The Zen of Choosing The Right Fence Color

 See the epiphany, about Christopher Spitzmiller's fence, below? 

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Seriously, I want you to verbalize, aloud, why his fence, below, is divine.  Not using 'divine' flippantly here.  It's in earnest. 

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Hint, Christopher didn't want you to see any epiphany about his fence.  None.  He almost had me too.  Realized hours later, BRAVO Christopher, you did the classic, the centuries old. 

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Why do we assign our Garden Design choices to 'Socially Acceptable' ?

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Majority of people are unhappy with their landscape.  Gardens are here for us, to enrich our soul.  And each other. 

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Popular Culture is enriched, filthy lucre, with you being unsatisfied with your landscape.  Money to be had in fertilizer/chemicals/mowing/pruning/conformity.     

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"Trace your unhappiness to the place that is causing it and ask, "where am I not myself, my whole self, and nothing but myself?"  Martha Beck.  Ask this same question about your own Garden Design.  What is your integrity toward your garden, Earth, yourself?

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Beck, adds a simple definition for integrity. 

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INTEGRITY = INTACT

  

Spitzmiller's fence, above, disappears, it recedes, as it should.  Placing focus to the garden's proper focal point: open meadow, and table.  Time passes, people arrive, a gathering of souls, in joy of companionship, breaking bread, the focal point changes again.  

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You, your life, your friends, your family, your pets, are the Focal Point of your garden.  From your home, looking out upon your table, low meadow, fence, the Focal Point changed again.  If you've gotten this far, you've created your own world.  The world enriching you, Earth, family, friends.  A world wrapped around you physically & mentally, a world you carry within you. 

 

"You may not believe the joy that comes from complete integrity is possible.  It is.  ....to conform, we often end up ignoring or overruling our genuine feelings ---even intense ones, like longing or anguish.  At that point we are divided against ourselves.  We aren't in integrity (one thing) but in duplicity (2 things).  Or we may try to fill many roles, living in multiplicity (many things).  We abandon our true nature & become pawns of our culture."  Martha Beck.

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If you've read this far, you have longings for your garden.  Honor them in integrity.

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And you thought it was a simple choice, "....what color should I paint my fence?".  Go big.  For your life in the Garden.  Your Garden.  Which is nothing less than your life on Earth.

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Pics, above, here, with more pics of Christopher's garden, and a well-written article.

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Martha Beck's quotes from article at Maria Shriver, here. 

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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When is a fence color, just a fence color?  Never, in my realm.

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Hope the Spitzmiller shoot was able to have a sit down lunch or dinner at this table after their work complete.  Would love to know the menu, and prayer said.

How to Turn Tree/Bush Trimmings Into Landscape GOLD

How few have 'seen' this, below, seeing a pile of sticks/branches in a compost pile?
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From this starting point, below, take it, own it, play with it, see what happens in your garden.


Pic, above, here.
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At a bridal shop, below.  Owning the fence, owning it inside/outside, owned by the garden.  More, who knew onions were a historic sign of long life?

 
Pic, above, here.
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A new way to 'see' sticks/vines.  More, onions too.
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Pic, above, here.
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No reason not to try this, ingredients are free, with eyes to see.  And now you have them !  I've never been too proud to shop for my garden at curbside on garbage days. 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Why Your Health & Property Value Are Better With This Hedge

Most notably, in the garden, below, is the hedge.  Yet not the only notable element.  At the front end of reading this post, make your list of reasons the hedge is a good idea.  Perhaps your list is all negatives with the hedge, fine, make that mental list.
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At a point long past, in USA, the petite hedge lost favor, foundation plantings gained the upper hand.  Ignoring centuries of Garden Design history.
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After WWII, USA had a building boom, and builders had a certificate of occupancy to gain before being able to sell their new homes.  Landscaping was part of that package for the CO.  A fact remaining in force.
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Pic, above, here.
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The style of a home's architecture does not influence whether or not to have a similar hedge, above.
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Subdivisions, city scapes, a home close to the road, are viable territory for a hedge, instead of a foundation planting.
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See the hedge, above?  Now, go inside the hedge, go into the garden, go into the home, look toward the sidewalk and road.
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Gone.  Sidewalk, road, cars, now blocked to your view, at a minimum diminished. 
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More, depending on the height of your hedge, and ground elevations, a hedge will obliterate most views of cars passing by.
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Multi-tasking, a hedge hiding the view of cars, from your home, filters myriad toxins cars release from engine/tires.  Did you know living at a busy road, with car/truck toxins spewing, is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes/day?
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A hedge is also your starting point for a garden room.  Paradise, in derivative, is a walled garden.  Blocking the ogre of cars/traffic/toxins begins your sanctuary, with a hint of privacy.  More, a layer of control, better, controlled by you.
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What do you want to do inside your hedge?  A pair of benches inside the hedge, facing the house, focal points on axis, and a place to sit.  Perhaps a pair of stone terraces either side of the front walk, the list is long on choices, your choices. 
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A home, or neighborhood, with the garden design choice of front hedges, has increased property value.  If an entire neighborhood is conceived with all homes having front hedges, it will be of greater value than a replica neighborhood without front hedges.  Why?  Good landscaping increases property values. 
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Good landscaping also benefits health.  More layers of a good garden design, around your home, has more of the bacteria for our body's microbiomes.  Our bodies formed in synergy with Earth.  Without the bacteria of Earth, inside our bodies, we die.
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What are your thoughts about a hedge in front of a home?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Layers of Nuance in a Stone Wall

Perhaps for a party, below, the pair of potted hydrangeas?  Love of hydrangeas, past president of the American Hydrangea Society, here, the beauty of meadow, woodland, and sloping hills are too great, to me, to stop the eye with potted hydrangeas.
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Well before these thoughts, there was conversation, deeper, about how to cap the stone wall at entry to meadow-woodland-sloping hills.  Did you already notice that delightful, well constructed, expert nuance?  More, the strong choice made.  Beyond subtle, yet their minds didn't stop with the cap on the wall.
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Did you see that too?  I'll go slow.  Wanting your eyes/brain/heart to see, on its own.


Pic, above, here.
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Hope it sails a thousand ships.
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Quite a sure hand with stone capping, all at the same height.  Yet the crescendo accelerates.  Imperceptibly, the pair of hydrangeas rest upon stone 'columns'.  Notice their slight corners blending into the wall?
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Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
  

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

Low Tech Hidden Fence

Often when fences go into a landscape, they can be hidden in plain view, below.
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Better, the fence, hidden in foliage, can be simple, posts & rolled wire.


Pic, above, here.
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Small children, pets, a pool, many reasons for a fence in the garden.  No reason a fence must look like a fence.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

It's What We Do With What We Have

Across the years, somehow, this garden, below, reaches deep within, and holds me dearly.
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The fence is so much more than its parts.
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You seeing Pablo Picasso & Georges Braque, or my favorite Kurt Schwitters too?    
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Perhaps you see a fence made from junk, the best a poor person could do?
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Not me.  I see the best within the human spirit.  Means may be meager, yet the end soars.  In the making those means are made golden.
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Perhaps that is why this garden wraps its arms around me.  Connection with a kindred spirit.
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And thus we've arrived where E.M.Forster wrote, myriad volumes, upon a pair of words, "Only connect."
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Pic, above, here.  1-west-virginia-1938-mpwolcott-library-of-congress 
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Dignity & truth abide, above.  Of course Forster, in, A Room With A View, "It is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.  ", writes of humanity, not merely those he prefers.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Today's Garden Design assignment: Design your garden with the core of your dignity & truth, conveying who you are.   Shoot a pic of this newly designed garden, next, push the pic a century forward, you are long buried, will viewers know who you were, from that lone pic of your garden?
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Seems a bit extreme, yes?  Why should Picasso, Schwitters or Forster have all the fun, with their art?  It's all there, for you, too.  Only connect, within.

Deer & Armadillo Fencing

Two members of the Garden Design team, for my space at our ca. 1900 American farmhouse, control many choices at the front end.  Third member of the team is wildly controlling too.
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None of this overlooks a fourth controlling component, aging in place, me.
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For decades I've had the honor of older women, into their 70's plus, hiring me.  Their landscapes must be beautiful, and fully turn key.  Tough plants, easily maintained with minimal unskilled labor.  Check.
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Back to those original members helping design my new garden, deer, armadillo and the weather: brutal heat, humidity, drought, rains, occasional 0 f, strong winds throughout every season, and, the worst, a freeze in April after weeks of warm days.  Check.
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Oddly, with all the constraints, above, (after achieving acceptance) it's easier to create a Garden Design.  Fewer choices.
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Southern Indica azaleas will be many of my hedges.  Sun/shade, deer resistant, drought tolerant.  Better, their height & growth habit, below.


Pic, above, here.

Deer don't bother much with what they cannot see, they keep on walking.  Outside my garden, deer will see this, below.  Delightfully, more than solving a deer issue the azalea hedging will block views of the street/cars, and create garden rooms, walls.

 
Pic, above, here.

If deer were the only problem, azalea hedging would be deterrent enough.  Armadillo dig for worms/insects with their clawed feet and tapered snout.  Around since the dinosaurs, armadillo are not smart in expected ways.  Simple wire fencing at ground level guides them away, they won't dig under.
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I fully expect to be the first human to experience the first self aware male armadillo, who tunnels under my wire fencing, releases his pheromones to Pluto, and his harem arrives, delivering their typical 4 identical offspring with each pregnancy.
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Wire fencing, below, will be built, azalea foliage to grow thru, and obfuscate its presence, and armadillo.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.

Had to include this pic, above, the pruning is amazing.  Foliage/blossoms from top to bottom, achieved with pruning tapered, wider at bottom than top.  Then, the subtle change in height from left to right, as the Garden Design dictates need.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Fencing: Contrast Formal + Rustic

Garden Design uses contrast as a potent tool.  If I could only have 5 arrows in my quiver, contrast is one of the 5.
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Contrast, everything.
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Fine country estate?  Rustic fence, below.
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Why?  More layers of narrative.  More metaphor.  A deeper story.  Intellect playing in grace.



Rustic fences, below, with fine manor houses?  Centuries of examples.



Charming, below, welcoming.  Formal fence, below, instead?  Fine.  But you've just created a 'walk-thru', get where you are going don't stop statement.



Elegant roses, rustic fence, below, is wicked.  I smell the fragrance.



Rustic, yet looks formal, below.



Rustic, reading formal, below, with the black stain.



Formal, reading rustic, below, with hog panel wire.




A little privacy, below, historic lattice.  

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Beloved & I are building a deck at the back of our American Farmhouse.  We chose the formal reading rustic with hog panels.  We didn't want to block views of  softly rolling hills/open-wooded/lake/sunsets, yet needed a hint of elegance to bind to the house, while honoring the simple livestock barbed wire fence along a property line with dairy cows.  Contrast.  Need 1 panel of the lattice, above, with our railing.
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All day yesterday we were building the new deck, just the 2 of us.  At our age.  Go us.  Late in the daylight, a ribbon of black birds flew over, the ribbon must have been a mile long, and they were all talking.  Haven't seen/heard anything like it since childhood.  Sunset was a stunner.  Having lived in subdivisions my entire life, without seeing sunrises/sunsets I'm easily distracted by a good sunset.  Hints of the Milky Way too.  More days ahead, working on the deck around the day job.  Soon we must decide roofing for portions of the deck and screened room.  Hard choices, not wanting to block sky views, yet getting protection from summer sun, and mosquitoes.
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All pics linked from my Fences Pinterest Board.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Made the choice to build ourselves, and save $5,000+.  Beloved already had the know-how & tools.  Huge.

Design Rule: Hint of Invitation

In the bright morning light, below.

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Hint of something, saying, come-this-way.

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Gravel path, boxwood, bench & hydrangeas.

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Paths should engage: foot, eye, mind, heart.

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The language of invitation.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken this month in Susanne Hudson's 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.

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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.

Garden Design Course: Free in a Single Pic

Under a pecan tree not much grows.

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Tara Turf is best.

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Why?

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Increased pollinator habitat increases crop yield up to 80%.

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 Susanne Hudson found herself with 4 benches needing a home.  Exquisitely, they found a home.
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Please put this on one of your Pinterest boards.  It's a free Garden Design course !
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Garden Design: backdrop, canopy-understory-groundcover aka ceiling-walls-floor, color, texture, scale, flow, garden rooms, mystery, serene, poverty cycle, curb appeal, focal point, subsidiary focal point, vintage theme, simplicity, low maintenance, pollinator habitat, urban gardening, structure all year.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic snapped with my phone 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.

                                                                                 .

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 Elements: Macro, Micro

Freshman year of college an elective course in economics gave me macro/micro.

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Garden design elements fall into those 2 realms.

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Both equally important.

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Both waltzing thru time.

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The snow that stopped Atlanta, above.

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Dots of poetry.  Ephemeral.

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Sure, the wall is a macro Garden Design element.

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But not for this moment.

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You're looking at the ephemeral micro element trumping the macro.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic at jobsite last week.

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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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That economics course?  Tough.  The professor barely spoke English his accent so strong I heard, at most, every 12th word correctly.  One word in particular scared my IQ, could not figure out what the mar-ghaa-reene was.  Especially with his corresponding gesticulations and hi pitch solely upon that word.  Mar-ghaa-reene really got the sweet little man going.  Me too, what was it?  Finally asked my seat mate what he was saying.  She said, 'margin'.

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From that point I ignored the dear little man and solely learned from the book.  

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30+ years later I can still hear/see Mar-ghaa-reene being performed.

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Yes, macro/micro elements amuse me greatly.

Simple Manipulations: How Many Do You See?

Do you see the manipulations, below?

Seating to create a gathering spot, figs for summer shade/winter sun over the benches, drystack stone wall cut into a slight slope forcing foot traffic into defined directions, formal boxwood framing pastoral views, tapering stone wall allowing only small machinery into the pasture from this direction, gravel terrace ready for men-trucks-heavy equipment, horses, or a catered soiree for 100.
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And, of course, it must all look a century old, be easy to maintain, and provide interest 24/7.
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When something appears simple, it rarely is.  Same is true of people.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic at a jobsite last week.
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Do you know the maximum pollinator habitat, above?  Seriously, can you verbalize what creates the best pollinator habitat above?  Answer at bottom.
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Being simple requires each of the decades I've been learning about gardens.  Better, being simple in a garden, takes me where Joseph Campbell says our eternity is.  Ironic, in this American life/era, to have found my bliss in work.
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1. Joseph Campbell - Wikiquote

   en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell‎

   Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own .... And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
2. More, being simple connects me to the message/life work of Wendell Berry & E.M. Forster.  

3. Wendell Berry Earns Highest Humanities Award, Lectures on ...

   sojo.net/.../wendell-berry-earns-highest-humanities-award-lectures-econo...‎

   Apr 24, 2012 - On Monday evening, Wendell Berry delivered the 41st annual ... The title hinges on E.M. Forster's 1910 novel Howards End, which Berry said, ...
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5.  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.

                                                                                    .

   Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.
6. Answer to question, above,  High density/low density, open meadow/dense woodland.

Hotel Perfect Bedroom + Pretty Privacy

Aside from 'Hotel Perfect' design, below, the garden view drew my eye for its ubiquity in Atlanta.

Neighbors houses, tiny lot lines.  Yet wanting privacy.  Pretty privacy !
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Fence, understory trees, tall espalier shrubs.  Amazing the privacy, softness, warmth & beauty a few plantings provide.  And, keep it few.  Who wants to look at views full of garden chores to be done !
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In addition, from these doors, fragrances of akebia, tea olive, gardenia, daphne.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pic BHG.  What is this style of decorating called?  Have done it in my own bedroom after le divorce, calm-serene-pretty.
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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.

Beauty & Politics

Ca. 1400.

Chain at the gate says the fencing isn't about keeping only wildlife out.  And she had to chain it while in the garden?
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No, this isn't a bucolic garden scene.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic It's About Time.  All politics is local.

Specialty Fence

 Rabbit fence for the potager.

 Perfect for a chicken run  too.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic via Content in a Cottage.

Big Garden Design Rule

One of the most important things to know in Landscape Design, below.

Know when to leave it alone.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic this month in Susanne Hudson's garden.

Double Axis & Before/After

With a view, below, you must be able to turn around

and have an equally fabulous view, below.  Double Axis.

Had the good fortune to visit Susanne Hudson's garden again a few days after this pic, below, was shot.

Without the roses peaking, below, the arbor resumed its status as Focal Point.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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All pics shot this month.  Created a garden this weekend and put in one of these arbors, above.  With pendant lite.  We'll use a historic fence template too but one with a bit more privacy.  We won't use white, they already have a delicious dark putty color on their home.

Air Conditioners: Before & After

If you have an eyesore put a focal point nearby.  

2 weeks ago Susanne Hudson & I created a garden/porch for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.

Our garden beliefs: simple, historic, focal points, axis, comfort, beauty & simplest.

 We pride ourselves on how little we can put in a garden.

We bought very little for our display garden.  Breezing thru with what we already own.  Proving our beliefs in what we created.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this month.  Hydrangea 'Blushing Bride' in the galvanized tubs.
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Nurseries don't like Susanne or me.  They want to sell you annuals & perennials, mostly.  Many independent garden centers have been slammed in this economy and are gone.   I know why.  They forgot gardens are what people want intuitively, from their soul.  Without knowing it, most people are intuitive gardeners/designers.  What they don't trust, within themselves, is the counterintuitive skillset garden design demands. 

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.