In Your Garden: Focal Point Ideas

 "Coleridge searched for a unified view of reality that was at once bodily and spiritual."  Sam Dresser.

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Go past the 'sign', below.  A story written, without words, in the siting of the benches.

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Too often, driving by, benches face traffic.  And, the bench is the sole focal point in the garden. 

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The ambit, below, is double direction.  A delight seeing outwardly facing benches, backing up to a beautiful mini-garden.  A rarity, especially in residential Garden Design.

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Copy.  Never concern yourself with copying good Garden Design.  It can never be unoriginal.  Never.  Each site unique.  Your iteration, is your own to bestow, brand new.

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'Inspiration, imagination and contemplation' are in your garden.  Unseen, yet surely manifest once you choose to partake.

  

Pic, above, here. 

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"It's only when we're self-consciously aware of ideas that we're fully awake."  Coleridge.

 

Pic, above, here.  

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The mundane, above, raised to art.  Plumbing pipes !  Form & Function.  

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"Culture, tradition & spiritual well being" is spoken in these gardens.  Seen, felt, copied, without a consideration for labels.  None needed, their use, seen, felt, lived.  How is it, we can each sit in this garden chair, above.  It is my belief we are hardwired for a garden.  No matter anyone's belief about gardens, we are each from a garden, with garden components, fungi, bacteria, etc.

 

Pic, above, here.

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Just-let-it-touch, above.  It's the rare focal point, not improved with foliage touching.  Seems she's also on a plinth, above.  Need a certain height?  Place your focal point on a plinth....  Keep this fact in your quiver when perusing for your Garden.

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If you only knew, your Garden speaks your life.

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In the macro, our gardens foreshadow our decline.  What we've gained in simplicity of care is a complexity of loss.  From the foresaking of transcendence, to global loss of habitat.

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Focal points are part of good Garden Design.  The Garden Design tradition planted in "the spiritual and  transcendent against those.....of the material and immanent only".

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In the garden, both are lit, body and spirit.  Whether you think so or not.  

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

The Zen of Choosing The Right Fence Color

 See the epiphany, about Christopher Spitzmiller's fence, below? 

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Seriously, I want you to verbalize, aloud, why his fence, below, is divine.  Not using 'divine' flippantly here.  It's in earnest. 

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Hint, Christopher didn't want you to see any epiphany about his fence.  None.  He almost had me too.  Realized hours later, BRAVO Christopher, you did the classic, the centuries old. 

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Why do we assign our Garden Design choices to 'Socially Acceptable' ?

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Majority of people are unhappy with their landscape.  Gardens are here for us, to enrich our soul.  And each other. 

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Popular Culture is enriched, filthy lucre, with you being unsatisfied with your landscape.  Money to be had in fertilizer/chemicals/mowing/pruning/conformity.     

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"Trace your unhappiness to the place that is causing it and ask, "where am I not myself, my whole self, and nothing but myself?"  Martha Beck.  Ask this same question about your own Garden Design.  What is your integrity toward your garden, Earth, yourself?

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Beck, adds a simple definition for integrity. 

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INTEGRITY = INTACT

  

Spitzmiller's fence, above, disappears, it recedes, as it should.  Placing focus to the garden's proper focal point: open meadow, and table.  Time passes, people arrive, a gathering of souls, in joy of companionship, breaking bread, the focal point changes again.  

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You, your life, your friends, your family, your pets, are the Focal Point of your garden.  From your home, looking out upon your table, low meadow, fence, the Focal Point changed again.  If you've gotten this far, you've created your own world.  The world enriching you, Earth, family, friends.  A world wrapped around you physically & mentally, a world you carry within you. 

 

"You may not believe the joy that comes from complete integrity is possible.  It is.  ....to conform, we often end up ignoring or overruling our genuine feelings ---even intense ones, like longing or anguish.  At that point we are divided against ourselves.  We aren't in integrity (one thing) but in duplicity (2 things).  Or we may try to fill many roles, living in multiplicity (many things).  We abandon our true nature & become pawns of our culture."  Martha Beck.

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If you've read this far, you have longings for your garden.  Honor them in integrity.

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And you thought it was a simple choice, "....what color should I paint my fence?".  Go big.  For your life in the Garden.  Your Garden.  Which is nothing less than your life on Earth.

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Pics, above, here, with more pics of Christopher's garden, and a well-written article.

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Martha Beck's quotes from article at Maria Shriver, here. 

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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When is a fence color, just a fence color?  Never, in my realm.

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Hope the Spitzmiller shoot was able to have a sit down lunch or dinner at this table after their work complete.  Would love to know the menu, and prayer said.

Getting To Tara Turf: Man #4

 "Dear Tara, This portion of Meadow Talk follows your writing of gardens as sacred and redemptive landscapes.  Joel Salatin is the editor of Stockman Grass Farmer and writes the column." LD

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Began a letter, above, mailed with a stamp, from a post office, last March.

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Knew Joel Salatin, and his PolyFaceFarms, not his column for Meadow Talk in the newsletteer for Stockman Grass Farmer. 

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Salatin included in his column, concerns of MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, professor, Otto Scharmer:

"...we're in a civilisational crisis involving three issues: economy, democracy, and education.  As a trend predictor, he finds universal agreement on three things:

1.  The old civilization is moving in the wrong direction and 2020 was when we hit the wall.

2.  I want to participate in a new story.

3.  I don't know how.

     He says the new economy starts with agriculture, including taking city people to the country in order to offer living ecosystems to connect with soil and farms.  He envisions future farms being a nexus of university, church and factory.  In other words, farms will be hubs of intellectual, social, spiritual, and physical development.  He sees that as the solution to the three areas of crisis: environment, economy, and spirit."

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Ca. 1987 I discovered Tara Turf, touring historic gardens across Europe.  No lawns there. 

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Tara Turf is local.  Providential to each locale.  Evolved with soil, trees, flora, watershed, fungi, bacteria, fauna.  Your serotonin & dopamine?  Your mental outlook?  Not in your DNA, in your microbiome, fed by soil microbes.  Formed across millions of years before humans.  

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Lawns were created post WWII, they had to sell their bomb making chemicals somewhere new.  Pouf, mothers with young children were their target, to keep their babies & children safe from 'bugs'.

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Tara Turf, below.  Nearer a house, mowed lower, yet keeping majority of its benefits to soil, watershed, flora, fauna, YOU. No need to travel to a regenerative farm to experience redemptive agriculture.  Site it, Providentially, around your home.

  

Tara Turf is your micro-realm of Earth ministry.  Given to you.  To be given by you, with the gift of discernment.

 

Tara Turf, for most, is something you will have-to-do.  Once you have Tara Turf it something that happens-to-you.  In goodness, love, Nature, health mental/physical, transcendence.

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Understanding backwards, Rainer Maria Rilke: "Living the questions embracing uncertainty allow for intuition."

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Hence, you've read this far, your intuition.  Tara Turf was pure intuition for decades.  LD, sending the real post office mail to me, above?  I designed Tara Turf into her acreage 8 years ago.  Two years into the process, we learned together, Tara Turf is maximum pollinator habitat.  Tara Turf, is life given from Providence.  

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If you dare go a step further, Tara Turf is your stewardship.

 

"In the course of creative endeavors, artists and scientists join fragments of knowledge into a new unity of understanding."  Vera John-Steiner, Psycholinguist.

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What is your narrative now, in your landscape?  Describe it to me.  The elevator narrative, floors 1-10.

 

"We are constantly being invited to be who we are."  Henry David Thoreau.

 

Adore her hose reel, above.  Easy watering.

 

"....only the ego can blind an artist to the recognition that all creative work begins with imitation before fermenting into originality under the dual forces of time and consecrating effort."  Maria Popova

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"There is no love without truth, there is no love without discipline, there is no love without responsibility both from the one loving and from the one being loved."  B. Mosquito.

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What I know about love, and my garden.  I love my garden, my Garden loves me.  Slow down.  Let that sink in.  You love your garden, your garden loves you.  

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"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely, in all your ways be mindful of Him; and he will make straight your paths."  Proverbs 3:5-6.  

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Yes you can create your garden, the one abiding in your soul.  Put words to it.  Plenty of word soup here, and you'll make it better than mine.  Why do you think I have to share?  I love it so dearly, and know you want it too.  

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My hunt has been, life Pastoral, its bucolic idealism and sentimentalism removed.  And what did I find, decades later?  Love.  

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Man #4, did not flinch.  Those 3 men fleeing my request for Tara Turf?  Tara Turf did not suit their economic foundation for nice trucks, trailers, mowers, weed-eaters, payroll, chemical & fertilizer applications, irrigation system.  AKA, industrialized landscaping.  Why tell you?  I'm an 'expert' and ran into this dystopian nightmare of industrialized landscaping.  It's not you, it's your wanting Nature in your garden. 

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Industrialized landscaping is monetized to take away everything we gain from our Garden: power, justice, wisdom, truth, grace, forgiveness, epiphanies, health, redemption, righteousness, discernment, stewardship, beauty, love. 

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Everything in my life, is in my Garden.

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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

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All pics, above, here. 

Man #4 said to me, "No client has ever told me they love their clover, much less want it tall."

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Tara Turf is a wall of division, or pure excited love, in my life, with others.  

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Question I asked in my Commonplace Book, maybe a year ago, "Why the agrarian garden?  It's God AMPLIFIED."  Below that, I wrote this prayer, Let me act toward impossibilities you see in me God, do not let fear win.

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More from the same page of my Commonplace Book:

Agrarian began with the Divine.

Agriculture began with the profane.

Never Be Stuck Starting Your Garden Design: Use This Design Trick

 Focal Points On Axis.  Directed, DIRECTLY at you.

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Where does your Garden Design begin?  Garden Design begins inside YOUR home.

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What?  

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Focal Point on Axis.  (Detailed further in my book, Beautiful By Design, and others.)

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No book bought no worries, it's simple.    

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Inside your home, looking out windows, especially windows you use predominantly, site a focal point on axis.

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What focal point?  Doesn't matter.  Can be a plant, can be an object.  If it's an object, you must remember another simple Garden Design Rule.  Ask yourself about any object you site in your garden, "Is this piece so wonderful it will be fought over at my estate sale?"

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Words, above, gardened, below.

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You're looking at Focal Point On Axis, below.

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Perhaps this room, below, with friends or family, has more than once, helped, "mellow the rawness of ...personal opinions."  A.E.Houseman.

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Don't you know?  This is what gardens are for.

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Everything in my life is in my garden.  Hope you've done this too.  If not, begin.  Designing your garden of the ages, for your ages, puts in 'textural & granular' enriching metaphors, to be savored across your decades, awaiting their turn as reminders of every life's, demons & angels.  

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"If I got rid of my demons, I'd lose my angels."  Tennessee Williams.

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It is the garden where I take it to the mattresses.  Born this way. 

  

Test passed, above.  When you've begun designing your garden, Focal Point On Axis, voila, it enriches more than whence you began.

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Garden Design, this method, my method of choice, creates, Life Pastoral.  

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"Science must not impose any philosophy, anymore than the telephone must ell us what to say."  G.K.Chesterton

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"The human mind cannot create truth, it can only observe it." Anon.

  

Outside,  above, wrought from solid  Garden Design: Focal Point on Axis, from inside the house.

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Get it?  Good, zero reason to ever be 'stuck' starting your own Garden Design.

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Designing your garden for a Life Pastoral brings like minded people into your orbit.  In every richness money cannot buy.

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Poets Wallace Stevens & Robert Frost were friends.  "On a train trip, Stevens turned to Frost and said, "The trouble with your poetry Frost, is that it has subjects.", to which Frost retorted, "you write about bric-a-brac."  We all need such friends.

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Choosing plants for your Garden Design Focal Points on Axis, From Inside Your Home, CHOOSE plants pollinator friendly to your zone/area.  

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You cannot have too many Hosanna's to Pollinators.  

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Hosanna = Save Us.

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How the light comes inside your home, above, textured granularly, through your garden.  Who wants less? 

 

Seek, Life Pastoral, each of us, made for Life Pastoral.  Literally.

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Choosing your Garden is choosing Life.  Yours.

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Of course I've had the wilderness experience, living in depths of unwisdom.

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Why are most gardens forgettable?  There is no art in them, their essence has no scent, no texture, nothing worth memory's skill.  If you've read this far, this is not you.

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I leave the world, walking into my garden, and it's my world the garden helps me understand.  How is it, I cannot see the alertness of my garden, yet feel its waves thru my body?

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Because it was Palm Sunday, yesterday....will go a bit deeper, in thanks to Life Pastoral.  The life I sought, unaware.

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Into my Commonplace book, 12-14-19, I wrote, below, mere-days-ahead-of-great-personal-troubles:

Outside my garden there is strength to keep at bay hard facts & hard truths & hard wisdoms not yet accepted.  Inside my garden there's a private line of communication, dribbling bits of those hard truths, in so much love, there is no hesitation, none, no anguish, in taking the message, leaving behind, as air, the old ways of thinking.  Redemption can be that fast.  And, easy.  Outside my garden those redemptions have little chance of being seen, or heard, much less, taken.

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All pics, above, here.  Lovely article, well written.  

Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Accepting new clients.  Hope you're wanting your, Life Pastoral.  It's more than a garden.  TaraDillard@AGardenView.biz .

What Will It Take? Where Do You Start? Moving Into Your Beliefs

What are your beliefs?  When did you get them?  Are your beliefs intuitive, foundational, since childhood, newly acquired, epiphanies, at a funeral, mentored by another person or in Nature, discovered reading, realized watching an art film, driving when alone, listening to music, when your life fell apart, eating a slow good meal with kindred spirits, self evident, being with your pets, sitting in a Church pew, etc... ?

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Can you write your beliefs down?  Not for public consumption; to define them, to yourself.  Zero thoughts of a diary or journal in this, none.  Better, your own Common Place Book, 'used since antiquity', they're for quotes, themes, processes, God, Nature, "A commonplace book is a system for writing down and sorting all manner of tidbits: quotes, anecdotes, observations, and information gleaned from books, conversations, movies, song lyrics, social posts, podcasts, life experiences, or anything else that you might want to return to later."   ..

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In my 20's, studying historic gardens in Europe, Tara Turf, was OBVIOUS.  To me.  Now 60, tooting Tara Turf for decades, it's more obvious.  Yet, only, to me.  

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But first, what is Tara Turf?

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Tara Turf, below, in my garden.

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Oddly, Tara Turf, even my own, brought out anger and resentment in someone close.  Before reaching the mowing-paths stage.

Tara Turf, is local, and native, across the globe in myriad variations.  Tara Turf is the mix of flora/fauna evolved before the dinosaurs.  Jesus walked on Tara Turf.  Tara Turf evolved with its unique soil permutations.  

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The same soil, where each of us receives our serotonin and dopamine, via our gut microbiome, filtering itself using a direct path to our brain, giving us our moods, outlook, personality, health. 

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We are made of stardust, and Tara Turf.

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Virgin Tara Turf, above.  Ready for push mower !  In my garden.

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Freshly mown Tara Turf, above.  

Last week, I bought a push mower (Troy Built - Honda engine), hired a man to mow swaths with his big mower, for my own TARA TURF.  Paths lead from house to shed, house to car, house to garden rooms, house to chicken coop, house to pond.....

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Why did my own Tara Turf take so long?  

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Beloved said he would mow my garden down, if I did it.  He did.  He wanted fescue.

