How to Site Urns on Stone Walls & Simplicity of Garden Design

Stone Wall & Finials.
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What will you use?  As a finial?
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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, in my garden last weekend.
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Sited at end of stone retaining wall, above.  In case you were wondering how I chose 'exactly' where to site the urn.  Siting, in addition, for top of the urn to be 100% level.   
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Notice what's special about the urn?
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Subtle color, and no planting needed.  It's cast stone, and will be someone's delight at my estate sale.  Remember: When Choosing a Focal Point it Must Be So Wonderful it Will Be Fought Over at Your Estate Sale.
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Something else is beyond special about this garden, above. 
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If you want to be regenerative, which is far superior to sustainable, you must know the key ingredient to the garden, above.
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Tara Turf.  No lawn.  Total low meadow with clovers, violet, dandelion, pink sorrel and what the wind blows in.
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In addition, the shrub, above, is the native Buckeye.  It will get 10' tall x 12 ' wide, sun/shade, moist or not. 
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Gardening became so easy when I got out of the way.  When I listened.  When I copied Providence, and centuries of European landscapes studied across Europe.
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Stone Walls & Urns.................made for each other.
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Garden Design Question.  How much can you take away from a Garden Design and it holds together?
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It's the last question I ask myself when designing. 
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Do you dare be this simple, above?
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Why be this simple?  I want my garden to give beauty & joy for aging into my 80's, causing no stress, only grace.
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My style of gardening is not popular with Garden Design/Build Firms.  Can you see why?  Their staff is gauged successful by the quantities of plants, lawn, mulch, stone, irrigation installed, gaining the yearly maintenance contract for mowing, annuals, pruning, chemicals, fertilizers.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Micro & Macro Mission Statements

What's the mission statement for your garden?

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Mine?

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I want to look out every window of my home, and unprompted, exclaim, 'OH WOW'.  Everyday, many times each day, and night.  

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Of course that is too small, micro.  Macro, I must have something coming into bloom every 2 weeks, all year.  Little maintenance, no irrigation, fragrance, pollinators, and views I choose, the sky framed to my amusement, etc...

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Before the internet, cell phone, digital camera, I demanded of my garden a roll of 36 slides, taken any day of the year, each slide worthy of a magazine/catalogue/book cover.  The brain wave, for taking any garden picture.

Yesterday, above.  Shooting my front garden, in the Bay Terrace, Laura.  Days of sorrow & tears, in moving, I refuse to allow to take away a single moment of the many joys, grace, & life victories pouring forth, in moving.  

Tears were not dry on my cheeks, from shooting the pics top/bottom, before time to celebrate, above, milestones for the move.

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Beloved/I had quite the day, zooming in 2 cars follow the leader, sometimes 1, against 'major' deadlines, downtowns/parking meters/back roads/storms/lawyers/judges/morons/saints/banks etc, like a Doris Day/Rock Hudson film.  

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After my vinegar/water spilled in his car, already frustrated he was beyond perturbed, then I discovered his huge commercial project blue prints were more than wet with 'my' vinegar/water, holes were eaten thru his blueprints.  The more perturbed Beloved got the harder I laughed.

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(Really 'my' vinegar/water only spilled because of his driving.), Beloved had to head out-of-state to that huge commercial job, now full of vinegar/water holes, good to give a man something to remember you by.  Called him on the phone to stay.  No.  Then came the weather.  No.  Weather came bigger.  No.  Roads closed, and it was already rush hour in Atlanta.  

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Guess who was toasting with champagne?

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Of course he was.

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Need to let you know about the vinegar/water, you'll probably be drinking it soon.

In my new garden, I know, epiphanies/metaphors will arrive, specifically, to place my loved garden properly.  

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Faith.  Trust.  Grace.

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Trinity of strength. 

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Top/bottom pics are separate photos, I doubt I'll ever get over the luxury of taking as many pics as desired.  During the days of slides, sometimes, I had to wait for developing because I had no money.  Importance of each slide being fabulous was imperative.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Wendell Berry: Poem Pics in a Garden

"....If a lonely soul
did ever cry out

in company its true
outcry to God,

it would be as though
at a sedate party
a man suddenly
removed his clothes

and took his wife
passionately into his arms. "  Wendell Berry

Love laid bare.
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Penelope Bianchi's garden, love laid bare.
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Tell me, again, the comforts/securities/spirit of mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch-lawn/green meatballs/annuals-weed killer-fertilizer subdivision landscape?
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Do you have the landscape you want?  You know, the one in your heart.  Life is short, time to let your love lay bare, in garden & home.  
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Beware, you'll attract the life you've dreamed of.  But, better.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics Penelope Bianchi.
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Terry Hershey, "...where I talked about Scandalous Love and a woman in the Gospel of Luke and how her incautious, imprudent anointing and kissing of Jesus' feet raised a few eyebrows. About a woman who finds herself--her equilibrium, her salvation, her healing and her wholeness--by falling in love. That place of vulnerability, when all of our boundaries--of control and answers and solutions and theological or religious piety--melt away, and we see who we are and what we want and who we can be and who we have pretended to be all along."
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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.

                                                                                 .

Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Garage/Atalier: Leverage Life & Garden

 Aside from the ubiquitously expected, your garage must leverage your life.  Beautifully.
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In my garage, below.

 Adore loading my so-ugly-it's-cute van for work, below.

Tools, chandeliers, speaking props & etc all awaiting to make life easier.

Vintage French garden chair made the move to the chicken coop.  And the ca. 1918 door is now a table in the office.

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How well does your garage leverage the caretaking of your garden?  Your life?

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Did you know this is an element of Garden Design?

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I didn't, until I went to Europe to study history's best gardens.  

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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Pics in my atalier, aka garage.  

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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.

                                                                                 .

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.

Driveway Planting

This was lawn, below, with a view down the cul-de-sac & myriad houses.

"I want a better view than this", was my thought a decade ago.

And, I want hydrangeas decadently gracing the side of my car as I pull into the garage.

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Everything shown was planted as 1 gallons.

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Desire on a tight budget, just add patience.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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pics taken in my garden last week.

Creating, & Living, In Still Life

Decades old, below, the Camellia japonica doesn't require care.  Though it does take your energy.

 The energy of appreciating beauty, picking flowers, knowing whether it's native/non-native honey bees at the stamens, giving blossoms away, floating blossoms in water & etc.

People, and plants, are energy in or energy out.
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I choose people to keep in my life who are energy in.  Plants too.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Last week with a client, above.  She chose her trug well knowing it would create a Still Life and be functional.    Notice the leaf litter mulch and a few weeds?  Jane Austen wrote of this type garden, it has RUSTICITIES.  Ironic to write of Landscape Design as Still Life.  They change by the split second.

..."Remodel Central Park, ca. 1910"

 "It's time," said Mr. Hustler," to remodel Central Park; At present it's as out-of-date as Noah and his ark."  R. H. Titherington in "Life," July 28, 1910.

On March 4, 1891, "Garden & Forest," was quoted as support of the 1910 demand to remodel.  It goes,

"A park such as is now under consideration should be primarily and essentially a rural retreat, . . . its highest purpose is not to furnish instruction, nor pure air, nor a place for exercise on foot or on horseback, but to furnish that relief and repose of mind which natural scenery brings to those who are wearied by city sights and sounds. . . .  Of course, a park designed and constructed with such a leading motive will not fail to furnish pure air and a field for exercise and opportunity for study; but, if it is designed primarily with subordinate uses, its highest purpose will not be reached."
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Landscape Architecture, A Quarterly Magazine, October, 1910.
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Pics from Trees and Shrubs of Central Park
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

Building Your Garden Room: 10 Steps

Think, cha-ching, this isn't for you? Poppets, PUPPET BARBUDA will not let you off easy. That measly excuse of no money? HOW TO build your new GARDEN ROOM:

1. Make decision to build a GARDEN ROOM. (Odd, this is the most important step)

2. Get envelope, label it, GARDEN ROOM. (Leftover paper money 2-3/week goes here.)

3. Tell all your friends, "I'm building a GARDEN ROOM."

4. Look at everything in your path with RESCUE eyes.

5. Bring it home. Old fencing, stone, brick, concrete, wood, house parts.

6. Get paint from the rejects at hardware store.

7. Accessorize from thrift store & sale items: TJMAXX, Marshall's, Ross.

8. Pots/urns from garage sales, big box store sales.

9. Put the right man in your project. (Alas, difficult.)

10. Hire man, & the same day, invite girlfriends to your Garden Tea Party.

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Take step #1 and your GARDEN ROOM will appear.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Charlotte Moss, pic, above. OMG, wonderful, & doable! This pic has come across my path at least a zillion times.

BUILDING A GARDEN ROOM

Susanne Hudson, a year ago, asked me to build a garden with her for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. I knew then it must be a Garden Room.
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We Field Gathered over 95% of the Garden Room. The roll, below, know what it is? Jute erosian control fabric. Can you guess how we used it? Disgusting 1980's French doors, from the dump, turned into something fabulous, below.

Our wagon, below, filled with a foray behind the barn.

Pine timbers, below, from a factory torn down in Atlanta, about a century old.

A good man for this project was unspoken, below. Notice, we did not think 'crew of men'. Notice, too, more Field Gathering: old wheelbarrow, bed frame, & altar table on its side. But you already saw that yesterday. Oooh-la-la, notice the old bathroom sink in the Tara Turf?

Poppets, pay attention to the galvanized culvert, below.

How would you use it?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Mission Statement: Oooooooh Wow !

This morning, looking out my bedroom window, below. Over 10 years ago decided I must look out all my windows & Think/See/Feel, "OH WOW."

One of the best LIFE CHOICES I've ever made.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken almost 15 minutes ago out my bedroom window. What's the mission statement for your garden?

JULIA CHILD & RACHEL RAY

Cookbooks. None by Rachel Ray. Not surprising PECAN ORCHARD isn't hesitant to begin her landscape with its bones. Evergreen hedges near the house, working outward. Ah, yes, Julia Child. Truck & outbuildings, below, viewed from the kitchen, above. Soon, hedges. Poof Gone!

PECAN ORCHARD returned from 2 decades of expat living recently. Determined to live a gardening lifestyle with chickens, honeybees, potager, fruitery, nuttery, & more.

Around the corner from her kitchen, above, a guest alcove. PECAN ORCHARD is already hosting events for honeybee & chicken groups.

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A few Garden Ingredients: Hollies, camellias, Pee Gee hydrangea, red bud, crape myrtles, abelia, forsythia, viburnum, boxwood, meadows, bulbs, branch wattles, urns, plinths, paths, gravel, flagstones.

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When PECAN ORCHARD is over 90, decades away, she wants a landscape grown more beautiful AND easier to maintain.

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Combining Rachel Ray ease & Julia Child delectability.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took pics yesterday at PECAN ORCHARD'S home.

MISSION STATEMENT: Hank Williams

"Can you make people feel what you feel?" Hank Williams, below, asks,

in a song sung by David Allen Coe, below.

Whether you think so, or not, yourlandscape speaks reams about you.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics via Star Pulse

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Hearing Meryl Streep in , Out Of Africa, "If I know a song of Africa, does Africa know a song of me?" Realizing, via Hank Williams, the depth is in knowing a song of yourself.

SOURCE

KARL LAGERFELD is a source for landscape design inspiration. (No, dahlings, I don't ask the gods why. I simply accept the gift.)

Cathy Horyn, New York Times fashion writer, equally inspires my landscapes.

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She wrote of Lagerfeld's work, yesterday, "But at its best, it means a wonderful sense of composition with random bits of history."
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Should any landscape aspire to less?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics via Luxist

THRIFTING GARDEN CANDLES

Lanterns, below, are my newest fetish since visiting Susanne Hudson's garden.Several Smith/Hawken going-out-of-business sale lanterns are awaiting styling in my garden. Candles? Sale candles of course. Thrift store, above, too. For pennies on the dollar I have no shame in unmatched candles. Prices above? Further reduced, 75% off.
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Sure the open garden or garden pic you'll see matched candles. Perhaps melted unmatched wax & an empty wine bottle with a dropped linen napkin.
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A perfect garden isn't my goal. I want a fabulous garden to feed my soul, delight my eye & challenge my intellect.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

A LITTLE WEED PLEASE

Where are the weeds? Gorgeous? Yes, in a Stepford Wife banality (honestly, remove the 'b' from the previous word). Ha, not even garlic chives or marigolds at the edges to repel bugs. PUPPET BARBUDA contemplated deeply about this garden. Conclusion? It lacks ROMANCE. Yet, PUPPET BARBUDA adored the romance of the settings in the rest of the movie, It's Complicated.

Susanne Hudson is using true landscape bamboo fencing for my new window treatments, above. A soft burlap for dust ruffle & chair cushions.

My garden tub, above,

is coming inside, above.

The strength of girlfriends, above. My 2 new gravel terraces? (5 tons, $410) Specifically for more girlfriend action!

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PUPPET BARBUDA has added Hollywood movie garden stylist to her dream job resume. It looks, top pic, like a vegetable garden in a CHEMICAL COMPANY ad circa 1962. Even butterflies, honey bees & lady bugs knew this was a no fly zone. Ugh.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from the movie, It's Complicated.

FLOWING COLOR

SHE sent this days ago, below, a victory. SHE chose a new door & paint color. We had choices to make about the door surround; opting to keep the original windows. The door was custom made to fit her space. The color chosen to flow from the myriad gray-blues of her interior. When I saw her wreath I had to smile. Can you guess what color she asked me to design the flowering shrubs/trees in her frontyard?
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White.
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SHE has white: azaleas, viburnum, holly, camellias, magnolia, dogwood.
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It's counterintuitive, the more demanding you are of your landscape the easier it is to create.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

A LANDSCAPE WORTHY OF JANE AUSTEN

Pleasure walks, focal points to stimulate conversation, peaceful corners to sit & read, have lunch, write a letter, gossip with a friend, entertain, experience metaphors of nature writ large, a retreat to retire & contemplate, connive perhaps, most importantly it's civilized. Of course it's my garden.

These views taken from my office window this week with my cell phone.

Living within this tiny plot of land in a cluster home subdivision and all the cares of the world; this garden allows me a Jane Austen life.

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Ugh, the matchmaking part? Terrible. Did it once, never again. They divorced.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

LANDSCAPE INSPIRATION BOARD

I always ask for a landscape design mission statement. TRACTOR CHICK wants her home to be an extension of her landscape, not, her landscape an extension of her home. What colors do you have in your home? They will flow into your landscape.

Want an outdoor fireplace, pond, kitchen, etc? Tear out pictures.

Another designer created a mostly fabulous concept plan for TRACTOR CHICK but it had FATAL FLAWS. (That plan had the outdoor kitchen on perfect view from the front door thru the foyer-formal dining room-breakfast room-French doors. The most important view (axis) on the site. And a stream flowing uphill.)

TRACTOR CHICK knew she wanted a 2-sided fireplace & a pizza oven.

Lots of garden rooms.

Little grass.

A compost area, and potting table.

One of TRACTOR CHICK's lists, above.

Laying out strings for garden rooms, flags for trees & the bench will be, ta-da, the bench. This begins the bid phase for the project.

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NOTES: Yesterday TRACTOR CHICK & I met at Smith/Hawken going-out-of-business sale for patio furnishings & urns. Great success. This sale lasts thru Nov. get there if you can.

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PUPPET BARBUDA was stunned at the first design on this property. Sniffing the winds, detecting profit margins. The stream didn't really flow uphill. The concept plan had grand visions for dumploads of dirt, a bobcat & laborers. Worse, to dearest PUPPET was directing the main view of this home onto a refrigerator.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara