Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival: Don Shadow & H. 'Ruby Slippers'

Susanne Hudson & Jeri Farmer, founders of the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, ( June 6-8, 2014), in Douglasville, GA, are picking up Hydrangea 'Ruby Slippers' today from Don Shadow Nursery.

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Innocent sentence, above, if you don't know many gardeners.  Why?  The 4 names, above, are all Rock Stars of the horticulture industry.

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Martha Stewart is so impressed with Don Shadow she has an article/video about him, here.

Lacecap hydrangea, above, at a previous Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival tour garden.

 Don Shadow, above/below.  Michael Dirr, another rock star, at a lecture decades ago, referenced Don Shadow with obvious awe/respect in his tone.  From that 'tone' I sought & attended a Don Shadow lecture decades ago too.

Don Shadow nursery, below.  It's rare to discover a man, living, comparable to the late Victorian era of wide ranging talents & interests & action.  Shadow wears that mantle with ease.

No surprise Susanne & Jeri are on their way to pick up Hydrangea 'Ruby Slippers' Don Shadow Nursery is providing (gratis) the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.
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Take some of the links, above, about Don Shadow.  He's a renaissance man of the Land, and far ahead of our era.  Alternative livestock anyone?  Has me wondering if he's friends with Wendell_Berry.  And knowing it's time for a road trip, I've never been to Shadow's nursery.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics from Don Shadow.  Hydrangea pic mine.  Heads-up my HF Chicks, we must do the Shadow roadtrip together (togetha).  Yes, doing a little display for the PMHF again this year.  Hope to see you there.
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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.

Design: Know Where Important Views Begin

The most important views of your garden are from inside.

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Kitchen views into the garden are imperative. 

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Make a choice, it's that simple.

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Continue with your life accepting garden views harmful to your spirit or make the choice to create garden views joyful to your heart.

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Too busy?  No Money?  Life issues?

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Then, those views are essential.

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I know from whence I speak.  With zero need to relay any of it here.

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No matter where you start, your garden can take you (if needed) from victim to survivor to thriver.

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Each of us is all of the above, excepting, too often, thriver.

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When you make a choice for your garden, you indeed make a choice to thrive.

Standing at the kitchen sink this morning eating yogurt I see, above, to my left, Torte de Shelle, resting on the table Beloved commissioned for me as a birthday gift.

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The mophead hydrangeas starting to color, above, a gift from my bosom friend Penny McHenry, who died several years ago.

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Without moving my feet, and looking right, above, another hydrangea from Penny causing a great stir in my heart as it approaches peak.
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The teak bench was a 40th birthday present to myself.  It arrived with a surprise, it needed assembly.  I adore that type of chore !
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The variegated Boxwood was bought on a whim, not knowing if it would do well in this zone.  It does well.
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Is it any wonder I stand at the kitchen sink & eat breakfast?  Literally, the energy & joy filling into my spirit is felt.  Pure atonement.
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2+ decades ago I named my business, A Garden View, Inc.  Obvious, now, where I was headed though zero clue at the time.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pics taken this morning.  Pic, below, though fuzzy is my favorite.

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 For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

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.

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
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Pics of Porch Garden I created with Susanne Hudson at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival earlier this month.

Penny McHenry's Quotes To Live By

Penny McHenry, founder American Hydrangea Society, had 2 newspaper clippings on her bathroom mirror.

Below, is one.

The 2nd said, "It is more important to be kind than to be right."
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She was in her 70's when they were taped to her mirror.
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Active, Penny was forever getting into 'pickles'.  At least once a year she forgot these quotes, thoroughly. 
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Her charm lay in immediate repentance & contrition.  I drove Penny a lot of places thru the years & it was always a thrill when she would begin, "Perhaps I shouldn't have told....."
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics via my bad.  Apologies for not saving the sources.   

How To Hide An Eyesore Powerbox

Altar table, below, used as a potting table. Lamps (oooh-la-la) have electricity. Altar table, below, was past its church days before it's new life in the garden.
A power box, below, at a client's chicken house & pecan orchard.
Within the louvres, above, is the green power box.

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Top 2 pics were sent to my carpenter as description for what I wanted. He adapted the idea beyond expectation.

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Carpenter & I never communicate well in the 1st round. Ever. Then we laugh, always. Afterward he leverages my ideas 'better'. I adore working with this man.

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We'll accessorize the altar table with a cloth of burlap placed 'church style' (diminishing the louvres) , iron book holder, pair of heavy iron lamps, a couple of baskets for egg & pecan gathering.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pics are from the garden Susanne Hudson & I created for last year's Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. We're using the table again this year but not as a potting table. Can you guess how? Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, Douglasville, GA, June 4-5, 2011.

Most Copied Garden In Charleston, SC

Loutrel Briggs designed this garden, below, for Emily Whaley. I've copied this garden more than any other.Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden, is a book you'll read often through the years.
Dogwood Books & Antiques, below, was a vendor at my lecture venue in Rome, GA last weekend.
Bought 2 boxes of vintage garden books. Most will be given as gifts. Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden? Bought both their copies. Penny McHenry gave me my copy.

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Penny & I were in Mrs. Whaley's Charleston, SC garden less than 3 months after Mrs. Whaley died.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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2 days in Rome, a box of books per day. Couldn't afford to stay longer!!! Saw the 1st hydrangea blossom opening yesterday while reading the morning paper & perusing my Ipad (at the same time of course). Wanted to call Penny, tell her about my 'Penny Mac' being the first mophead this year in my garden. Missing her delightful scream at my news. Missing, more, her dive into all the wonderful/sumptuous/fabulous hydrangea happenings in her garden.

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It really stinks when a good friend is gone. Her phone number is still in my head. (Aren't those the beginning lines of a country song?)

Where You Need A Desk

Susanne Hudson says, "Every garden needs a desk."Her little thought is a great truth. Until then I didn't KNOW my garden was missing its desk.

When my Conservatory, made of rescued materials, is completed, yes, it will have a garden desk.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics of Susanne's garden desk taken earlier this year. Of course they are real hydrangeas.

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(Remember Penny McHenry's Garden Desk in her garage? Yes, inspired by Susanne Hudson.)

CHALLENGE & SOLUTION

When the carriage house, below, was completed Susanne Hudson's builder said, "Don't plant, I've packed solid Georgia red clay so you won't flood."
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What did Susanne do?
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She planted a garden around her carriage house in POTS.
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Last fall's flood, killing several in Douglasville, GA? Roads & bridges are still closed in places. Susanne's carriage house did not flood.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in Susanne Hudson's garden of her carriage house. Susanne prefers green, brown & white in her garden. Above, you see mophead hydrangeas allowed into her tight color scheme. Three years ago Susanne began the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. A weekend of lectures, vendors & garden tours. Go if you can, it's fabulous.

VELCRO CROTCH

Gardening clothes aren't serious. Please, someone, manufacture garden pants with a VELCRO CROTCH. By the time I run inside finally, finally to the powder room it's a battle to get my sweaty pants off. Seeing, above, I know what to wear pruning my peony patch circa 1798 with staff in attendance.

How I'm feeling, above. Chaos reigns in my home: painters, plumber, carpenter, electrician. Soon, when garden clubs have their meetings in my garden the flow will be so much better.

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Did you know they existed? Garden club meetings in a garden? With catered box lunches!!!Learned of them thru Penny McHenry. She had them, to perfection. Penny would lead a tour of her garden, about 1 hr, then everyone would gather iced tea/box lunch & settle throughout garden & home. The breaking of bread with one another would perform its magic in Penny's setting. The magic? Grace & spirit.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic Christian Lacroix, bottom pic Galliano.

TOUGH ON BUNNIES

The bunny on the right, below, is a finial on the arbor. A squirrel jumped from the crape myrtle, onto his head, and he crashed to earth. Losing an ear & a foot. Bunny on the left, below, is a finial on the front gate post. A bird landed upon his head, sending him to earth and he lost an ear & foot.

And I proclaim, I don't like to collect things. This is a tough garden for bunnies.

Penny, my late mentor, had a porcelain bunny with a dried hydrangea blossom hat. Instead, I found a dog, above.

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I can still hear Penny, You're no bunny till some bunny loves you.

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Hence the bunnies in my garden. They're passing along Penny's voice, and laughter, in my garden.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SUSANNE HUDSON'S FRONT PORCH

Framed by 2 magnolias, Susanne Hudson's front porch is a masters class of design. Susanne created the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival honoring 2 loves, a plant & a friend.

In her town, Douglasville, GA, Susanne is proof, Build it & they will come.

Susanne asked me to speak to her garden club last year. That venue was her wildly successful wedding & events business, Le Jardin Blanc.

This year I spoke at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. It was last Saturday.

Trams shuttled visitors to speaking venues, tented vendors & open gardens.

After speaking it became pure garden fantasy. Seeing Susanne's garden.

Her front porch took 1/2 hour.

Her home is on the historic register.

Green, brown & white are Susanne's favorite colors to use in the garden.

Oh my, the timelessness of Susanne's design.

She creates realms of calm repose. Simply.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

HYDRANGEAS AT MY TOES

At the end of the day Tuesday, quilt & pillow were placed on wicker swing, the arbor ceiling fan turned on and I reclined with magazines. I felt the freedom of floating in water. With beauty at my toes. Hydrangea 'Penny Mac' from Penny herself. These were Penny's Presbyterian hydrangeas. Given when she downsized her garden. Wickedly, she embarrassed my friend, BIG BILL, who helped dig/transplant that winter day. Penny, aged 76, leaned into BIG BILL's arm and said, I bet you've got lots of women. Quickly redder than a radish, BIG BILL, a wise man, kept digging. But with a smile.

I'm a woman with a gorgeous dirty cloche, I like that literally & metaphorically. Gray Gardens is quite appealing. The monkeys are dressed for Penny's blossoms. I dallied on the swing twice last year, once the year before. Ridiculous. Will try to do it once a week.

The Lutyen's bench here too. Needing stain, to match the other teak. Can't simply bask must eyeball something to do.

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And the magazines? What a bore compared to what was at my toes.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara