Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts

Monday, January 30, 2012

How To Get It Free

Thrift store yesterday, Donald Pliner shoes, 99 cents.
 Saving, $299.00, minimum, they've bought me
several tons of gravel, stone & a few boxwood.
.
Girl math.
.
But it really works.  All my dear lady clients get it.  ALL.
.
Husbands groan.
.
Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
.
No, this isn't sexist.  I know exactly how boy math works.  Pics from Ann Mashburn's home via Atlanta Homes magazine.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Bowood: Cafe, Farm, Shop & Plant Nursery

In a century old brick warehouse Bowood of St. Louis, MO has a nursery redolent of those in Europe. A shop, below.Cafe, below. Yes, it was YUM. They have their own CHEF.
From the cafe windows, below.
They also sell plants, below. Adore their crunchy gravel paths.
Directly across the street, below,
is their farm. Produce is sold fresh & used in the Cafe.
.
If you're in St. Louis, MO do not miss Bowood.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pics taken from the Bowood site. Back from a week in St. Louis, Mo lecturing at their Home & Garden Show sponsored by their Home Builders Assoc. 11 lectures, 4 TV interviews & 2 radio interviews. Bowood was an energizing respite from my busy schedule.
.
More tomorrow !

Monday, July 19, 2010

Hobby Lobby ?

A greenhouse for table, wall, or to force bulbs indoors & the cats won't chew them up.
Did you know, Hobby Lobby sells a few garden things? Good size, weight & depth for this metal house, above/below.

Chinoiserie, below, what will it look like painted your color?

I don't have, below, this shape of cloche. Tempting, but it has plastic panes.

Prices comparable to a nursery. BUT, everything shown is 50% to 66% off. Oddly, most nurseries I go into don't have this merchandise.
Found my quarry, below, a small cloche.

In Italy I saw large urns filled with bronze plants used atop buildings as finials. Wish these metal flowers, below, came in more sizes.

Smallest tray, below, $5.

3 size terra cotta pots, cheapest I've seen anywhere recently.

Classic pieces. Each will be unique in your garden.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pics taken over the weekend. Needed watercolors too for renderings of my Landscape Designs. A good shopping trip, found everything I needed. No, Hobby Lobby has no idea I'm doing this post.

Friday, March 5, 2010

SMALL CONTENTMENTS

Wallpaper, 24 years old & still adored.The urge, energy & creativity to bring flowers inside, below, was absent for years. Blooms outside these windows every day, all year, no effort. Of course I must tolerate birds, butterflies or honeybees everyday too. Camellias, blooming outside, below. The brown? Dormant hydrangeas. The green? Azaleas. (Tara's Trinity of the Southern Garden: Azaleas, Camellias & Hydrangeas.)
Old wicker from an estate sale around the corner 3 years ago.

The cloche had been in the garden over 5 years, until hellebores were cut last week.

After 20 years, my house was painted. A decorator, Susanne Hudson, hired to help with colors & interior design.
.
I'm basking in the joy, serenity & energy my new spaces are giving me.
.
Above, When stamens drop, I'm taken out of time. (Lucky me, I think some people need cocaine to feel like this. As the Sea Witch in Little Mermaid says, "...Poor unfortunate souls........")
.
What mentors have shared with me the most? Small contentments.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
That fabulous cloche? TJMaxx, $9.99!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

SPECIAL FURNITURE

Unless I told you, you wouldn't know. This chair?
It's outdoor furniture. Fabric? Outdoor frabric. Cushions? Rain drains in 20 minutes.

Outdoor coffee table, above.


As Anne of Green Gables would say, "...scope for the imagination.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Took the pics last week at a To The Trade Only showroom.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

LANDSCAPE LARDER

Landscaping is cooking by recipe. Cooks have larders. Do you have a LANDSCAPE LARDER? In Texas last week I gardened with my sister. Frustrating. She had no LANDSCAPE LARDER.
We needed brown twine, tall bamboo stakes, chicken wire, wire cutters, time release fertilizer, brass 'Y' connectors, mulch and etc.
With each need I traipsed to her garage. NOTHING.

My garage? It could outfit her landscape, and a few others, without a dent.

Buying mulch? Potting soil? Twine? A focal point? Stepping stones? Clay pots? Organic fertilizer? Brass hose connector? Watering can? Get extra for the LANDSCAPE LARDER.

My horticulture degree never brought up the topic of LANDSCAPE LARDER. Nor symposium or Extension Service.

Scotland was my first garden study tour. Each garden had a LANDSCAPE LARDER.

Need a 10' soaker hose? Buy 2. Need the tiny 1" sprinkler? Buy 2.

Most gardens need 2 secondary LANDSCAPE LARDERS. Keep a collection of tools near the front of your property & another at the rear.
With 20 minutes to garden in the backyard will you traipse to the garage, at the front of your home, for clippers & trug? Keep a basket of useful things at your backdoor: pruners, scissors, twine, clogs, weed popper, trowel, gloves, flashlight, spider stick, & etc. And at your frontdoor.
My garage? A fantasy LANDSCAPE LARDER: pruners, power tools (saw, drill, hedge trimmer, drimmel), ladders, shovels, rakes, post hole digger, trowels, focal points, organic fertilizers, water nozzels, hoses, chicken wire, wire cutters, watering cans, bamboo stakes, 2x4's, antique patio chairs, patio tables, birdhouses, netting, 2x2's, tomatoe cages, potting soil, tarps, pond pumps, lanterns, candles, citronella oil, pails in all sizes, troughs, yardsticks, tape measures, nails & screws all sizes, hammers, copper sheeting, clay pots, glazed pots, pot trays, wheel barrows, and etc.
.
Buy quality for your LANDSCAPE LARDER. Cheap tools do a poor job and damage plants.
.
I don't get more done in my landscape because I'm a professional. I get more done because of my LANDSCAPE LARDER.
.
TIME IS PRECIOUS.
.
Use your LANDSCAPE LARDER to gain more.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Pics of artwork by Olaf Hajek.
.
OMG, think I would ever show a picture of my garage? Truly, my bad.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

GARDEN SHOPPING

Will stain lattice boxes, wall brackets, & white lantern green to match the rest of the wood in my garden. Chickenwire cloches will be painted Robin's egg blue to match other iron. Tiny blue/white pots, above, were only $1. Bought all they had, only 4.
Hope you already know about Marshall's & TJMaxx for your garden. Granite gravel, #89, along with other bulk materials is available from Stone Forest.

For plants, locally, try: Buck Jones, Land Arts, Wilkerson Mill, Piccadilly, Goodness Grows, Ashe-Simpson, Pikes, Hastings, Habersham Gardens, & the ubiquitous big boxes.

Good pots, don't buy any other kind, are a specialty at Four Seasons Pottery.

Garage sales & rescues are necessary to every good landscape. Scott Antique Market, 2nd weekend each month, helps you create magic in your garden.

Nursery, 4 pics above, I shot in England at an estate garden open to the public. A fantasy. Where we all want to shop for plants, service, accouterments. Instead, gardens come together via hunting & gathering. Much hunting & gathering.
.
It's odd, gardening is a multi-billion/yr industry yet so difficult to shop for.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara