Engine of Providence

Low Tara Turf, below.  From 1st meeting adored its charm, character, function.  Here, perfectly balanced with formal pruning, canopy, open, woodland beyond.
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Did you immediately understand all these things too?


Pic, above, here.
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Oddly, decades after falling deeply for Tara Turf, an epiphany.
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More than 'aesthetics', pure function.  Engine of Providence.
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Tara Turf next to canopy/understory are maximum pollinator habitat.
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My adoration/desire no different than the attraction a bee has for flowers.  None.
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Life at its most basic.
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Tara Turf, indeed.  Drama. Bees have known, since bees have been.
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Maximum pollinator habitat can increase crop yields by 80%, do the math.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO T
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TARA TURF

TARA TURF IS UNIQUE TO EACH REGION. 
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TARA TURF, in GA, is a mix of grass-moss-clover-mondo-ajuga-dandelion--mazus-and what the wind blows in. Add crocus, dwarf daffodil, thyme if desired.
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TARA TURF is mowed at 1-2-3 heights, below. Beneficial to wildlife, organic, sustainable, fragrant, low maintenance, eco and only uses rainwater.

                           Pic, above, I shot at Sissinghurst.

TARA TURF, mixed heights, above, in England.
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Studying landscapes in Europe I noticed, NO LAWNS. TARA TURF is used commercially and residentially.
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New neighborhoods lack smell and mixed insects. Did you know there are more good bugs than bad bugs?
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Old neighborhoods smell like my childhood. Clover, grass, bugs, dirt, all the good things.
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Most new neighborhoods have deed restrictions outlawing TARA TURF.
TARA TURF, I shot, in England, above.
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The outlaw label, against TARA TURF, should be amusing but the stakes are too high.
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The cost of mow-blow-go is too high. Lawn mowers are not regulated. One hour of lawn mowing is equal to 11 hours of driving a car.
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Fertilizer, insecticide & fungicide kill machorizal fungi, and are toxic to groundwater.
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 TARA TURF, I shot, in Italy, above.
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And drain into groundwater. Atrazine in our drinking water was on the front page of NY Times 8-23-09. TARA TURF uses no chemicals.
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Yes, I design lawns. Preferring TARA TURF but using what deed restrictions require. 

Twig Fencing: Get the Look For Less

Oddly, most often, adding 'more' to a small space, enlarges it.  Another of those COUNTERINTUITIVITIES about Garden Design.  Off topic, but had to mention it.  More, off topic, deer won't jump a fence they can't see thru/beyond.
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Twig fencing, below, hard to copy throughout most of USA.  Make it yourself?  Sure, in your spare time.  Great, you've sourced it ready-made, now to afford it.



Pic, above, here.

Luckily, big box stores sell rolls of reed fencing, below.

 
Pic, above, here.


 
Pic, above, here.
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Perhaps reed fencing is now input into your Garden Design vision questing.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Monty Don: Kent-Brown-Repton TV Show

A great wheelbarrow path, below.  Single wheel of course.  Double wheeled wheelbarrows are easier, less weight to balance, and my preference.



Pic, above, here.

Discovered Monty Don, above, when his, The Prickotty Bush, arrived on my doorstep in the early 90's.  Read many times, loaned, never returned, had to buy again.
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Of course he's on my google word search list, and of course I will not loan the book again.
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Yesterday, a Monty feast arrived into my inbox.  Too much not to share.
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Monty Don has produced a TV show about Kent, Brown, Repton.  Personal takeaways studying across England for decades, all, from that trinity.  Their style changed the course of international gardening.  And me.
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The TV show is within this article about Monty Don.
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I watched the show on my phone, will watch it again on laptop, then finally figure out the chrome-stick-thingy and watch it in glorious large screen.  One particular segment is shot from a helicopter over a Brown garden.  Now I want a drone.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Completing my horticulture degree I could not, to my mind/heart, design a garden to save my soul.  Off to historic European gardens for decades of study.  Ironically, yesterday too, came across an expensive seminar teaching how to draw gardens to scale, and how to design a garden.  Taught by former instructors from my college.  OMG.  All that mow-blow-go, incurves, outcurves, drifts, foundation plantings, design- it- from- the- street- view, still being taught.  With all the giddy-up-&-go verbage of sustainability....
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Note from the universe, teach-what-YOU-know.

Vertical Lawn

Vertical lawn, below.  Vine or espalier woody shrub, no worries, either can be your vertical lawn.



Pic, above, here.
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Plenty of lush, above, without a traditional USA foundation planting.
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Instead, gravel to the house.
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First time I saw this style of Landscape Design I was moth to a flame, still am.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Wisteria 'Amethyst Falls', below, is a diminutive wisteria, purple, fragrant, won't eat your house, blooms 1st year.
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Pic, above, taken in my previous garden.  Dug no plants when I moved, merely took the ones in pots.

Working With Contractors

Dealing with contractors for 30 years, as a woman, never ceases to amaze.  Everything in my Garden Designs has been done for CENTURIES.  I've plucked no ideas solely from books without having seen them in real gardens across continents.
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Had to smirk seeing this stone wall, below.  How many times have I designed a dry stack stone wall, 3' or even 5', and been told, "You can't do that."  You know which sex provided that quote.  Perhaps I should be clearer, not wanting to implicate LGBT.  "You can't do that", said the heterosexual man.
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Sure I've had the male contractor say, "Let me figure that out", of course gay.  Excepting, David. A country boy, straight, and willing to scare himself.  Whatever I threw at him, "Ok", and with a tiny smile and squinching up of his shoulders I knew he was challenged, and would sort it out, he did.  Plucked David from one of the college classes I taught.  He had the right attitude.  Sadly, my David died, age 50, almost a decade ago, I'm still p#ssed at him for doing that.  I know exactly the smiling look I'll see on his face, once I see him again.  It will say, "Ha, you had to sort it out without me !!"  Huge surprise, interviewing, and using other contractors?  Dishonesty.  Who knew?  Rife.  
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Discovered Beloved at a jobsite.  Client hired me for the design, but had her own contractor.  The day I met Beloved, the client had given me clear orders, "Your job is to keep him in line, I want the garden you drew, no changes."  Of course, after knowing his work at her job, I asked him to bid some of my work.  I knew his honesty with clients, designer, employees, vendors.
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Back to this stone wall, below.  Built ca. 1500.  Some guy, now, is going to tell me, "You can't do that." ?  Beyond happy to have found a team of knowledgeable, and honest men.  Ironically, all straight.  You want this wall, below?  Our mason can do it.



Found our mason at a jobsite almost 5 years ago.  He was working for another contractor.  His boss decided he needed cussing out in front of everyone, including the homeowner.  The homeowner, our client, told that contractor to never speak to anyone on her property in that manner again.  He responded by firing the mason, immediately.  In return, immediately, our client fired that contractor.  Following that, immediately, we hired the mason.  If it had been a Hollywood movie, every player deserved an Oscar.  What a span of 60 seconds !
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Cannot imagine 'my work' without our mason's work.  He's magic.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic, above, here.

Dowager Duchess at Edensor House: Gravel Paths

Dinner tonight in honor of a friend's beloved grandmother.  She would have been 99.  Grandma's chocolate pie will be the star, and focused conversation for all, about grandmothers.  

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A dinner ritual for many years, I was unaware & suppose my continual mention of my grandma earned me an invitation.

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Days a bit longer and  will be able to see my host's garden before last light.  Designed her garden about 2 years ago, and they are totally DIY.

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Snakes are a problem at their home, and they have 2 young daughters.  

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Gravel is designed up to the house, and stones within the gravel, as needed for easier main paths.

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Gravel with pathway stones has been done for thousands of years.

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Another benediction for gravel with stones, below, Debo, Duchess of Devonshire, if Debo does it, case closed.

Duchess of Devonshire, below, at her dowager house, above, Edensor House, an old vicarage, she called, Old Vic.  Note, exquisite pruning, below, to the right of the door?

Centuries old, below, the backdrop landscape behind the Duchess is no accident.  None.  

Old Vic, below, rendering to be sold at Sotheby's.

The Duchess, below, was keen on many outdoor activities, in one of her books, can't remember which, she mentioned how cold/wet/mucky some pursuits were but the game was on for all included, Show No Discomfort.  

Before pie, we'll walk the new gravel paths.  Today, temps are freezing, winds gusting to 20mph, and we will do our best to show-no-discomfort.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics from Sotheby's .  The Style Saloniste has a bit more about the Duchess, here.

Clive Nichols: Shooting Gardens at the Edge

Clive Nichols, below.  He shoots a garden, and it is his garden, yet given away as shutter snaps.

Of course you want your feet to crunch on the gravel, above, and walk thru that door. I have walked thru dozens of these graveled doorways across continents & countries, Clive Nichols shoots them exactly as they are in the memory of sparking brain cells.  His shots capture the owner's fantasy & caretakers hands, and my moments being there.



Repeatedly, Clive Nichols shows the beauty of the present, above, yet greater enticements soon to arrive, in the bud.  Perhaps this is his talent, capturing the frisson of life's potent edge, the margins of change.  Providence.  Atonement in the cusp of change, abiding in the moment caught.
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Clive does not bring his equipment into any garden for amusement.  His skills are used in stewardship.



These are not olive trees, above, with breeze blown lavender.  No.  You are walking thru lavender and touching olive branches as you pass.



More than 'how' to shoot, Clive Nichols, knows 'what' to shoot.  He owns the rose, above, yet gives it away, both, in the same moment.  A truth about  gardens.  No matter the 'owner', a garden is given to all who see.




Clive, you unmask me, in a quick snap, above.  The snows of early summer have begun, above, with petals falling to the ground.  Tara Turf, winding past temporary focal points with the roses in bloom, and the subsidiary focal point with a watering can on the chair, Tara's Garden Design Rule: Just Let It Touch, a chair leg just-brushing the taller Tara Turf, rose foliage caressing a chair's shoulder, a petal fallen on the watering can, color theme chosen, scent of a mown path's new growth, scent of the taller Tara Turf, musky, redolent of native bees honey still being skewered into their pollen basket with nectar, and the gift of letting us have hints of roses on the wind, as you do.  (Wowza, that turned into a free, Garden Design Class - All About Subsidiary Focal Points.)





Nothing 'modern' in a garden is new.  Nothing.  New gardeners think there is a difference amongst styles of gardens across centuries, including our own moment.  Clive keeps shooting his own way, knowing the newest of gardens is as old as the earliest recorded.




Designer, owner, caretaker, time as it takes that trinity across occupants, above, Clive captures the earnestness of heart-on-your-sleeve gardening.



My garden study tours across the globe have been the most thrilling/exhausting work I've ever done.  Up at 4am for breakfast, riding the bus to another garden for a day's allotment of 2-3, rain/shine.  Clive Nichols captures exactly, above, the moment 4am-toil-expense-inconvenience, gone.  And, I can smell the freshly mown low Tara Turf, above, hear the water, feel the morning rays, understand dimensions, feel the proportions, intuit the age of focal points-trees-shrubs...turn toward axis, understand why they are there, showing off, or hinting at seduction.
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It isn't my interest to shoot like Clive Nichols.  My interest is designing gardens Clive wants to shoot.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Clive Nichols teaches photography classes, here.  Perhaps, in the fullness of time, I will take my own photography from the edge of being a Clive Nichols, to being a Clive Nichols.  Hunger still too strong to create those gardens Clive wants to shoot.  However, would love to attend a Clive Nichols seminar.  Perhaps one of my clients, with frequent flier miles, a barn with accommodations, a garden on site to shoot, and several nearby could sponsor something like this?  Acquiring Clive Nichols in their garden, shooting, as reward.

Topiary: Levens Hall & Arne Maynard

Levens Hall, The Lake District, Cumbria, was the first European study garden I visited.  I was on my way to Scotland to study historic gardens.

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Levens Hall is known for many things, especially topiary, below.

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Topiary was not off my radar, entirely, for decades.  I didn't like it. 

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Now, I get topiary.  Better late than 'nevah'.  Proof, my mistakes are never small.

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Large properties, especially, find topiary useful.  Small properties too.

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Accent, focal point, all year effect, easy to maintain, design uses are many.

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Across USA millions of homes retain their PSO's planted by the builder to satisfy mortgage loan requirements with new construction.

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PSO?  Plant Shape Only.

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Plenty of mature USA hollies are ready for topiary.

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From Levens Hall, below, a chart of some of their topiary.  What's not to like?  You get to put your mark on topiary.

Discovered the work of Arne Maynard via the internet.  Have never been to his garden, nor those he has designed.  Soon, soon...

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Knew immediately he was already where I was headed.  Deep simplicity, Nature, house architecture, wit, intelligence, deeper simplicity.  Of course, Levens Hall runs thru the fragrance of Maynard's work.

Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Top pic Levens Hall, bottom pic Arne Maynard.

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The famous topiary garden at Levens Hall was laid out on axis from a bank of windows inside the home, the middle lead.   Not written anywhere, discovered during my tour.  Levens Hall has had a head gardener entering in the garden journal for almost 4 centuries.

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Life is good, have been to Levens Hall 3 times, and Arne Maynard's gardens await.  Oddly, have zero inclination to travel to international gardens at present.  Too important to design gardens and get them in the ground.  

How to Keep Chickens Out of the Cutting Garden

Cloudy, cold, one of the coldest days, so far, this year, yesterday, and at a jobsite in the windiest county of the state.

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A thousand daffodil bulbs needed sighting, and design ideas for directing guests to the front door instead of their preferred choice, the back door.

In the cutting garden, above/below.  Last year we realized the chickens won, and we had to consider how to keep them out.

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Ironically, the solution was not a first thought.

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And, the solution made us laugh out loud.

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The solution is the evergreen hedging you see, above/below.

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Laughter at ourselves, thinking for decades, low evergreen hedging was an 'aesthetic' design choice from Williamsburg, VA,  England, and etc....

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Wrongo buckaroos.  And not merely a 'little' wrong either !

For centuries the low evergreen hedging has been used to keep chickens out.  Aka, survival.

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Daffodil foliage is coming up, above, however patches of several thousand daffodils in the front garden are not showing a single daffodil spear tip.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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From childhood, this client & I shared something beyond our control.  Something this quote, below, captures perfectly.  Yes, I sent it to her when I found it.

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We had to create our own way.  Parenting during formative years forced it.

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Instead of anger, Providence gave us hearts wanting accomplishment.  And the accomplishment of our friends.  Benevolence.

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Knowing to be part of the pack, for our friends.

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Being thrown to the wolves, more than once, has been the best thing ever.

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With my girlfriends, who have survived, to thrive, being thrown to the wolves, whatever table we sit at, is the cool chicks table. WE like us !

Want Elegance? Espalier

No room for 'lawn'?  Little space to landscape?

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Go vertical.

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Woody shrubs with medium or slow growth are best.  No wires or trellis needed.

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Merely espalier.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Please add ESPALIER to your quiver of garden tools.

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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
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Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

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pic via Tumblr

Abolish Your Foundation Plantings

What to do when your foundation has plastic coverings at the windows to your basement?  

 With this eyesore, abolish your foundation plantings.  1st, maximize the plastic coverings in function/aesthetics, 2nd, can they be glass?  If they can be glass, determine to find the glass for free.

When I received the question, yesterday morning, I immediately thought of this garden, above.  No foundation plantings but lots of  LUSH.
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And this garden has the charming table/chairs.
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Proof of the landscape design rule: place a focal point near an eyesore to draw the eye away.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
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Took the pics in England, admired it's beauty & economy of maintenance needed AND usage.  Not a garden only to be pretty, a garden to be enjoyed.

Gertrude Jekyll: Munstead Wood

Christopher Lloyd said, "The garden dies when the gardener dies." Gertrude Jekyll's beloved home, Munstead Wood, above.

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Technically correct, but dead.

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I see a garden needing its mistress. Missing her. Aching for her.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic above, Charlotte Wehychan.

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I also see maximum pollinator habitat: canopy/understory trees, walls, groundcovers, high density, low density. When Jekyll designed landscapes was she aware of her interface with pollinator habitat?

David Austin Roses Follows This Rule

Visiting David Austin Roses in England is more than roses. It's good Landscape Design. Fabulous focal points. And worth the effort.My rule for focal points, just-let-it-touch, above.

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Cheap focal points aka terrible-bad-disgusting look best at the dump, or at least engulfed in a vine.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took the pic, 1 of 100's, at David Austin Roses in England. Was there at peak rose season.

How To Place Beautiful Things

My beautiful pot on plinth, below, placed on axis with the middle window pane of my bay window at the drawing room. Thus sited, it's part of my drawing room. Not separate.How to place, below, a beautiful summer house?
On axis with a main pair of windows from the home, of course !

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Oops. No pic of the view seen while in the summerhouse above. Ha, must get back to the Cotswolds for it.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic in my sweet garden, in the Bay Terrace, aka front yard. I took the bottom pic in the Cotswolds at Sir Hardy Amies garden.

Landscape Design Perfection: Sir Hardy Amies

I took this pic in the Cotswolds in Sir Hardy Amies garden.A complete landscape design course, in one picture.

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Looks easy, can you do it?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Money is not a criteria. Rescued plants, rescued hardscape & etc..... Yes, you can do this.

Edwardian Simplicity

Pecan Orchard needs a gate. A simple gate.Visiting an English country house & garden I fell in love with this gate.

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Simple, but not.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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This gate starts a conversation, Pecan Orchard needs a taller/wider gate. The garden, above, typically English, a wildwood beyond a gate luring you away from the formal garden. Wondering, finally, if you'll find Sirens, Nyads, Dryads, Satyres.... The last 2 sentences summing up the best of Landscape Design !

Sir Hardy Amies, Constance Spry, David Hicks

Constance Spry, below, of floral fame. A nice article about her in yesterday's NYTimes.With her, ca. 1960, Sir Hardy Amies.

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A decade (longer?) ago I visited a fabulous (you know, like, cool, shazam, wow, the best EVER) teeny garden in the Cotswolds; its owner absent. Leaving, my guide said, "The owner is couturier to the Queen." Yeah, whatever, I'm an American & you think I'll fall for anything.

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I bought, David Hicks, My Kind Of Garden, Edited by Ashley Hicks, last year, it includes Sir Hardy Amies garden. Bingo, my beloved little garden.

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In the pic, above, it lists Sir Hardy Amies as, "...the clothing designer..."

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When I can sweet-talk my way into using a SLIDE PROJECTOR in this dreadful PowerPoint era it's pure selfishness to see my dear, darling, perfect gardens in rich, soul satisfying colors. Sir Hardy Amies garden tops the list, of course there is Helen Dillon's garden too, and.....

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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My dream PowerPoint presentation? 4 machines, facing the 4 compass points, in a huge auditorium. You'll be sitting amongst the garden: looking forward-backward-left-right. Poppets, how many gardens do you think can be shown this way? It's exactly how I design gardens, every direction beautiful. Those preaching: sustainable, eco, green, organic, pollinator & etc.... set a very low bar and harm PUPPET BARBUDA'S beloved Landscape Design profession. Gardens must be all of these things and a Vanishing Threshold with the interiors of your home, and, low maintenance. Anything less than epiphanical and the giver of grace, well, Puppet Barbuda is sad for those 'poor unfortunate souls' living with such a landscape.

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Indeed, I asked my lecture venue in St. Louis, MO next year for 4 PowerPoint projectors, he laughed!!!!

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Pic taken from the NYTimes article.

Beatrix Potter's Beehive

Sharon Lovejoy visited Beatrix Potter's home recently, below.Poppets, look at that darling BEEHIVE !!!!!!!!!!!

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Exactly what I need for my tiny property. Exactly. This feels good, already, in anticipation. If I can't find it to buy I'll use the pic & my carpenter will make it.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Never heard of Sharon Lovejoy? Gardener, writer, artist & more wondrous things.

The Sacred & Profane of the Best Landscapes

The best landscapes have elements, below, of the Sacred

and elements, below, of the Profane.

Landscape design is about contrasts.

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The Sacred & the Profane. Got both?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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(Big leaves with small leaves, blue foliage next to burgundy foliage, pyramid forms next to horizontal forms, blowsy hydrangeas bursting over neat green hedging, spikey flowers by round flowers, & etc.)

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Top pic taken last week at Stone Mountain Park, bottom pic England.

A Landscape Design

Think this is unkempt? A landscape design, above, an illusion of country. Nature. Not one leaf is unconsidered. The dirt path? Part of the landscape design.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Took pic in England.
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Living with a manicured lawn yet love the garden above? Yes? Life is too short not to have a garden nurturing your spirit.