A FREE HOUSE

Knowing he replaced windows Susanne Hudson deduced the old windows were going someplace, shall we say, unpleasant, in these 'sustainable' times? With Susanne's brilliance, instead of ending their life at a, literal, DUMP his windows are becoming GARDEN HOUSES, metaphorically, free.

#89 granite gravel creates crunchy delicious floors.

With rescued objects (aka free) and an exquisite eye for junking Susanne's GARDEN HOUSE is a statement in INTERIOR DESIGN too.

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Who knew junking & rescuing could be so GORGEOUS!!

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took pics in Susanne's GARDEN HOUSE.

ROUNDABOUTS HERE & THERE

Roundabouts, below, get you around a garden.

Roundabouts are a fabulous landscape design tool. Use where 2, or more, paths intersect.

This woman, above, was beyond ready to take her frontyard in hand. Corner lot, too big, unattractive, way too much mowing, little property value, and most importantly, it did not make her happy. (Ha, beware the woman not happy with something.)

Grass was reduced, paths with roundabout designed, groundcovers, evergreen shrubs, & understory trees to survive drought/flood & aging in place. Aging in place? Want to be 88 with weekly garden chores? Ha, didn't think so. It's designing for unskilled labor, tough plants, and timeless beauty on axis from window views.

From the house, above, a stone roundabout anchors the view. Evergreen hollies anchor the entry path, variegated sweetflag (groundcover) surround the roundabout.

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Designed in the grand tradition with a low maintenance theme. Not completed, above, and already showing promise. And her? She's HAPPY.

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Small roundabout, above. Notice something important about the pot, above? It doesn't HAVE to be planted.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics of completed roundabouts I took last January in the botanical garden in Birmingham, England. My client sent the pics of her roundabout.

DESIGNED FRONT GARDEN: BEFORE + AFTER

We began over 2 years ago. He had already begun remodeling their older home. With children & 2 careers in full blossom construction slowed, and the garden almost halted.

Overwhelmed, he hired me to design the landscape. Loving gardens he was doing the work himself. Until,

his wife, in very serious tones, let him know the projects did, INDEED, have a completion date.Do you know what love is? He hired a personal organizer. He also began subcontracting some of the landscape labor. Another gift of love for his wife; working in his garden is a joy to him, not labor. Alas, time.

Instead of an arbor for shade, crape myrtle's will soon cover the terrace. Flow & axis dictated the terrace have 2 entries.

A GARDEN PACK RAT he had a stash of Stone Mountain granite curbstones. They now step you down into a woodland garden, on axis from the stone terrace.

The garden is young and all areas are not this far along. Yes, I'll post more about this garden in the future.

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In a note, sent with these pictures, he wrote: A family that gardens together, grows together.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

NOT CRAFTY

A board, mirror, old tools. Each a rescue. What would you do? Susanne Hudson made this, above, mirror. Hung on an outside wall of her carriage house.
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I'm 'not crafty' in the least but a mirror I was given & old tools are in my garage (carriage house!)
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Continuing with the 'not crafty' fact, I see pine cones on the mirror frame too. Hmm, a glue gun needed. AND, in season I see fresh hydrangea blossoms tucked into the tools & pine cones around the mirror. And, in season camellias................roses...............tea olive................gardenia.................hosta/fern foliage................hellebores.............daffodils.
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Wouldn't that be interesting, collecting a year's pics of the garden mirror?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SURROUNDED BY GARDEN

Upstairs, below, is my office window. Surrounded by garden.

3 project (antique) tables, 5 bookcases, 5 chairs, pair French doors, mantel, chandelier, 9 lamps, for starters. Quite satisfying until I saw this, below.

If this were my office, above, this would be its backdoor, below, entry.

OK. I am teasing. But I won't always. Before pics are being taken. My backdoor & garden room will be unveiled late 2010. My atelier? Same timeline.

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Oh, the anticipation. Life is good.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Bottom pics found via this fabulous place. Top pic truly is my garden & upstairs office window. It faces a sideyard garden room with pond, potager, arbor, flagstone terrace, encircled by evergreen hedge, & scented by 6 mature tea olive. For a moment, do you think I see my cluster home subdivision abutting my tiny arcadia? Denial may be good but a garden is better.

LANDSCAPE APPROACH. GOT ONE?

Approaching each landscape design one of the first things I know, before getting out of my car, is the MAIN VIEW TO THE HOUSE.

Some homes are approached from both directions along the street. Many are approached from mainly ONE direction. Design to the main direction.

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Is the main direction of your house a side with air-conditioner? Garage with garbage cans stored outside? Ha, you've got serious landscape design issues.

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The main approach above? The top pic.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

GARDEN BY CANDLELIGHT

Don't let candlelight be missing in your garden.

If they look this good during the day unlit

imagine their seduction at night.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken in Susanne Hudson's garden. Now, off to buy lanterns! Don't forget thrift stores & repurposing light fixtures.

SUMMER HOUSE

Perhaps your garden needs a summer house. Cool respite to enjoy your garden from another vista. A place to eat, read, nap, gather.
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Think about it. And in your imagination put in a ceiling fan; keeping mosquitos away.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

COMBINING TEXTURE

For greater impact plant large leaved plants next to small leaved plants. For greater impact plant purple foliage next to chartreuse foliage.
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It's all about texture. Leaves are Texture.
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Big leaves are coarse texture. Small leaves are fine texture.
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A boxwood leaf is fine texture next to a magnolia leaf which is coarse texture.
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A boxwood leaf is coarse texture next to a creeping time leaf which is fine texture.
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TEXTURE is relative.
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Then I used the Tara Rule, JUST LET IT TOUCH, above.
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I used plants bug proof, drought proof, zero chemicals, zero pruning. They peak at different times spreading interest throughout the year. The conifer peaks in winter, purple setcreasea in summer.
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Ha, did you think it was simply a picture of 2 plants? Yes, after putting all of the above skills into creating the combination.
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PLANT COMBINATIONS. If you see plant combinations you like, & they fulfill all of the above, then dahlings it's time to follow the first rule of landscape design, COPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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If you're keeping existing plants you know what to do. Place new plantings of contrasting texture next to them.
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You'll never be stuck again designing your landscape.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

THE WELL-PLACED RAKE

With wood tines this rake was bought for ornamentation. To create vignettes. Then realizing this is the rake to use on a bluestone terrace. No scratching of your stones with metal tines.

In the foreground, above, is a Pee Gee hydrangea. With dried blossoms, by the rake, is an oakleaf hydrangea. After this picture was taken I added 'Anna Belle' hydrangea.

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Oakleaf/'Anna Belle'/Pee Gee, tolerate full-sun in my zone 8 garden. Oakleaf's bloom early summer, 'Anna Belle' most of summer, Pee Gee late summer.

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The burgundy foliage? A Weeping Cut-Leaf Red Japanese Maple. Bought for 90% off at Lowe's. A hand-written sale sign for all shade trees several fall's ago. Ha, the cashier said this tree wasn't included. Hunger, lust, desire, dahlings, I had to have this tree. Yes, a $200 tree for 90% off. Had to ask the cashier for the manager, to get the sale price. Wholesale, trees this size are more than $200. Sold, $20 !!!

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What you can't realize about this vignette in my garden? It's at the front of my tiny property and neighbor's houses are EVERYWHERE. But, la-ti-da, I have my little Cotswoldian idyll and don't see them.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

COLOR: BEFORE & AFTER

After creating garden rooms, color is my #2 choice for what's important in a landscape. Came across this pic, below, yesterday.

OMG, so glad I stained the teak and painted the iron.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

WHEN TO BUY & DIY CONTRACTING & etc.

November is the best month to buy plants on sale. Most nurseries must make space for Christmas trees, arriving typically, by Thanksgiving.

A tempting email arrived from here. I bit. And bought!!

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A delicious man helped place my order, arriving Dec. 4th. Gosh he was rollicking good. I think I asked him to deliver my plants himself. He wasn't sure they would let him. Honestly, I begged him to be the one unloading my plants with me.

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We are still emailing back/forth about my order. More deliciousness.

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What's so delicious? Try a 25 gallon Variegated Kousa Dogwood at $90, a 45 gallon Cryptomeria at $130, 25 gallon Natchez Crape Myrtles at $60 and super tasty 7 gallon Setsugekka Sasanqua's at $40. Best prices of the year.

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Told you Mr. Rollicking Delicious was good.

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It's been almost a decade since I've done a large tweek in my garden. At my baywindow I'm creating a gravel terrace. 2 Adirondack chairs from the Smith/Hawken going-out-of-business sale were bought for this new garden room. Another gravel terrace is being added in my side garden under the crape myrtles. A chandelier is waiting in my garage to be hung from the crape myrtles over this new seating area. Teak seating was bought from TJMAXX.

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My garden is tiny & full of rooms. Soon I should win an award for most garden rooms/square foot!!!

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Gravel for the terraces will be ordered tomorrow. Laying in bed I connive where it should be dumped. There's no where. At the bottom of my short drive seems best. Don't want the dump truck breaking it. Guess who shovels? Me. Hired my contractor, Dan Riddle, to plant the big stuff. Can only afford him, and workers, for a full day.

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Why tell you all this? So you can be your own contractor too.

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AND, my interior was SUSANNED Tuesday. When Susanne Hudson left (10am-7pm) I was excited and dizzy. Since Tuesday I've been taking my notebook with color chips/notes around the house & to bed, it's beside my computer now as I type glancing at the colors.
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SUZANNE MEASURED. Things I knew couldn't be done, were done, because she measured. Antiques from my garage will be going inside, finally. She also named rooms. The Parlor, Music Room, Garden Room, OMG, what fun.

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Top pic is of HighGrove, Prince Charles's estate in England. And the bottom pic was a joy to come across. I've been in that garden. Don't remember where. Must peruse my pics & find my shot of the same spot. I think the pics came via Golden Age Gardens .

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

HEDGE FUND IN THE LANDSCAPE

Cute Kills in a landscape. Yes, another Tara Rule. Why?
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Often, cute, has lovely origins but in execution the effect is derivative, clumsy, pedantic. Cute hijacks thought processes. It's static. Not a dynamic statement. Nor timeless.
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What to do instead?
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WHIMSY.
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If hedges are the walls of garden rooms, shouldn't they have windows?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took this pic in Atlanta while Joel Tressler was shooting for my book.

HOW TO ADD INTEREST TO YOUR WALLS

Gertrude Jekyll, world's 1st landscape designer, said the first thing she considered when designing a landscape was what to put on the wall. I literally set her book down when I read that sentence. To digest. Why?
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No symposium, book, magazine, college professor ever, EVER, said to put anything on the house.
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Jekyll's sentence rocked my world. Hope it rocks yours.
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Gertrude loved to use CLEMATIS MONTANA on walls.
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In Italy, I discovered every conceivable plant espaliered. EPIPHANY: use espaliered shrubs instead of vines. Much, much-much-much, easier. No wires, no trellis needed.
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Shutters, tool bouquets, art, faux doors, faux windows, birdhouses & etc. are also in your quiver; adding interest to your walls.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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On my wall, above, she's hanging on the nail vacated, for the moment, by my dovecote which is in the repair shop. The Yellow Pages delivery person smashed it to smithereens. (A Christine Sibley piece bought at her gallery/garden before she passed. Every piece of hers was bought off the 'seconds' table, 90% off.) Do you have a landscape larder for garden emergencies?????????

THE SECRET OF FABULOUS LANDSCAPES

Entering Great Dixter, below, the household drive. Tires crunching along the gravel, scent of meadow.

Passing thru the yew hedge into this, above.

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See the landscape design secret?

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No?

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Back your car down the drive, park it on the road, get out, walk up the gravel drive, slowly, and thru the yew hedge.

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Notice the contrast of meadow to clipped lawn? Formal to informal?

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Ha, the secret tool of the worlds most famous landscapes is

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CONTRASTING FORMAL & INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS.

Did you think this gravel drive & meadow were 'natural'? Ha, not one inch of this drive or meadow were unconsidered. TOTALLY DESIGNED.
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TARA TURF was born in this meadow over a decade ago. And the epiphany of what the best landscapes create, FORMAL GARDEN ROOMS NEXT TO INFORMAL GARDEN ROOMS.
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CONTRAST.
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Yes, contrast flower shapes/colors, tree forms, foliage colors/shapes & etc. Knowing, contrasting FORMAL/INFORMAL is the most important.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Lucky me, taking the pics at Great Dixter while Christopher Lloyd was alive. Note: In another area of Great Dixter meadow is designed up to, and touching, the house. Ha, remember the Tara Rule of Just Let It Touch?
Oh, meadows have been sustainable-organic-eco-low maintenance-beautiful since before language was invented.

10 KICK ASS WAYS TO LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Landscape design rules make everything unique about YOU, more intense. Landscape Design Rules copied, above:
1. Vine on house. (Or espalier a shrub)
2. Pot cluster, themed (terra cotta).
3. Well-placed chair.
4. View into house delightful.
5. Color on house. All wood in landscape is peacock blue.
6. Color on chair. All metal in landscape is faded green.
7. Contrasting foliage shapes & colors.
8. Contrasting bloom shapes, spikey & round.
9. Does it hold together in winter?
10. Just let it touch. Foliages touch each other, the chair, the house
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You'll see these rules followed in the best landscapes. Claude Monet to Gertrude Jekyll to Christopher Lloyd to Vita Sackville-West to Sir Roy Strong to William Morris to Rosemary Verey to Tasha Tudor to Tara Dillard..... to YOU.

Don't like the pot cluster? Don't use them, plant a shrub. Voila, same landscape, but now you own it.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took the pic in a lovely private French garden.

A LANDSCAPE WORTHY OF JANE AUSTEN

Pleasure walks, focal points to stimulate conversation, peaceful corners to sit & read, have lunch, write a letter, gossip with a friend, entertain, experience metaphors of nature writ large, a retreat to retire & contemplate, connive perhaps, most importantly it's civilized. Of course it's my garden.

These views taken from my office window this week with my cell phone.

Living within this tiny plot of land in a cluster home subdivision and all the cares of the world; this garden allows me a Jane Austen life.

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Ugh, the matchmaking part? Terrible. Did it once, never again. They divorced.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

TRAILING DRESS, GARDEN, HOWARD'S END

"Why did we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all gamboge-colored paths?" Won't tell you what 'gamboge' is. Why take away a pleasure? A great day when a dictionary is needed. "Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday..." Mrs. Wilcox walking in her garden peering into her house, Howard's End. This scene from Howard's End so enchanted me I had to buy the book. Not imagined by the movie director, I discovered, but written into the story.

You must understand, walking about my garden, and peering into my house, calms & fills me with energy. A private, sublime, pleasure. Why would I share it with anyone, these thoughts? Then discovering my private joy was written about by E.M.Forster in 1910.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics via Hooked on Houses from the movie, Howard's End

THE SECRET OF GARDEN ENTRIES & HALLWAYS

Did you know, the more entries a garden has the better a garden is? Why?
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Garden Entries are focal points drawing the eye, foot, imagination. Leading to foyers, hallways & living rooms. If you can do it inside, dahlings, you can do it outside.
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Above, Garden Entry with tiny landing leading directly into a hallway. See it? Can you label each section? Spread it farther. See the walls? See the ceiling?
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Creating a garden is no more than creating outdoor rooms.
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My favorite garden hallway is above. I took the pic in the Cotswolds. Don't you want to see where the hallway leads?
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How important are Garden Entries & Garden Hallways????????? Today, I'm off to finish a landscape design for a garden full of living rooms. I will add Entries & Hallways connecting them. La-Ti-Da. One of my favorite things to do.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

CAN YOU FIND THE GARDEN THEME HERE?

Artist Stephanie Corder profiled me on her blog yesterday using the name of my business as a theme. I remember the moment, decades ago, creating the name of my business.

Little did I know

it would become the way I design landscapes, Vanishing Threshold,

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live my life.

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My business, and Stephanie's theme? A Garden View.

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Artwork, above, curated by Stephanie, was created by several artists, and written about on her blog. She's an artist too, multi-media, available here.

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Thank you Stephanie for the profile and the artwork you chose.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

15 REASONS TO HIRE AN INTERIOR DECORATOR

15. Not your specialty. Want your dermatologist to do a heart stint?

14. Create rooms with serenity, filling you with energy. (Ha, hire the decorator.)

13. Place ceiling fixtures properly. Hire the electrician twice?

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12. Choose light fixtures: new to junkers from thrift stores stored in your garage.

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11. Place artwork on walls. Move paintings 2-3x's on newly painted walls?

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10. Place bric-a-brac. Trifling trinkets when you do it.

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9. Place lamps & choose new shades. Most important if you have a lighting fetish.

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8. Place furniture. Pianos are heavy, buffets too.

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7. Honor collections. Culling years of collecting into Something....Anything. Will toss what you tell me to.

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6. Choose flooring. Too many choices to go it alone.

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5. Choose fabrics. Too many choices.

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4. Choose colors. Too many choices.

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3. Increase intended function of each room/space.

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2. Save money.

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1. AMPLIFY WHO I AM

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Yes, I'm hiring an interior decorator, Susanne Hudson. Counterintuitively I know Susanne will save money and make me, more me. My house, 22 years old, with original everything, has reached a crisis. Oh, the clawfoot tub in my garden? Dahlings, it's coming inside.

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It's time my house catch up to the FABULOSITY of my garden, VANISHING THRESHOLD.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics, saved privately to show Susanne what I adore. I didn't keep their provenance, ugh. If you know the source, & let me know, I'll update this post. Thanks!