Creating Lush

Vertical lawn, below.

Don't have a stone villa?  Espalier a woody shrub.  No wires or trellis needed.

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Oddly, the perfection above is undone without the  rattan chair.  Then it becomes an ad for patio furniture.

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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Those white cushions?  Not in my garden, crape myrtle tree debris would win in a day!

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How lush can a garden be and have very little?  That is the best gardening question.  This garden, above, wins.

Pic Veranda magazine.

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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.

Interior Shutters

Too much sun, she sent me a link to exterior shade cloth.  

Too expensive for something to degrade in weather, look merely satisfactory when new, pass quickly to tacky, even faster to dreadful, and finally get-rid-of-it.  Why spend the money?  Worse, why waste the time?
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Perhaps, interior top down/bottom up Duette shades inside.  No go.  Her cats would shred them she said.
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Shutters?  Hers would have to be bi-fold due to space.
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She hasn't responded!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic Cote de Texas.

Formula: 2 Chairs + Table

Woodland, palace, mid-century modern, cluster, townhome, shotgun, split-level ranch & etc.2 chairs + table; works every time.

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Of course, you must choose the correct vernacular.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Another pic from MIXSON at my job in Charleston, SC.

Fabulous: Front & Back

Adore the asymmetry of doors, windows, shutters, steps, below.Complete follow-thru, below, at the back of the home. RARE !
From the landscape there are NO unconsidered views of your home.

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Front, back, sides. Hop on it.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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More pics from my project at Mixson in Charleston, SC.

Copy

Because it's new
doesn't mean it must look new.

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Copy. It's one of the 1st rules of Landscape Design.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken last week at Mixson a project I'm working on in Charleston, SC.

One Room Deep

You must see this parlor, one room deep. Below, a view from the frontyard. The warmth of draperies, and lamps glowing. (Poppets, from your frontyard, looking into your home, ask, "Are the views into my home so fabulously interesting intellectual-well-read-successful-talented-mentoring-civic minded-active-athletic-art-loving-appreciators-of-good-cooking-charity-giving-people curious? Face it we are voyeur's. And, don't you adore Tara Questions?)

Inside, below, the window from above.
Alas, the weather was nice, we never sat here, below, we used the patio for wine-canapes-conversation-dinner-breakfast-lunch.
Same room, below, views the back garden too.
I adore rooms scaled for comfort, beauty, conversation, reading, napping,
and viewing the garden.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Hope you enjoyed my client's home in Macon, GA. None of the pics were styled, they didn't know I would be taking pics. Remember, pics were taken quickly, early morning while still in my gown/robe. He was starting the coffee when I began & it finished brewing as my pics were done. Then, the 3 of us sat on the patio, with our coffee, and began talking gardening. Then, she served breakfast at the patio table. Loved the breakfast quiche and the little sourdough rolls with homemade fig preserves and peak of season fresh fruit salad & etc...

CURB APPEAL

CURB APPEAL --- House Exterior: paint historic yellow-ochre, replace rails with Chippendale pattern, place oval shutter at oval window, trim + Chippendale rails + picket fence painted 1 tone darker of the same yellow-ochre. A new owner, above, in this youngish neighborhood.

Though youngish the neighborhood looks OLD. Why?

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Sheared, circa 1982 style, green meatball builder's plantings. Homes colored in timid builder's whites.

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Sheared green meatballs are pustules on the face of neighborhoods; lowering property value.

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Happily, this small neighborhood understands. As homes are painted owners are choosing colors suited to their bricks & interiors. Overplanted green meatballs are being removed. Upgraded gardens installed.

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Note: Color & Chippendale were easy to choose for this home. Interior walls are yellow-ochre and beautiful antiques fill their rooms. Floors were being refinished while I was there, alas, no pics.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SPO: HOME, GARDEN, TEA

SPO's home was under construction when I drew her landscape design several months ago. I knew from descriptions it was going to be scrumptious. A small house is what she, & her husband CAPE COD, wanted with great details, antiques, art, books and a garden. Look at the tea she served. Cava, ha, isn't she wonderful? County restrictions & certificate of occupancy played a role in the initial landscape. A dastardly lawn HAD to go in. Soon much of the lawn will be flowering shrubs, groundcovers, understory blooming trees, paths, rosemary, lavender & more wildflowers.

SPO's first wildflower meadow, above.

Lawn now but just you wait, hydrangeas, azaleas, viburnum, mondo, jasmine, tea olive, cryptomeria, gardenia, camellia, forsythia, & etc......

SPO sourced most of the materials for the house. The working shutters are on all sides of the house. The living room, above, with 2 pair French doors leading to the back porch and, below, a door from the master bedroom to the back porch.

Well chosen downspout, below, it's round. The stones are faux. On site, from 3', you can't tell they are faux.

The kitchen, family room, master bedroom, upstairs office, & porch, below, overlook an amphitheater with a mature woodland backdrop. You would not believe the birdsong.

Natural terracing, below, forms the amphitheatre. Faux stone tops the retaining walls.

Textured blocks, below, even cheaper than the faux stone, comprise the retaining walls. Not seen, why spend more?

A delight in the carriage house, the Cadillac. SPO & CAPE COD drive for pancakes each Saturday in the Caddy. Yes, I've asked them to stop by & pick me up some Saturday.

SPO adores cooking and found her kitchen online at Yestertec Kitchen Works. Simple, compact, functional and charming.

The oven, below, is in the cabinet under the stove.

And the armoir, below, is not a pantry.

It's a cooking center, below. Delightful, just close the doors and it's a clean look.

In the library, below. Moving into this house they decided to forgo cable. And are loving the change in their lives.

Between kitchen and living room, below, the desk. The house is one room deep in these rooms and full of natural light. And views, views, views.

Keeping it small, below, SPO knew to go high with the living room ceiling.

SPO & I dreamed, before she moved in, about having a tea party on the back porch, below. Alas, dear ones, we were weak. Do you know how forsakenly hot/humid it was?

SPO & CAPE COD have successfully down-sized from their large home yet already feel the difference in living larger, richer, simpler, lives.

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Enjoying the cava, conversation, house, garden and scones with fresh fruit/jam it was difficult to comprehend they have only been in their home for 3 months. It felt like E. M. Forster. The solidness of Howard's End. A place to fill the spirit.

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You'll be getting more of SPO & CAPE COD because I didn't get any pics of their corgi, who really owns the place. And of course, as the garden goes in.

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Garden & Be Well, XO T

LANDSCAPE DESIGN: MISSION STATEMENT

For each landscape design I ask for a mission statement. Often a single mission statement is enough, sometimes one for the front yard & another for the backyard. Ha, some of you need several. Don't think you're hiding from me.
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TRACTOR CHICK's mission statement: "Create an outdoor living space that will not be an extension of my home but where my home will be an extension of my garden!" TRACTOR CHICK chose her home for its lot. For the landscape. The backyard is incredible.

A few challenges in the front yard. Driveways & garages drawing attention away from the focal point of the front door.

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I haven't drawn this plan yet but I already know round downspouts are needed, an arbor over the double garage wrapping around the corner and Bahama shutters, below, on the bare wall between the double garage & single garage.

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Why have the arbor and Bahama shutters? Softness, depth, asymmetry and creating the illusion that living space is balanced on each side of the home.

Bahama shutter pic, above, from The Window Shutter Site, other pics taken last week.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara