Table Top Heat

Home Depot has propane outdoor heaters in a half-pint size.

Table top sized.  Easily moved.  Where have I been?
.
Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
.
Lost provenance of the pic.
.

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.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

Garden Design + Interior Design

Garden Design begins inside your home.  Ginger Barber interior design, below.

If the lane is indeed a dirt drive to this home I, seriously,  swoon.
.
A trinity for Barber's work, " Designing beach houses, farm house and ruralist." 
.
In a single picture, above, a several week class on garden design & interior design can be taught.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
pic Ginger Barber.   First seen at Cote de Texas.  Pure vanishing threshold.

On the Porch: Table Toppers

The clay in her county is well known for its pottery.

Her bouquet of comfrey reminds me I've never once planted it myself.

The wicker arrived from a local junk shop a couple of summers ago.
.
Her childhood and most of adulthood were in subdivisions yet on acreage she wields latent powers, including the placing of livestock fencing.
.
Profoundly miserable in the subdivision, what if she didn't follow her soul to this acreage, instead going to a therapist?
.
Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
.
Pics taken at jobsite this month.  Watching her is to bear witness.  Providence in action.  Humbling.    

Hiding Necessities

Hiding necessities.

Inside & outside.
.
Quite a nice topic for a book.  Anyone?
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pic via Mod Vintage Life.  Looks like the patio was extended with 18" square concrete pavers.  Easy, affordable, unskilled labor.  The climbing hydrangea?  Amazing.

Beware: These Pillows Need Worthy Backdrop

Few gardens could backdrop these pillows.  

Not the focus, yet complete dominance, this garden looks 'not done'.
.
Heads-up, by the time a garden is this simple it is 'totally done'.
.
Joseph W. Tyree did the landscaping.
.
Perhaps the slipper shoes demand the pillows & garden as backdrop.  This man exudes something quite rare amongst his age group, happy self-confidence.
.
More about man & house,  Architectural Digest.  Enjoy.
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Beware, even, the cushion/pillow shelves at discount stores.  They may be cheap but they will steal your entire garden/deck/views.

Front Porch Plants

Choose pots, containers, plant stands so fabulous they can remain empty, if desired.

It's obvious, below, these plant stands can remain empty or filled easily for a party or whim.

Hydrangeas are in their black plastic container, hidden with erosion control fabric.
.
This front porch is meant for reading, I'll give you something worthy: "Wendy (nothing to do with Peter Pan but short for Wendell) Howell was a grand American gone native (How yer dawgs?) whom I prized as a friend because she did not take to just anyone and made an exception for me.  She like whippets and whisky and had too many of both.  Lots of husbands (including a Roosevelt) had come and gone and she eventually settled with a lady vet in one of those Irish cottages which were rare then and now only happen on postcards.  It had an earth floor and stable doors and, in the sitting room, a vast opening for the fireplace where, if you bent down to look up the chimney, you could see a big patch of sky. At the entrance to the cottage was a sculpture of two whippets, old friends to me as they were an echo of a similar model by Gott at Chatsworth.  Wendy held a pilot's licence but luckily never offered to take me for a spin."  Debo Mitford.
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Pics taken last month Susanne Hudson's front porch.

Old Tool Bouquet a la Toile

Start collecting now.

You've seen dozens of old tool bouquets on toiles across the span of your life.

Old tools in my garage are ladies-in-waiting.

Think this bit of garden is serendipitous?  Unplanned?  Needs weeding?  A trinity of wrong.  This garden room is rustic balance with its formal companions nearby.
.
Garden Design is all about contrasts.  And finding a way to hang lovely old tools.
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Pics shot in Susanne Hudson's garden last month.  Seems old tools, old terra cotta & old tin are a new trinity.

New Use for Erosion Control Fabric

Hanging from a large oak tree, below, chandy stays on 24/7.

Recognize the tablecloth?  Erosion control fabric.  Bought in huge rolls.
.
Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
.
Pic this month from Susanne Hudson's garden.

What's the View from Your Porch Door?

Diffusing the view, Kimberly Queen, below.  Tolerates full baking sun or part shade, and she's not a shaggy mess unlike the Boston fern.

On perfect axis with the porch door, below, she diffuses the view in too.  Aka, double axis.

The lattice?  Regular, common, off the shelf, a disaster for any home but, in context, understandable here.  This home was rescued and is the Cultural Arts Center in Douglasville, Georgia.
.
Back to the lattice.  For pennies more special order panels with thicker wood slats, they look custom.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
The fern stand is real, and almost a century old.  Been decades since it held a fern.  Pics taken earlier this month at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival in Douglasville, GA.

On the Porch with Drapes

Nothing was here, below, a few days ago.  

The porch, below, when we began.

The corner 'before', above, and 'after', below.

Lamp, above, seen from the garden, below.

Porch 'before', below, viewed from the garden.

 Of course you want to look in the window, above.

 Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
.
Pics of Porch Garden I created with Susanne Hudson at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival earlier this month.

Perfect Front Porch

Of course the patina of the rooster is white.  It's her theme.

To the left of their front door, below.

To the right of their front door, below.

Mary Poppins said it best, "Practically perfect in every way."
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Pic same garden as previous post.

A Secondary Front Porch

Near the front door, is

 another door.

 Another welcome.

Black, white, green.  She keeps playing with color trinities.  Yes, more of Jeri's garden from previous posts.
.
There is no part of Jeri's garden left 'undone'.
.
Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

How To Create Exterior Simplicity

The hedge is brilliant.  Vine on the risers is more brilliant.

Topiaried green meatballs are fun.  Terra cotta on the table?  Perfection.
.
Notice the lack of pattern on the textiles?  Be careful with exterior textile pattern.  Very careful.
.
Many interior rooms look onto this view.  Without going inside I know it's an obvious Vanishing Threshold.  Without going inside I know the owners.
.
How little can the landscape have and hold together?  Whoever 'tossed' out this much simplicity is good.  Very good.
.
Low maintenance, weekly blow & trimming 2x/year. 
.
Choose a color theme.  It should flow from the interiors. 
.
Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
.
Pic via Cote de Texas.  When I worked at a nursery one assistant manager was incredibly talented at displays.  BUT, we would always beg him to stop.  He would create the above, BUT keep going.  On his off day we would cleanse the abundance. 

Scalamandre's Toile at Monticello

Did you know 'Aphrodite' by Scalamandre is an original toile used at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello?

A heavy linen, tea stained backdrop with deep India blue.

Yes, I'm a fabric junkie.

Not quite 2 yards, this lovely toile came into my possession yesterday. (Fortunately/unfortunately a consignment shop is enroute to my 5 mile speed walk at Stone Mountain Park. Obviously I must stop 1-2/mo.)

Unpriced, ugh, I had to ASK, "how much". Wanting it BAD I turned in an Oscar performance. She answered, "$5".

Oh my, the tree, above, takes my breath away. And the statue, and the stone terrace...

.

Like cousin Charlotte, in E.M. Forster's A Room With A View, I shall use this bit of toile as the serendipitous al fresco picnic cloth.

.

Perhaps invite you to lunch in the Natchez Circle, and toss it over the antique table.

.

I'll wear it too. Off to Hawaii later this summer it will look fabulous draped over my shoulders as I walk the beach every morning. Already have a tank swimsuit white/w dark blue flowers sprinkled evenly.

.

Did you know someone could obsess so much, so fast about a little $5 square of fabric?

.

And, do you know how important the right fabric is to your landscape? (Just in case you thought I was going off topic.) Your curtains, a couch, a chair, a tablecloth. What fabrics are seen inside your home while standing in the garden? Do they tell me who you are?

.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

.

Hawaii on frequent flier miles, yippee. And the rest of the trip a gift from my parents. Haven't seen them in ever so long. Dad & I love our early mornings with coffee on the Lanaii watching the sun rise over Waikiki.