How to Start Your Garden Design: 101

Once you've toured historic gardens across Europe, twice minimum, a theme appears from the oldest, 2-4 centuries, gardens.  The oldest garden design theme is a template, process, equation, road map, truth, facts, information, trinity, whatever you wish to name it, and finally, what I name it, Wisdom.
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Pic, above, here.
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If we're lucky, we understand.  If luckier, we intuit Wisdom.
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You're looking at a garden design, above, using every element of the oldest gardens.  Can you name the trinity?
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If Earth's oldest gardens are a trinity, "Why not start a garden with what it ends with?"
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What are you looking at, above?  Trees, meadow, stone focal point.  Historic trinity of garden design, trees can be formal, above, or an existing wild wood.  Meadow can be pasture, or lastly, lawn, myriad shapes, or formal lines.
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Stone focal point, often a dried fountain, long ago unable to hold water, balustrades, terrace, plinth, folly, urn, statue, ruins of a stone house/castle.
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Trees are most often forest, a wild wood, bosque, nothing showy, yet with canopy & understory.
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A decade passed before understanding Wildwood next to Meadow.  Do you know the significance?  .
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Wildwood next to Meadow is maximum pollinator habitat, gift from Providence for survival.
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Recently, a new fact I discovered about trees, and Providence,

 "Other than God and people, the Bible mentions trees more than any other living thing."  Matthew Sleeth.
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Did you know that?  Matthew Sleeth, also linked to Charles Spurgeon, The Trees in God's Court. 
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Do you know who the garden, above, belongs to?  Have seen it several times thru the years, online, this time with provenance, Valentino's, Chateau de Widevill.
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Oddly, the trinity of Trees-Meadow-Stone Focal Point is greatly suited toward mid-century ranch homes & the flurry of split-level 70's-80's homes, calming industrialized architecture with agrarian/pastoral grace.  All homes & price points, not merely grand estates. 
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Why, exactly, start your garden design with what it will end with?  Less maintenance & expense, reduced HVAC with shade in summer, sun in winter, mental health benefits of beauty, physical health benefits Providence designed into our microbiomes without which we become ill or die.  Earth friendly, no fertilizers/chemicals toxic to groundwater, fungi, bacteria, agriculture, insects, wildlife, humans.  Friendly to even, yes, deer & armadillo, without noticeable damage. 
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Next layer, if you wish more in your garden, go for it, have fun.  No worries, if it fails, history proves it will, you'll still have a gorgeous garden Trees/Meadow/Stone Focal Point friendly to Nature, Earth and You.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T