Mad Boy: A Little Madness in the Garden

 No detail for your garden is too small.  Apologies, for decades, overlooking the obvious, below.

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Notice the pigeons?

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They're dyed.

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The owner's grandfather began the tradition, she, his granddaughter, Sofka, continues it.  There's even a fan club, aka Trust, "Pink Pigeons Trust (named after the Mad Boy's habit of dyeing birds in jewelled hues)."

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He dyed his pigeons jewel tones, was nicknamed, Mad Boy, and had a stunning garden.  Hope there is a heaven, and Mad Boy is busy in his celestial garden, awaiting all of us to visit.  What types of ideas and mischief's will Mad Boy create during his infinity?  He's on my list, Gardens to Visit.   

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This reminds me, must finally, faithfully, turn off the wireless at night.  A dear friend, an RN, said she began turning hers off, her dream world began again.  Didn't realize till mentioned, my dreaming has been turned 'off'.  Worth it to visit Mad Boy's garden.  Hope you've been gifted with travel dreams too.

 

  

Garden Design: Classic color combination, above, it will never fail you: Green, White, Brown.

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How Mad Boy's granddaughter is living in the house & garden:

    "Her day usually begins with writing in her study and she takes pleasure in arranging flowers for the house, mixing the more formal ones with wildflowers, wood anemones, hyacinths, tulips and fritillaries that grow in profusion in the long grass that borders the driveway. It is a short meander down the drive into the charming market town of Faringdon, where the excellent Hare in the Woods delicatessen provides Sofka and Vassilis with delicious salads for a working kitchen lunch and something for a relaxed supper with Leo and Annabelle, who live nearby."

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Owner of the house/garden, Sofka Zinovieff, above.

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Had the good fortune, last summer, to find her chair, above, in a small Southern town with no red lights or fast food.  Plate on the bottom reads, By Special Appointment to His Majesty The King, Warings, Oxford Street - London.....

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Placed the chair in the library, and it moves often to kitchen or office....Like Sofka, above, the chair 'fits' my body.  Knew from first sit, it was a chair for office and pleasure reading.  A surprise, I like it for meals too.  Under-priced, it was  on sale.  I did not negotiate lower.  One must keep integrity.    

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Sofka and her husband, preparing for a meal, below.

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All pics/quotes, House & Garden: Faringdon House, "The extraordinary story of Faringdon House: the Palladian gem immortalised in Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. The eccentric Lord Berners, the inspiration for the character Lord Merlin, unexpectedly left the house to the 25 year old writer Sofka Zinovieff. Here we revisit our April 2016 piece on the extraordinary story of this home as the BBC adaptation hits screens."

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Principles vs. Preferences: Head + Heart + Life = Alignment

Traditionally designed, below, I would say, "No", to any client or friend wanting this.

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Gardening with preferences toward profane beauty no longer interest my soul.  Sacred beauty, yes, I will design a similar garden, below.  

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What's the difference?  Industrialized landscaping vs. Agrarian Gardening.  Principles vs. Preferences.  With the former, soil, water, wildlife harmed.  Toxic soil, toxic water from fertilizers and chemicals, leaving no habitat for wildlife.  The latter, Earth is regenerated.  More, the land is redeemed.  You too are redeemed. 

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Agrarian Principles remain the great 'system' holdout.  Skip a layer, the system fails inward, and upon Flora/Fauna.  Nice way of saying the system HAS failed.  

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How to make this an Agrarian Garden, below?  Easy.  Use old fashioned roses, historic, on their own roots, plant Tara Turf not a monoculture lawn (bermuda/zoysia/fescue), use native shrubs for hedging, and native bulbs/groundcover under the roses.

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No chemicals needed, drought tolerant once established, less mowing.  

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Whether you think so, or not, the Agrarian version of this Garden Design, below, benefits your health in body and spirit.

 

  

Pic, above, here. 

What kind of landscape do you need to live the kind of life you want to lead?

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Industrialized version of this Garden, below?  No trees, monoculture lawn, foundation plantings.  Instead, this garden, below, is wildlife preservation/regeneration, soil fungi/bacteria thrive, no chemicals. 

HVAC savings with this Agrarian Designed Garden, below.   Not the Industrialized version.

 

Pic, above, here.

Centuries before Industrialized Landscapes, close approximations of Wild Landscapes, below, were designed/planted.  For their joy in God; His great, good, providence, thanks.

 

Pic, above, here. 

Do you know the meaning of your Garden to your body, your spirit, your moods, your health, your friendships?

 

Pic, above, here. 

Adore the garden, above.  Little input, big outpouring.  Use natives, near natives; cannot imagine the joy, on knees, working with this garden.  My Gardening, as sacrament given, sacrament taken, symbol of a deeper reality.

  

Laura, above, in my Tara Turf.  She's mostly an inside cat.  Can't jump, not a birder.

 

George Tabor Azalea, above, in my garden this spring.  Tara Turf, below, with paths to outback and the Chicken Coop.

 

Native hedging, Tara Turf in a client's Walled Garden, below.

 

Pecan trees, below, and Tara Turf, 'are' my front yard.  Paths are literal, functional, not random.

  

What is the map of meaning between you, your home, your garden?

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Now you know.  Garden Design is Principles.  Once aware, principles so simple, you think, "There's got to be more to it."  You doubt the connections, macro, to your body/mind/heart, and home.

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In your doubt, is further proof the depths of how pernicious Industrialized Landscaping has become to you, personally, and to Earth.  

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Truth of good Agrarian Gardens are the same as Life Truth, they're humbling.  Choose to go beneath, go deeper, go lower, you'll finally, humbly understand their simplicity.

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A few sentences written, above, I hope you'll put in your CommonPlace book.  You know which ones.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

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As simple as all of this is, many are fearful.  Those on your home owners association board, neighbors, friends, a spouse, yourself.  

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Someone close to me put Round-Up & a tractor on my Tara Turf.  Wrote about it years ago.  Thousands of miles away, a reader told me to consider having/not having that person in my life, go to therapy.

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Finally, life became Simple.  Got my Tara Turf back, 2 mowings now, it's all I want to talk about and shoot.  Better, I lay in bed at nite, and FEEL it around me, hugging me, loving me.  Get up, look out the window, shoot another pic of Tara Turf, another good day begun.  

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Man mowing Tara Turf, is Man #5.  Four men fled my request for Tara Turf.  Didn't see that coming.  Tara Turf did not fit their Industrialized Business Model.  Man #4 was amazing.  Describing why it would cost DOUBLE to mow Tara Turf, which requires 50%, minimum, less mowing.  Then he described ludicrous horticultural needs, methods for his services.  

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I remained silent for his soliloquy on Horticulture.  Having taught Horticulture at the local college for decades.  My thoughts entirely about YOU.  When you trust a service provider coming to your home, their pricing, their expertise in their profession.  Man #4 broke the mold, the mold used on episodes of Gunsmoke, F Troop, or, Bonanza as the Medicine Man come to town, selling his elixirs, soon to be run out of town. 

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Then, worries about running out of men, living rural.  Someone mentioned recently, Man #4 had a stroke.  Saddened by this, yet he was the most 'crazed' about his expensive industrialized mowing.  Wish he'd think about great options he has to make More money, while keeping what he has too.  From there, he has the sky as his limit.  Wonder if his map of meaning between gardens and himself has arisen.  

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Fear of making changes not shared lightly.  Culture is strong.  Be stronger.  Won't admit to being 'stronger'.  Providential intervention, yes.