old assumptions. By demonstrating that things people believe they can't do are already being accomplished somewhere (one of the objectives of our book Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability). By inviting new people into the conversation. By rearranging structures so that people relate in ways they're not used to. By presenting issues from different perspectives.

Meanwhile, you can create conditions that take advantage of the system's capacity for generating creative solutions. Nurture networks of connection and communication, create climates of trust and mutual support, encourage questioning, and reward innovation. Effective leaders recognize emergent novelty, articulate it, and incorporate it into organizations' designs. Leaders sometimes lead best when they loosen control and take the risk of dispersing authority and responsibility.

Lesson #6:  Assume that change is going to take time.

"Quick fixes are an oxymoron," says Margaret Wheatley. "If leaders would learn anything from the past many years, it's that there are no quick fixes. For most organizations, meaningful change is at least a three- to five-year process — though this seems impossibly long. Yet multiyear change efforts are the hard reality we must face."

Anticipate that you'll need time for the education and training required for people to change attitudes, adopt new practices, or use new tools. Set high goals, but take manageable steps. Look for intermediate achievements that allow people to experience — and celebrate — success and to receive recognition on the way to the ultimate goal.

Taking time for stakeholders to understand each other's concerns and learn to trust each other's motivations and intentions can be time well spent. OUSD has one of the most comprehensive wellness policies we've seen. Writing that policy began with scores of community members meeting in a process marked by debate and often disagreement. When the policy was finally formulated, though, it received buy-in throughout the community.

Lesson #7:  Be prepared to be surprised.

Change in living systems is nonlinear. As they develop and evolve, living systems generate phenomena that are not predictable from the properties of their individual parts, much as the wetness of water cannot be forecast by adding together the properties of hydrogen and oxygen. Systems theorists call these "emergent properties."

In the late 1990s, we convened a disparate community of activists with a variety of complaints about school meals in Berkeley. A year later, the first district school food policy in the nation emerged. The coherence of the policy, which has had a worldwide impact, was an expression of the group rather than the vision of any single individual.

The art and science of systems change are continually evolving. We encourage people to experiment with these seven lessons — and to expect surprises. Frequently it's the unanticipated consequences that are the most rewarding and effective results of immersion in dynamic systems.

Some good resources:

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (New York: Anchor Books, 1996); The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living (New York: Anchor Books, 2002).

Joanna Macy, Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Ourselves, Our World (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 1998).

Humberto M. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding (Boston: Shambhala, 1992).

Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer (White River, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008).

Margaret Wheatley, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time (San Francisco: Barrett-Kohler Publishers, 2005, 2007); Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006).

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The Center for Ecoliteracy where this article originally appeared supports and advances education for sustainable living. You can follow its work at www.twitter.com/ecoliteracy; he has also written for the Toronto Star and The New York Times, among other publications.

Zenobia Barlow, executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy (www.ecoliteracy.org), coauthored Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social, and Ecological Intelligence (Jossey-Bass, 2012) and coedited Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World (Sierra Club Books, 2005) and Ecoliteracy: Mapping the Terrain (Learning in the Real World, 1999), in addition to her role leading the Center’s grant-making, educational, and publishing programs. "

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara