Ackee Tree: Fruit in Design

We are provisioned for as well as birds of the field.

This ackee tree made her message known.

I've gained a primal sense of gratitude to Providence, in a rich new vein.
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And, wonder why my horticulture degree did not teach inclusion of fruit bearing trees/bushes as a fundamental.
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If not for pollinators alone, or enjoyment of the crop, then at the minimum a nod of thanks from our spirit to the spirit of Nature which is beyond measure.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from Jamaica last week, this ackee tree was just-in-a-dirt-parking-lot.  Remember, when trees drop their leaves they are enriched by what they let go of.  Yes, trees pack the epiphanies.
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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.

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.

Hiding Houses with Landscaping

Here is the western full frontal side of my home, below, shot from the neighborhood street.

This is a neighbor's home, below, at the western side of my home.

Another pleasing view of my home from the street, below.

Within this hedge, above, is a pond, arbor, stone terrace, paths, & my home.
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I should have been the Benevolent Duchess of Hambrick in Alice In Wonderland, "I don't want to see those houses."
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken in my garden this month.  Amazing, and amusing, how large my property looks in pics.  It's teeny in real time.  Of course it is indeed large in relationship with the depths of my life.  Do you love coming home to your garden?  You know I do, it's never boring.  Always something new, delightful, charming.  As if the garden anticipates and desires to please me.  And knows my reactions.

Fruit at the Front Gate

At my front gate

my apple orchard with H. 'Tardiva', above, and R. triloba, below.

In person the visible is a working class neighborhood of closely set homes each with green meatball foundation plantings and lawn.
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Amongst this setting my apple orchard & flowers are outrageous.  A negative to neighbors.  And some who love me.
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Go figure.  Gardening is subversive?
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Merely following my heart towards the beauty it desires.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pics taken last week in my garden.

Fruit is Easier

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near,
let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples
falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could." - Louise Erdrich 

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Much too lazy for a vegetable garden in the front yard, though turf was removed decades ago.  Ground covers, trees, flowering shrubs, paths.  Little maintenance required.  If food production became a consideration it would be pears, apples, figs & blueberries.  With Tara Turf for greater pollination, increased yield.

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Easy.

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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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Pic & quote via Terry Hershey.

Curb Appeal Before Entering the Front Porch

Don't tell me 'welcome' with letters on a sign or doormat, show me.

The curb appeal of this tiny frontyard says, "Yes, you want to see the porch, inside the home, and the rest of the garden."

And you're experiencing the potency of the garden's color trinity, without being aware.

Adore the smartness of cast stone urns filled with cast stone flowers & fruits.
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Get the color trinity?  Green, brown & white.  Trinity of the ages.  Low maintenance, serene, elegant.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics shot in Susanne Hudson's garden last month.  Girlfriend is serious!  Curb appeal + front porch fabulosity.  We are working on a book together and planning another spend-the-night this month.

Espalier Fruit Trees

Discovering another victim of the economy.  Large wholesale espaliered fruit trees.
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At pricing for regular people.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pic via Arne Maynard.