Doorstep Gardening

A bit of vine & gravel to the house.

Repeated across continents for centuries.
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Affordable to install, inexpensive to maintain.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via A Bloomsbury Life.  After years of lust for gravel & vine I did it for myself.  Still curious why I waited so long.

Vines On A Wood House?

Vines on a wood house?  No.  There are ways but I'm too lazy.  Vine clinging to stucco/stone, below,

 a case of desire from Italy.  Can't do it with your wood home?  No problem.  Espalier a woody shrub.

 Whatever your zone, choose a hardy woody shrub and espalier the pruning.

 Abelia, viburnum, hydrangea, camellia, tea olive, and more can be planted & espaliered.
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Use a woody (Why woody?  No wire/trellis needed.) shrub as a 'vine' on your wood home.
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Don't buy shrubs already espaliered, buy big shrubs and prune them into espalier.  On camellia, and many others, this saves over $100+.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Carolina jessamine was growing on my baywindow.  Gone, too much work.  Espaliered a huge oakleaf hydrangea,  2nd pic from bottom.

Front Door: Curb Appeal

Yesterday, at my front door.  

Ivy 'Gold Heart', discovered studying historic landscapes in England.
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Espalier Oakleaf hydrangea, discovered studying historic landscapes in Italy.  (Irony, Italy teaching a USA southerner how to prune hydrangea.)
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Plaque is a Christine Sibley piece & I don't like 'words' in a garden.  (Great profession, exceptions to EVERYTHING.)
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Epiphany yesterday.  With heat-humidity-droughts my garden is gorgeous from every window view.  And I haven't done any gardening for weeks.  Groundcovers, flowering shrubs, flowering trees, a few perennials & self-seeding annuals, focal points on axis.  No accidents.  I paid attention studying across Europe AND have a mission statement for my garden.
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More correctly, my garden is a metaphor for what I want in my life.

Gravel To The Door With Vine + Table

After designing a landscape Saturday I perused Brabourne Farm, a favorite blog. Here, below, I stopped.I had just designed this EXACT garden. Less than 2 hours earlier.

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Client has 5 acres with woodland, gravel lanes, open meadow, barns, horses. And a home with a daylight basement needing the 'zip' (zest?) above.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic from John Granen. Molly, is this what your mother's bistro set looks like? Wish gardens could be installed this fast.

Italian Simplicity: Are You This Brave?

A vine & 4 pots. Voila, lush, done.No foundation plantings, no lawn.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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I took this pic over a decade ago in Italy, outside of Lucca, and haven't wavered in my awe of its simplicity.

Chinoiserie & Design

Wisteria 'Amethyst Falls' at my front door today. A tiny area, yet interesting, and welcoming. (Without moving my feet these pics are a scan from left to right.) Peeking beyond the Wisteria, below, urn/plinth on axis with my bay window.
Filtered thru Wisteria foliage, above, the gravel terrace with large flagstones leading to the frontdoor.
The little Pot Cluster, above, and adirondack chair.
Classic Landscape Design, above, and pollinator habitat. (High & low density, canopy/understory, walls, floor, contrasting foliage textures/colors.)
Landscape Design's Pulitzer Prize, above. Beauty, privacy, low maintenance, organic, all season interest, pollinator habitat, fragrance, fantasy within reality, a place to sit, a spot viewed on axis from within the house.

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Take the camera view a bit to the right you'll see neighbor's homes, their cars, their landscaping, the street. Honestly, who wants to live that way? Seeing neighbor's stuff? It's not my realm. The pics above ARE my realm.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Puppet Barbuda apologizes for bluntness in her captions today. Puppet Barbuda is zealous in details of landscape design/pollinator habitat. Puppet Barbuda disdains the ridiculosity of pretty garden pictures focusing on 'a plant', 'how to dig a hole', 'plant them 2.5432" apart'. Information providing you nothing about putting a beautiful garden together. When Puppet Barbuda reads interior design books/blogs/magazines they don't tell her how to produce the fabric on the couch, how to dye it, cut it, sew it, staple it & etc.....they appreciate she has a BRAIN.

The Walls Of Your Rooms

Landscapes ARE architecture. Begin creating architecture in the landscape with ceilings, yesterday's post, then walls. (My Tea Olive Terrace, below, along the side of my home.)Landscape walls can be the side of your home, above, or all plantings, below. (Wall, below, is mine & hides the neighborhood from my tender sensibilities. What me not living in the Cotswolds?)
Espaliered woody shrubs & vines dramatize the walls of a home, fence, dependency & etc., below. (My Bay Terrace, below.)
Using wit, below, Susanne Hudson swags a window. Pow, Shazam, baby.
With more wit, intellect, & drama she created a garden room, raised on a dais (aka deck, but dais is ever so much nicer, yes?),
with old church windows.
Landscape Design: create walls.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Slow down, peruse again, Landscape Design IS this easy. Look at the 2nd pic again. Notice how much sky I own because of my walls? You would CRINGE knowing how many houses along the ubiquitous subdivision cul-de-sac lane (aka street) my garden obliterates in that 2nd pic. Who knew? Gardens are offense & defense. A moat of grace around home & life.

Dressing A Service Space

Color, vine, below, dress a service space.An easy fix, below?
An ornate black iron gate.

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A wood gate would harbor surprises: possum, snake, person.

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Would add 3 cobblestones at base of vine, keeping gravel away.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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A new home in Mixson, Charleston, SC.

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No space, none, is left undone in the best gardens.

Landscape the Ubiquities of Life Away

"Here I am breathing the soft air of Mount Edgcumbe standing upon the brink of a Cliff overlooking the sea and singing Notturnos with Pacchierotti. Innumerable bees are humming about the Myrtles and Arbutus which hang on the steeps and are covered with blossom." William Beckford 1781Oh my, the connection is intense. Gardens transcend time, size, style, budget, governments.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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View from my garage, above, living in a ubiquitous American subdivision. With my garden, I've left the ubiquities behind.

Tables: Square or Rectangle

Still life, pot collection, flagstone terrace in dirt, groundcovers, vines, conifers, meadow, high & low density for maximum pollinator habitat, contrasting textures & colors(foliage), color of window trim, timelessness, Vanishing Threshold, rectangular table, & which continent is this..... (Did you really know so much was in this gorgeous pic?)Puppet Barbuda cannot abide round tables for terrace/patio/deck.
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Puppet Barbuda loves square or rectangular tables; they are so flexible. Pushed next to your home, a rail, edge of terrace, behind a bench.
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Puppet Barbuda loves the flexibility of 2 square tables; used separately or pushed together.
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Imagine the pic, above, with a round table. Ick.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Tara Question: Pic of your patio/deck should answer, "Is this so wonderful I must see the garden & is this so wonderful I must go inside & see the interiors?"
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Pic from Dana Gallagher. Puppet Barbuda knows there are exceptions to her round-table-disdain.

Bleachers

Bleachers were common in gardens 2-3 decades ago. Now? Not so much. Cinder blocks with 2" x 6" boards were typical. Pure, undiluted salvage also. Too stark? Stain your bleachers a faded green ,or some such color, from Benjamin Moore or Farrow & Ball.
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Garden & Be Well XO Tara
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These bleachers, above, are perfection. Terra cotta theme, vines, and resplendent rain butt. Lotta lush in teeny/tiny space. Found pic via WSJ Magazine.

Details in Simplicity

Simplicities: trim color is not a bright white, no window screens, interior window treatments are elegant, lights on inside, contrasting foliage textures, contrasting foliage colors, espaliered lushness upon home, well maintained, easy to maintain, urn is fabulous enough to be empty, urn is not hugging wall of home or frontdoor, classic template of centuries copied, design is elegant in winter, makes me want to see the interior, makes me want to see the rest of the garden, the landscape describes the owners. Front of home, above, and its backyard, below.

Shown in yesterday's post too.

A retired couple lives here. They maintain the garden.

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Two important questions to ask yourself about a pic of your home.

1. Is it so wonderful I must see inside?
2. Is it so wonderful I must see the entire landscape?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in Athens, GA

Simple

A few weeks ago when the roses began blooming, below. #89 granite gravel drive, picket fence copied from historic template, carport (at right) with "columns" made from 2" x 6" boards, green-brown-white color theme. Pure Simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Can you hear the gravel as you drive into Susanne Hudson's garden?

JOHN SALADINO

Saladino's work is in full measure. Garden & house. Vanishing Threshold. The pruning of his canopy & understory trees, above, tell me more about the man than his interiors.

His VERTICAL LAWN (vine on wall) & lidded urn on the shelf melt my heart.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Found the pics yesterday via Period Homes.

ENTRIES

Landscapes cannot have too many entries.Not always gates or doors. Use pair of: trees, bushes, urns, stones, wattles, columns & etc.
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Entries in gardens are PROOF of garden magic. No matter the direction, they are always entries. Something I try to remember about life. It may feel like an exit but it's always an entry.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via It's About Time. From door, bricks, edging, vine, vista, colors, lichens, meadow, season, I can feel the coolness of the bricks on the palm of my hand, the push & sound of the door trying to open it further & smell the air.

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Your Frontdoor

Two questions your front door answers. Whether you think so or not.

Do I want to see inside their house?

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Do I want to see their garden?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic from Homes & Gardens via Brabourne Farm

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Lighting

When it moves outside it's a trend. Fabulous lanterns. First Rules of Landscape Design: copy, simplicity, repetition.
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SENSUOUS, above. Crunch of gravel, trilling water, warmth of candle light, hearing refreshments poured from a pretty pitcher, feel of foliage upon your arm, repetition of color house-furniture-shutters-arbor-fountain-gravel, scale, flow, texture, vanishing threshold.
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Beauty w/Low Maintenance in the garden is sensuous & feng shui.
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Design, above, for yourself. Grace IS a destination.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, Michael Partino via Brabourne Farms

LUSH WITHOUT SPACE

Want to add lushness without taking up space? Put a vine on your house. Or espalier a woody shrub. Not much, above, but loads of lushness. And little maintenance. Rich, welcoming. Don't you want to know what the inside looks like? And the garden? Already sense you would like the owner?
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Slow down, dahlings. 3 questions, above, are quite serious. And part of designing your landscape.
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Ask those questions of your frontdoor & back patio area.
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Color, empty pots, scale, path, axis, light fixture, bell pull, enfilade each play a role too. But I'm only speaking of the vine today. Isn't it amazing how the simplest of garden pictures is, in reality, a full landscape design course?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Kathryn Ireland

4SOME: CLUB, WING & ADIRONDACK

Adirondacks were the 1st 4some I saw outside. And LOVED. A client had a 4some of club chairs w/ottoman at their center, inside their home. Gorgeous.
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Now, wingchairs in 4some, above, outside. Yes!!!
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What works here?
* No foundation planting.
* Vines on the house.
* Color: bricks, chairs, pots, foliage, flowers, sky.
* Pots: size, plantings, placement.
* Scale.
* Flow.
* Axis.
* Contrasting textures. Dark leaves by chartreuse leaves. Big leaves by small leaves.
* Canopy & understory trees.
* Walls: plants & house.
* 4SOME of Chairs. Comfort.
* Invitation. Steps leading you further, if only in imagination. Doors, beckoning the great indoors.
* Mystery. Yes, I want to see this garden. Yes, I want to go inside this house.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Maison Sud-Ouest, via, Garden Rooms. Had to show it to you. This garden has stuck in my head as pure pleasure.

MAKING IT LESS MAINTENANCE

Know how to create less maintenance, below? Replace turf with groundcover.
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Notice what is not in this landscape? NO FOUNDATION PLANTING !!!!
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Notice what is in this landscape? A French theme. OVERDOSE YOUR THEME.
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Notice how simple this landscape is? KEEP IT SIMPLE SWEETIE.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Things That Inspire. A favorite blog, named to perfection.