Seeing: George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation

In Thanksgiving, others see things too, below. 


Pic, above, here.
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Gardens, I see easily, in multi-media.  Radical multi-media.  Lunch with a client recently, "You saw where I was going with the garden, when I didn't know, and how my life would interact with the garden." 

 
Pic, above, here.
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Often, what I see flies, below.

 
Pic, above, here.
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From James and the Giant Peach, below.  During church, the sermon, many years ago, live action characters arrived from James & the Giant Peach, accentuating the sermon and Pastor.  In tempo with the sermon, but you knew that, right?  Wasband gave me 'the eye', What's so funny?

 
Pic, above, here.
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It is this 'seeing', I think, letting me 'see' gardens.  Not what's there, what will be there.  And, fit into a life. 
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Beloved wishing this 'gift' more practical, Why not see colors and numbers arriving at roulette? 
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This extracurricular seeing, a gift, from Providence.  Thankful.
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Came across George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, ca. 1789, recently.  Written a year after a 2 year extravaganza at Mount Vernon, installing a Garden Design drawn ca. 1785.    A Garden Design beginning at his front door, facing land, creating an axis 1 mile long, thru wilderness.  Barely a day passed, 1787-1788, without intense Garden Design installations. 
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Seeing, Gardening to Thanksgiving Proclamation, it's obvious George Washington saw things too.
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IMHO.
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From POTUS1,

Thanksgiving Proclamation
New York, 3 October 1789
(Bold is added by the author.)

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

Source: “Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017,

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Their Perfect Home Was Missing This Layer

Recently I lectured in North Georgia.  A neighborhood amongst lakes, streams, hardwoods, in the foothills of the Appalachians.  The program chair invited me to stay in her home.  Yes.
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Their home had the good fortune of being custom built, and better fortune, atop a mountain.  Their views surpassing many of the best views I've seen in the South.  At the back of their home, all windows, are views of sky, lakes, rivers, islands in lakes, mountains, more mountains, as far as the eye can see, yet below them, views to hillsides sloping steeply down, expanses of woodland upon soft rises, and hardwoods climbing quickly up steep cliffs across a ravine, betray none of the neighbors homes nested on hillsides.  Their neighborhood property owners association has miraculously kept it as pristine as the Blue Ridge Parkway.
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Their views are greater than 180 degrees, closer to 270 degrees.  No words.  Plenty of awe.
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Pic, above, here.
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Over early morning coffee, overlooking views, then breakfast of yogurt mixed with oatmeal & fresh fruit, overlooking different views, I had to share an observation of her interior.
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All perfection, not a single wrong layer.  Surprise, at what was missing.
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Pic, above,  here.
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Tall branches, in arrangements.  Views of thousands of acres of hardwood trees, yet no vase/s of tall branches.
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Pic, above, here.
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Her mind was quick to bite, I could see it on her face.  Then, "Would you come back again and lecture about floral arranging?"  "No".
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I've already sent her resources for someone to speak about floral arranging.  Their passion for floral arranging matching mine for Garden Design.
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Pic, above, here.
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I have no words for what plants and arrangements from the Garden do for interiors, excepting, grace, a form of thanks to, and from, Providence.  If that makes sense.
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     "Knowledge hinges on an act of correlation & interpretation.  At the top is wisdom, which has a moral component, it is the application of information worth remembering & knowledge that matters to understanding not only how the world works, but also how it should work and that requires a moral framework of what should & shouldn't matter, as well as an ideal of the world at its highest potentiality."  Maria Popova.
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When I mentioned what was missing from her interiors, I knew she 'got it' too, about Maria Popova's words.
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Now I'm wanting to see which vases she chooses, types of branches, and where they are placed.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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 I sent Floral Designer info about, Faith Flowers, Laura Iarocci, they also do international floral design tours.  Laura hired me years ago to design her private garden.  We met thru our Career Coach.  Since meeting, she's begun her thriving floral & events & tours business.  Been a joy bearing witness.

Crystal Wilkinson & Wendell Berry: "Eating Is An Agricultural Act."

"People are always surprised that black people reside in the hills of Appalachia.  Those not surprised that we were there, are surprised that we stayed.  My Family lived in the hills of Kentucky for four generations.  My grandmother came from a long line of women who worked hard and cooked well.  The long lists of food I'll describe here will make you think my folks had deep pockets, but they didn't.  Hardworking poor blacks who couldn't break the barriers of nepotism or racism in education or the workforce, they continued the tradition of farming.  Tobacco.  Corn.  A few head of cattle.  A few dairy cows.  My grandparents lived primarily off the land.  They owned sixty-four acres and had a modest income from the crops they raised.  My grandfather prided himself on taking care of his family, his animals, and his land.  My grandmother prided herself on making sure her family was fed.  I read somewhere once that pride stems from fear.  I imagine my grandparents were hungry more than once in their youths, but I never was."  Crystal Wilkinson.
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Pairing Crystal Wilkinson with an essay Wendell Berry wrote 3 decades ago, at bottom, with introduction by Alice Waters, are parallel odes, to our core life, where we make the choices.  Choices with meaning, whether we know it or not, and whether we make the choices or not. 
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  “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

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“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
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Quotes, above, here.
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Essays by Crystal Wilkinson, and Wendell Berry, found at, Emergence Magazine, an online magazine focusing on ecology, culture, spirituality.  (This is not a paid endorsement.)

Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts

by Crystal Wilkinson

“I want the muscle memory in my body to guide me back across the back roads of Kentucky to Indian Creek into the screen door of our grandmother’s kitchen.” . Complete essay, by Crystal Wilkinson, HERE.

Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Alice Waters, pic above, here.
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 The Pleasures of Eating, by Wendell Berry.

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Introduction, below, by Alice Waters.

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When I first read Wendell Berry’s essay The Pleasures of Eating nearly thirty years ago, it electrified me. Wendell launches the essay with that brilliant line of his: “Eating is an agricultural act.” That statement reverberated deeply and articulated for me a fundamental truth about how I want to live my life.

At the time this essay was published, I had been running Chez Panisse for about eighteen years. I had started the restaurant as a little place to feed my friends in the counterculture—a place where we could gather around the table, eat delicious food, and discuss the politics of the time. We didn’t set out with food activism in mind. Instead, it was our pursuit of taste that brought us to the doorsteps of the small, local organic farmers. As we developed relationships with those producers—men and women who were growing flavorful heritage crops and farming in traditional ways that protected the land—we realized how dependent we were upon them, and they upon us. Over the years, that local network of organic suppliers came to define the food and philosophy at Chez Panisse. We realized how much our lives were enriched by the values they brought into the restaurant. We were experiencing a dawning awareness that our everyday food choices were agricultural—were, indeed, political—and that we could either choose to strengthen the global industrial food system or choose to participate in an entirely different local, rural economy.

In these three intervening decades, I have come to fully understand the astonishing, uncanny prescience of Wendell Berry’s vision. Here, he outlines the entire dysfunction of our current industrial food system: namely, how the food industry divorces us from the land, and in doing so, pulls the wool over our eyes about the wrongdoings taking place within that system every day. Wendell shows us how we are all victims of fast food culture, made passive and dependent by the multinational industrial food conglomerates. We have all been indoctrinated by the values of this fast food culture, told that cooking is drudgery; that food should look and taste the same all year round, wherever we are in the world, no matter what the season; that time is money, and speed should be cherished above all else; that our choices, food-related or otherwise, have no consequences.

These are, of course, a series of falsehoods, and Wendell exposes them all with piercing clarity. These falsehoods resonate even more today in the face of imminent climate chaos. But Wendell’s is also a message of hope: here he guides us with seven practical, succinctly presented suggestions for how we can lead our lives more humanely. These proposals are simple. They make sense. They connect us to the land and to the traditions that have sustained us since the beginning of civilization. And they are pleasurable.

Pleasure, to Wendell, is essential. This essay is a warning, but it is also a reminder of the joy that comes when you live in tune with the natural world. In this manner, too, Wendell could see into the future. He saw the potential for a powerful counterforce to fast food culture, one based around those earthbound values that knit us together as human beings on this planet.

Wendell Berry was more than just prescient. He wrote in such a lucid, lyrical way that we have as much to learn from him now as we did then—more perhaps, now that we need so desperately to hear his hopeful message. Thirty years later, I believe we are ready for Wendell.

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From, Wendell Berry's, The Pleasures of Eating, below,

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"It is possible, then, to be liberated from the husbandry and wifery of the old household food economy. But one can be thus liberated only by entering a trap (unless one sees ignorance and helplessness as the signs of privilege, as many people apparently do). The trap is the ideal of industrialism: a walled city surrounded by valves that let merchandise in but no consciousness out. How does one escape this trap? Only voluntarily, the same way that one went in: by restoring one’s consciousness of what is involved in eating, by reclaiming responsibility for one’s own part in the food economy. One might begin with the illuminating principle of Sir Albert Howard’s The Soil and Health, that we should understand “the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal, and man as one great subject.” Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used. This is a simple way of describing a relationship that is inexpressibly complex. To eat responsibly is to understand and enact, so far as one can, this complex relationship. What can one do? Here is a list, probably not definitive:..."

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List, here.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

You Think the Pace is Yours?

In the garden, pace develops quickly, if it's just you, and the terrain.  Whatever it is you're about to do in the garden, the garden joins in.  Tempering your pace with its own.  Time of day, seasons, and weather are tag along pace markers. 
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Amusing, when you're trying for this, below, yet it seems another bank account and decade away from reality. 


Pic, above, here.
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If you have the good fortune to install most of the garden, above, yourself, know this for sure, it is one of the greatest gifts you'll receive across the span of your life.  Pace and epiphanies live across their own timelines in a garden while you're gardening it.  What you learned 3 years ago, becomes another type of epiphany 2 decades later.  Though you may have moved from the garden, the garden doesn't stop its work of pace and epiphany in you.
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Those moments in my garden I had thought I was lost to the present, instead were the moments I was most truly inside myself.
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I sought conquest in my garden, instead, I reaped contemplation, a willingness to let the soul lead, listen, inform, change me.  How many years was I leading?  None, the garden won its conquest before I was born, the garden leading me, with its soul.   
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"Place and a mind may interpenetrate till the nature of both is altered."  Nan Shepherd.
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Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Trust the pace of your gardening & garden.

Bringing Potted Plants Inside: Not Your Mother's Advice

Months, no rain, weeks, 100f, without a goodbye, cold.
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Quickly, pots luxuriating all summer outside, now inside.
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No drama, no worries where those pots would be placed.
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Garden Design Course, in a photo, below.
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Got the memo first seeing this table/pots.  And a new Garden Design Rule.  You must have a pretty table, inside, to be ruined with potted plants.
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Beloved, with great concern, "You're damaging the table."   Me, with a smile from the heart, "I know."
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Of course I made sure to use a table I had bought at a thrift store, solid mahogany, dropleaf, gateleg, ca. 1940's.
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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO T
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So, do you already have a table to ruin, or heading to thrift store today?
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Aside from childish glee in setting pots to table inside, humbled by the layer of beauty and joy they bring to what had already been thought a pretty room.  Whoa, missed a layer?  Bigly.   

Landscape: Fixed vs Growth Mindsets

Deepest winter is the test of Garden Design.  A garden looking good in winter, below, will look good all year.
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Two gardens, below.  One green all year, the other flowers for a few weeks.
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Which garden attracts and benefits the most pollinators?


Pic, above, here.
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Which garden is a Fixed Mindset Garden, and which is a Growth Mindset Garden ?


Pic, above, here.
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Which garden is the easiest to maintain?
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Virtue Signaling with gardens, pollinator habitat, eco, sustainable, regenerative, all a bit much.  Meanings vary by region, era, and person.
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What a garden does, for Earth, is its test.
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Growth Mindset, 'What type of garden most benefits Earth, and makes me happy?'
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Fixed Mindset, 'I like this garden, looks easy, affordable, and eco.'
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"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside awakes."  Carl Jung
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Which garden, above, looks outside, which looks inside?
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These questions matter in the micro, we said goodbye to macro decades ago.  Bees are dying and we're peeing anti-depressants into waterways, How Depression Medication is Polluting the Ocean and Altering The Behaviors of Sea Creatures.  Antidepressants in Stream Waters!  Are They in the Fish Too? 
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Solutions quite simple, happy, and loving.  Didactic apoplexy isn't intended, and not meant.  Time was given me, with loving teachers, from Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset, as it should be for you too.
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Excepting I began in my 20's.  What if you're beginning in your 50's, and above, wanting to go from Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset, about your best Garden Design?  You're good, they're the only gardens here.  Years of agrarian gardens.  Only recently did I realize my gardens are Agrarian, and most other gardens are Industrialized.  Agrarian vs. Industrialized.  Interesting, I've been slipping Agrarian Gardens into Deed Restricted/HOA Industrialized neighborhoods for decades.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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No, I didn't answer those questions, above.  They are for you to answer.  Answers in next post.

Take What's Best for You: Agrarian vs. Industrialized

My grandmother grew up on a farm, a land grant from King James to our family.  We track to the Revolutionary War era.  Her only child, my mom, did not relish caring for chickens, pigs, or crops.
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Dad's family also dates to the Revolutionary War era, along with something quite American, he was a legal Native American Indian, Cherokee.  Wonderful, knowing I have the blood of 2 great-great grandmothers, 100% Cherokee.
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Both sides of my family, until my grandparents, lived agrarian lives.  Centuries upon centuries of agrarian knowledge.
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Good and bad.  Dad went on to be part of the core team of 50 NASA engineers putting man on the moon.  Cell phones/laptops came from that program, and more.  Glad he didn't stay agrarian.
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What's the point, where is this headed?  It took only a single generation, my parents, to lose centuries of agrarian knowledge.  Lessons to be learned before we walk, or talk.  E. M. Forster takes this up with the character of Leonard Bast in, Howard's End.
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From earliest memories I knew industrialized landscapes were wrong.  Real landscapes were the marshes, pastures full of Longhorn cattle, Pecan orchards, cattails in the drainage ditches along the roads, Oak trees trailing moss above meadows full of white clover,  and whatever else the tropical winds of Galveston Bay blew in.  Thought everyone knew which landscapes were the right landscapes.
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"(Iris) Murdoch begins by reflecting on the fundamental difference between the function of philosophy and that of art --- one being to clarify and concretize, the other to mystify and expand."  Maria Popova.
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Realized, early 20's, I was society's strange one.  Society adores industrialized landscapes, mow-blow-go-commodify all they touch-fertilizers-chemicals-mulches-annuals.  Industrialized landscapes are written into law via deed restrictions and HOA's.
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Pic, above, here.
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Marvelous young orchard with guilds, and potager, above.
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Getting that 2nd college degree, in my 20's, horticulture, knowing it was bogus USA industrialized landscape nonsense, it was off to study historic gardens across Europe for decades.  First time seeing this type of garden, above, moth-to-a-flame.  Pure agrarian.
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This is how I garden, and design gardens, decades now.  It's still a rare profession, designing agrarian based gardens.  Illegal for millions of Americans, millions more think they are 'messy', see pic, above.  Why do they think they are messy?  I think, because they don't realize what they are looking at.  Why should they?  Most are generations away from agrarian living.
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Looking at the pic, above, I see the poyeema of Providence.  God's workmanship, gifted as the joy of handywork for ourselves, if we deem to partake.  They did, above.  How fine, above, if a full'ish moon and warm'ish evening are expected, the tail end of fall, dahlias still showing, apples on the branch, a picnic dinner, wine, friends, blankets and large pillows in the orchard, in celebration.
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Ironically, not too different from the life George Washington or John Adams knew.  America was founded upon agrarian models.  It's good to have choices beyond agrarian.  Yet, in the macro, global industrialization has been at the agrarian expense, especially industrialized livestock.
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"...art is what makes us not only human but humane."  Iris Murdoch.
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Losing the stewardship agrarian life instills, has led to not 'seeing' industrialized livestock as an issue.  Same thread as not 'seeing' what this garden, above, means.  Same issue as our health diminished with industrialized vs. agrarian farming, and, industrialized vs. agrarian landscaping.  While we harm ourselves, and livestock with industrialized methods, we're poisoning groundwater, killing mycorrhizal fungi, why that matters, here, killing pollinator habitat for insects/birds/wildlife that migrate, only to journey to areas now bereft of food, so they die, after millions of years having followed the same migration patterns.  Jack Nicholson,with his best smile and unkempt greasy hair,  couldn't ask it better, "Who are the killers now?".
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Pic, above, here.
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Sacred vs. profane.  Pairs of words, in opposite, shout at me, especially when they make me think.  Humility vs. hubris is a nice pair of words read this morning.  From my own Commonplace book, Mystery-Meaning, Creation-Transcendence, Law-Grace, Righteousness- Corruption, Universalism-Particularism, Pious-Secular, Compassion-Violence, Justice-Judging.  In the garden, gardening, performing the gift of poyeema, pairs of words find their journey from the noise of daily life and neo-fixed mindset into the realms of transcendence with a growth mindset.
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It is the garden passing along epiphanies.  Do you do this too?
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"....if there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet...maybe we could understand something."  Federico Fellini.
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Part of my mission statement, for decades, for my garden, "......I want to look out any window, any day, and think, Oh Wow."  Seeking awe.
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"Awe enables us to sense in small things the beginnings of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common & simple."  Joshua Herschel Abraham.
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Have you already found your garden to be a talker?  "The habit of prayer, by which I mean the habit of listening."  Loren Eisley.
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With Industrialized Gardens, "It is the shrewdness of the fox after the chicken.  A low order of mentality often goes with it."  Sherwood Anderson.
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Working with agrarian gardens there are myriad 'greats' to work with, they have died, but not the dynamic of their poyeema.  Working with them, is one of the greatest joys of my life.  How can I not accept the rebuke from Alexander Pope, "My gardens improve more than my writings."  Serious rebuke, taken to heart, yet with complete humor of good will.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Pic, above, take from Ben Pentreath's blog, I think you'll enjoy it.

Historic Agrarian Modern Arrangements

Perfect, arrangement, below.  Florist style, without flowers, without expense.
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Only recently have I  begun making 'arrangements'.  Who has time for that?  People, without a life, made arrangements.  Now, apparently that is me.  Oddly, life gets crazier, necessity increases to hunt/gather and create arrangements for the house.  My life 'fell out', so choices had to be made. 
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Hungering for joy, the choice was easy.
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Aside from the expense of store bought flowers, their footprint upon Earth isn't something I wish to partake.  What about flowers in my own garden?  Rather a mood about those too.  Taking my own flowers, takes away pollinator food, and later, their seeds won't exist upon Earth.
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What to do?
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Bushes need pruning, and there's plenty of roadside greenery, pure joy taking clippers/basket, zero guilt.


Pic, above, here.
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Line and form are the most important layers of historic agrarian modern garden design.  Exactly the gardens I relish.
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Not a stretch, understanding, my love for the arrangement, above. 
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Silhouette, above, of the greenery, its scale to the container, and relationship between greenery/container using rustic/formal.  Full on miniature historic agrarian modern garden design in an urn.
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Notice the debris field, above?  Quite amusing, and part of the process, creating.
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I create arrangements on the front porch of our ca. 1900 home.  With its historic agrarian modern garden design, sweeping clippings, from making arrangements, off the porch, enriches the soil, and is covered with foliage.  Win/win.
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Hunted/gathered greenery, often has a lifespan of a month as an arrangement. 
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Understanding the alchemy of creating these historic agrarian modern floral arrangements, and what they add to my life & home, pure visceral.  Yet what are the words for the creation, then enjoyment?
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Grace and joy arrive quickly, but it's deeper than that.
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A transcendence.
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Certainly worth the price, becoming one-of-those-people-without-a-life !
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Before/After: Color

Charming before/after, below.  Don't know any details about the home, purchased to live in, bought to flip, perhaps a new owner knows they will only live in the house 4-5 years max, and the budget had to go into new wiring, plumbing, septic, windows, floors, kitchen.
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Without primping, the house has great bones.
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Pic, above, here.
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Notice the fascia boards at roof's edge, above.  Painted dark, they lift upward visually, into the roof, giving greater height to the house from the ground.  Always adore making this change.  And, the gutters are dark too.  Perfect choices.
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Another height altering paint/color technique, with a home at this scale, above, paint the gable the same color as the walls.  Nothing to 'pull down' the height, a pure line of color rising up.  Two colors, at this scale, makes the gable look  more 'squat'.
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The white windows are probably vinyl and not easily painted, or painting them would invalidate a warranty.  If this is the issue, and those windows were being chosen now, choose almond vinyl not white.  White windows, above, are jumping forward, instead of calmly receding, and looking larger.
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Great choice replacing the front door, depth of character.
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In addition, at the front door, swap the square post, for a round post, greater contrast with all the square lines of the house, and new post about 25% larger in scale.
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Opening the front door zone further, remove the side rails, wrap the steps around the entire front door landing.  Reuse the handrail at the angle where the new steps 'turn' from the front.  Now, the front door zone is scaled to a focal point welcome, not merely a small niche along the front facade of the home.
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Changing the front door steps, the curbed garden edging will need to be changed. And, the stone walk must be enlarged to create a landing at the steps.
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Another before/after, below, using color as their best tool.
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Pic, above, here.
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Won't mention, above, landscape plantings, it's the colors used in the 'after' drawing delight.  'After', the foundation uses colors from the house, to the ground, making the house recede, appear larger, and creating flow from the house to the ground.  Keeping the house the focal point, not the foundation.
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Bright colors on foundations too often accentuate the foundation, not the house.
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Another bit of fabulous flow, above, the new entry from the sidewalk, up the steps, to the house.  No longer must you enter the house from a service court, now you can enter the house via the garden.
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Pic, above, here.
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Another before/after, above.
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Porch rails, top pic, probably not original to the home, yet added not long after construction.  Have seen those exact metal pole rails used across Georgia at many historic homes.  Not good if you have children/grandchildren.  Nor if you're selling your home and the buyer uses a VA loan.  VA loans require modern safety/efficiency layers for approval.
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We made an offer on our ca. 1900 home within hours of touring.  Another family made an offer a few days later, VA loan.  Our lucky day.  We love our front porch, still historically accurate, no rails.
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The porch, above, would look a bit larger, in the 'after', if the rails were painted the same color as the foundation.  In addition, the fence/gate to the left of the home, above, stained same color as the brick columns, will extend the architecture of the home.
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Plantings, above, I would move to the slope and add more plants, creating a hedge from sidewalk to crest of hill, growing no taller than the porch rail.  Why?  Add privacy to front porch, yet keeping visibility outward to neighbors, trees, and without seeing parked/moving cars, and the road.  More importantly, creating the hedge closer to the road blocks many toxins cars spew.
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Rubber crumb, from tires, used to make mulch, is toxic to soil, ground water, and above certain temp turns into fumes absorbed thru our skin.  And that's merely one layer of toxicity from cars.
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Lastly, above, painting gutter/fascia boards at the roof line, the same color as the foundation, will make the roof rise taller, and settle the house into the landscape vs. currently jumping forward in the landscape, similar to the painting of the fascia in the top pic.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Appreciate the thought going into each of the renovations, above.  Every thought = $$$, both in renovation expense or sales price or rental income.  In addition to the joy of living in the homes.  Alas, landscaping always last on the budget list, literally.

Easiest Pot Watering

Part of my mission statement, looking out my windows, ".......Oh WOW.........."  Not, "I must go get that done."
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Wouldn't want to water these pots, below.  Could never leave town.
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Drip irrigation.  Nor do I want to see drip irrigation tubing.  Easy, thread the tubing up the pots, from the bottom drain hole. 
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If the pots are by the pool, line the pot with landscape fabric, ahead of placing soil in the pot.  Less staining on the hardscape.


Pic, above, here.
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At the front end of gardening, these gardens, above, were ridiculous, awful & boring, knew it for sure.
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Now, these gardens, above, are smart, modern, playful, even better, useful upon myriad layers.
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Perhaps you already knew, this is Valentino's garden, above.  Smart man, nothing in the garden is original, instead, centuries old. 
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Not in your budget, above?  Don't fall for that thinking.  Too small.
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Canopy, understory, floors, & pots arrive at all price points, free to extravagant.
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Amusing, remembering my first thoughts, years, about these gardens, above.  Who was that person?
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"Talent hits a target others can’t hit. Genius hits a target others can’t even see."
– Schopenhauer

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Genius, above, was designed by truly great minds, Valentino saw it, finally, I saw it.  Hope you do too.  If you don't, at least hang on to the genius of others, maybe you'll see it in time.

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Then arrives another layer of genius.  And one of the first Garden Design principles.  COPY .
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Mastering: The Well-Placed Table

When enthusiasm invades, it will, and it must be brought home to the garden, below.


Pic, above, here.
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The Well-Placed Table, and its appointments.
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Pic, above, here.
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All yours, best when you've delved deeply into what gives you joy.
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Tell me who you are, with your Well-Placed Table and appointments.
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Hope you're already planning changes thru the year in appointments.
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No worries details, excepting the most singularly important detail.  Joy.
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Buy the table because looking at it makes you happy.
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Choose your table color because it makes you happy.
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Site your table because looking at it, exactly in that spot, makes you happy.
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Place appointment/s on your table because they make you happy.
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Remember, the more you go inward, the more you outwardly connect.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Outdoor Pots in Winter: New, FUN, Florist Arena

It's rare someone changes my mind, and getting their result includes 'more' money, time, effort. 
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Deborah Silver is the florist of planting outdoor pots.   She changed my mind. 
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Prior to Deborah I was content to not plant my pots, just as the Queen, and Queen Mother, did not plant their pots.  Once I saw their royal pots I knew, A Pot Must Be So Wonderful It Can Remain Empty.  Dubbed, The Queen's Pot.
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Then comes Deborah.  Queen of Pots, 2.0 . 


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More.  Worse?  Deborah makes me want to plant my pots during an 'off' season, fall.
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More than 'pretty', Deborah's pots share her exuberance for life, in each permutation.
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For years she's shared her seasonal pots, and how to create them.
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These pots, all above/below, use the shape of the pot, with the shape of their 'arrangements'.  Creating a new florist arena.
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By now, your eye, studying Deborah's pots, has already noted, I'm sure, it's not specific plants she uses, but their shapes, colors, and contrasts to each other, along with scale, form, flow.
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Perhaps the best ingredient in all of the pots, above/below, is the element of pure FUN.
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Why are Deborah's pots so incredible?  At their core, is a transcendence.
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My eyes are already calibrated to hunting/gathering phase for pot planting.  Of course my eyes are calibrated to Deborah's instructions. 
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Thought you would like to have the same fun too.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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More fall pots from Deborah Silver, here.
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Fall pots Deborah Silver's team made, to her specifications, with their own freedom, here.
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No, this is not a sponsored post !