Control Amongst Chaos

A scintilla of control, below, amongst the rusticities.  Perfect.
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Does the scintilla jump out at you too?


Pic, above, here.
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Formally clipped boxwood, above, without ego, no fear, total matriarchs, framing perennials, climbers, flowering shrubs for their turn owning the stage.
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Take this vignette into winter, and a dusting of snow.  Oh my, those matriarchs know what they are doing.
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Gardens must be designed for winter, before the ease of late spring/early summer.
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More good design in this garden, above, but won't take that path at present.  Photographer perfectly captured the scintilla of control over chaos so brilliantly.
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Have you already figured out the percentage of control to chaos, above?  No?  Hmm.  Get to it.
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These matriarchs, above, teaching a pertinent tale.  Wild chaos can reign, in beauty, with a hint of control.
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Adore the temporality of this particular moment.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Anna Wintour has Tara Turf?

Age 8, saw my 1st garden like this, below, in Augusta, GA.  The adults were content to stay inside & chat.  I did the rude child thing, and begged to go outside.  They were glad to get rid of me.  Had to be, I was more than glad to be gone from them.  Not until I saw the movie, Beetlejuice, did anything describe how I felt, going outside that house, that day, into the garden.  Another world.
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The garden was entirely green, wild, mischievously wild.  Looking ahead, left, right, the garden was telling me to go everywhere, all a fabulous mystery, yet speaking to me in a language I knew.  And, that feeling of being alone, in this adventure, perhaps explains more fully, in adulthood, studying historic landscapes across Europe for decades.  And creating the garden for myself.
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Few ask for. or understand, this type garden, up front, in USA.  I design as much of them into the ubiquitous requests, as I can.  A tiny handful, across 3 decades, have asked for the full monty.
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I was caught by this garden, below, being presumptuous.  It's owner, in the public eye for decades with an international successful career, and public persona so Cruella Deville, Meryl Streep played her in a movie.  The garden, below, takes her mask off.  Anna Wintour's garden, below.    












Pics, above, here.
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Full article from NYTimes, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Metal vs. Wood Arbor

Recently finished a Garden Design adding a similar metal arbor, below.

New construction, the home is American Farmhouse, mostly, architecture.

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She wanted an arbor for harvest table & twinkle lites.

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Lapboard siding home, a wood arbor would have been 'too much' more wood.  And the scale 'clunky'.

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Original brick patio, quite pretty, is postage stamp in size, and common to its size, never used.  I enlarged the space with gravel.

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Done.

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Now, finding this particular construction specialist, custom metal arbor.

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Adore simple solutions with elegance & function.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic via here. 

Window Valences: In the Garden

Since the early 80's I've collected vintage garden books.  From those the memory bank retained this window arbor, below.

A delight seeing them at Susanne Hudson's historic home.

Susanne's were just moved from back to front on her carriage house receiving a new coat of paint and light renovation.

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Yes, gardens do need exterior valences.

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Gotta love a color theme, of course the garden valences are white.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken last week.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design: Built In Seating Rarely a Good Idea

Harvest Table for 12, arbor, pendant lights, vines & hedges.  Done.

Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.
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Fact, if a garden design was beautiful centuries ago.  It WILL be beautiful in your garden.
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Al fresco dining.  Across continents, cultures, eras, humans are hardwired for Al Fresco dining.
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Yesterday's Garden Design I completed includes 3 square teak tables.  They can be used individually or together as a harvest table.
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Fixed seating, as some decks have, remind me of George S. Patton speaking of war, "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man."
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Give yourself choices.
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Another good one from Georgie,  "If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results."                    .
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic lost provenance.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Transitioning Style: Garden Rooms Different than Interior Rooms

Beyond the house, in their garden, is the rose garden with cottage.

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Formal.

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Quite obvious what type of garden room is next.

Rustic, and wild, below.

Truly, one of the best waterfalls, any continent, residential/commercial, I've ever seen.
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Garden rooms are easy to style.  They contrast formal to rustic and back again.  For many centuries now.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in the Paul/Lisa Brown garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design is in 2 Directions: Double Axis

Walking further into the back garden from the house, below, 

At the back of the garden, below, waking toward the house.

Same focal point, double axis.
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Gardens MUST be gorgeous in both directions.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in the garden of Paul/Lisa Brown.  It will be on the Atlanta Botanical Garden Connoisseurs tour Mother's Day weekend, May 10-11, 2014.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Basement Door is now the Dowager's Porch

It's common to see a basement door with lawn.  And nothing else.

Mother-in-law Suite doesn't aptly describe this rendition.

Common furnishings, off the shelf shutters, a simple arbor, concrete pavers & voila !

Color theme was chosen and leveraged with punches of yellow.

Boxwoods, liriope, hollies prettier AND easier to maintain than ubiquitous lawn.  Notice, above, the garbage can?

Between driveway & Dowager's Porch is a tiny foyer, above.  Gravel, above, pure brilliance.
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Most basement doors are the throw-away-zone.  Worse, the criminal zone.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.  This garden belongs to Jeri Farmer, co-founder of the PMHF with Susanne Hudson.  Susanne helps Jeri with her Garden Design.  

Tree Arbor

Have never understood the concept, "I can't afford a nice garden."

Can't afford an arbor?  You can afford a few trees.  Contact your Extension Service and discover myriad trees available for pennies on the dollar.
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Site the trees along the western exposure of your home and save money each warm month on a/c.
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Trees raise property value.
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Choose native trees as butterfly hosts in addition to bird habitat.
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Mary Sarton is wrong, gardens aren't silent.  Who can live without the sound of wind thru leaves?
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Trees teach me every fall, trust Providence, let go & be enriched.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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pic via Bumble at Home.  In a small garden, for above, I would use #89 granite gravel instead of lawn less maintenance.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
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Details about online design services.
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Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
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Details about lecture titles here.
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I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Pot Planting

A bit of clipping, drip irrigation, enjoy.

                               Oh my, the dappled light.
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I haven't put an annual in my pots for decades.  Magazines & nurseries push-push-push annuals.  And I listen to what I'm asked for EVERY design, 'my landscape must be low maintenance & not expensive.'
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Gravel to the house, bushes in pots, necessity furnishings for meals, entertaining, relaxing.  Why are so many Americans afraid, above, of this?  "Let's build a deck, make it too small, add built-in seating with the rail which won't ever see use......"  "We'll pour a cement patio barely big enough for a mop, Weber grill, round table + 4 chairs."
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Pic via Desde My Ventana

Deer In The Laundry With Arbor

We were so busy in the garden I never had time to ask about the deer in her laundry.

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Didn't realize the pic was getting the awning outside.  She has several, this one is over the gas grill.

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A style quite common ca. 1910.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pic taken last month.

Color Echoes

Cute Kills in a garden

 Except when you like the cute.

 Pamela Harper wrote of color echoes in landscape design 2 decades ago.

 Advice to

follow.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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This is a new garden room.  It had been a few green meat balls & lawn.  Daylight basement level at the side of her home. 

Landscape Design: Copy

Tea Olive Terrace, below, yesterday morning, pic taken from my upstairs office window.
Why shouldn't I copy what I loved while studying landscapes in Italy? Copy, it's a rule of Landscape Design.
No money & no time are no match for DESIRE. (Tea Olive Terrace, aka side-yard, abuts the street. Private, gorgeous, emotionally enthralling EVERYDAY.)
English Daisy's blooming, annual blue ageratum will bloom late summer, rudbeckia fulgida x fulgida, yellow, bloom now till Christmas.
In Italy, above, this week. Nothing I don't have in a 'working class' cluster home subdivision in USA.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Bottom pic from Paul Gervais in Italy. Enjoy his blog, I do !.

Desert Dweller

At the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert are axis views of landscapes & gardens. Vanishing Threshold, seen-lived-designed-photographed by landscape architect, David Cristiani. Above & below, same line, 2 views, Double Axis.

Creating Double Axis, AND, the still life, below. David expands the world in each detail.

Walls, arbor, vine, sidewalks, neighbors, plant combinations, pots, colors, below, made me laugh in joy. Why? How often do you see SO much look so simple?

We know it's beyond simple. It's MAGIC.

From his laptop, above, another axis & more than magic. Grace.

A bedroom view, treated as a painting on the wall.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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All pics taken by David Cristiani.

David, I really do laugh out loud, & learn, seeing your landscapes & gardens. You are ANAL about Vanishing Threshold, Axis, Double Axis. Providence smiles in simplicity & grace within your work. Thank you for sharing your talents.

Checkerboard Flooring

Checkerboard flooring, below, in shade. Grass won't grow.

12" X 12" concrete squares.

Gorgeous all year. Affordable, low-maintenance, unskilled labor, rain water only. Add crocus, scilla, blue grape hyacinths.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Yesterday's client's office has a black/white checkerboard floor. Soon the garden outside her windows will have checkerboard flooring too.

Pic taken last week in Susanne Hudson's garden. She installed the checkerboard flooring herself. 18" X 18" concrete squares? Too heavy. Unskilled labor & woman powered.

WHICH DIRECTION?

This crabapple, below, doesn't have a bad direction. Here, above/below, in Susanne Hudson's backyard.

Looking thru the gate, below, is a view from the frontyard.

Blossoms, below, each had honeybees. Wish you could hear this tree.

Classic Design Recipe, below. Path, gate, arbor, light, picket fence, color theme, bench, potted boxwood, leaf litter mulch, Tara Turf, focal point on axis. (Note: treat this as any good recipe. It works everytime & is unique everytime.)

Crabapple viewed, below, from the front porch. She fills the horizon.

Notice winter's bare branches? I adore the frisson.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last Friday. My favorite direction is from the library, early morning. Alas, we were hard at work on our book project.

THE GARDEN IN WINTER

Design your landscape for winter & it will be pretty all year. Design for May & you're apt to have only May be beautiful. Peonies, foxglove, clematis, roses, hydrangea, verbena are fabulous but they don't pay the rent.

2 weeks ago, above, in my sweet little garden. A sideyard exposed to a cul de sac of neighbors.

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A reality I've chosen to obliterate. A tiny garden rich in garden rooms. Yet it lives big.

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Why? Look closely at the top pic. I own the sky.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

EXPANDING ARCHITECTURE

Welcome, below, begins at the gate. Imagine the landscape, above, without the gate/arbor/fence. Much smaller. Expand your architecture, leverage your welcome.
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Resist temptation to use a property line for fencing.
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The more entries a landscape has the better a landscape is.
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Placing a gate on axis with your frontdoor creates an enfilade, a view thru to a view. Most desirable.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic on Lane Realty, via, Hooked on Houses.