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 Tara Turf was bathed in round-up ahead of his fescue.   

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One morning, Tara Turf Beliefs, vindicated.  Digging armadillos, drinking shots & beer all nite, created a muck paradise feral hogs could only dream of producing, of his fescue.

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Almost 2 years later, TARA TURF is repairing the damage.  A few small patches bare Earth, should be Tara Turf by the end of summer !

Tara Turf from my car to house, above.  

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Almost 6 years in our ca. 1900 home, finally having Tara Turf, thrilling is understatement.  Came home late sunset last Saturday, a friend's precious daughter turned 14, a great evening.  With age, knowing such evenings are huge, sharing in friends joy & love.  AND, first time ever, walking across the garden, almost dark, on a foot path, to go inside.  

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Oddly, walking the TARA TURF path, thinking, "Finally, CIVILIZED."   Interesting what the muse speaks.  Didn't expect that.

Pic, above, here. 

Discovered TARA TURF while studying historic gardens across Europe for 2+ decades, beginning in my 20's, above/below.

Pic, above, here. 

TARA TURF, below, hid a TARA TURF secret, in plain site, many years.

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In the orchard, below, at Sissinghurst, TARA TURF, used in this way, more accurately named, Guilds.

Guilds are tallish grasses/flowers blooming at the same time as your Orchard Trees.  Why does it matter?  Guilds, TARA TURF, increase crop yields by 80%.

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It's all about pollinators.

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Your health needs are not separate from these facts.  

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SOIL, TARA TURF, POLLINATORS

Pic, above, here. 

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TARA TURF, below, has a different mission statement from the Orchard Guilds, above.

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Yes, this TARA TURF, still increasing crop yields up to 80% for grazing livestock, nearby crops.

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Noticing how much mowing is reduced, below, and, above?

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Pic, above, here. 

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Did the stones, above, make you smile?  Me too.  Hope they're keeping trucks from making muck of the TARA TURF.  Looks like success.

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Moving into my TARA TURF beliefs has changed my life.  Layers large, small, unexpected.  

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Getting into bed, last Friday, first day of my life, encircled by mown 

TARA TURF, it happened again.

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MUSE spoke, "Good girl, you've got a civilized garden surrounding you, as you sleep."  Better, I could feel my GARDEN of TARA TURF around me.

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What are your BELIEFS?

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Seriously.  

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How are they received?

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Would anyone be interested in a Commonplace Book Course Online?

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What I know for sure, YOUR Commonplace Book will change your life.

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You will be MORE you.

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I used to think this is why you are here.

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Now.

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I KNOW this is why you are here.

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Garden & Be Well,    Tara

Five years ago, I received a note, below.  Personal.  Met this woman online.  Stunned she could see so clearly, from a blog post, into human relations.  

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Knowing her a couple of years, I browsed one of my older Commonplace Books.  Thoughts, ideas, quotes, Biblical passages, cocktail recipes, music lyrics, magazine art, my own collage art, art reviews from NYTimes....I discovered 2 pages in that Commonplace Book were filled with HER garden, from almost a decade earlier.  Before Social Media.

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Story, above, is YOUR story.  Trust your Commonplace Book, trust yourself.  For centuries, people have kept Commonplace Books.  

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Her advice spot on.  She saw.  And was right, in reaching out to me.  

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Her note, below.

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"Such an obvious aesthetic thing........and so insulting when not respected!  Yikes!  Does "beloved" trust you enough yet?  Does he respect your taste and talent enough?  I am just wondering! It is so important!!! 

Have you established your credibility.??  You certainly have with your followers on your blog and your people who pay for your speaking engagements.......and take notes.....and follow your instructions on how to create lovely and productive landscapes!  Does he "get it"?  Your understanding of European classic landscapes.......the whole understanding of the landscapes that encourage bees, butterflies......and wildlife?  (You even explained to me how I did that without even knowing!)  now I have beehives!! And have learned what to plant under my fruit trees!  A whole world has opened!!!

 My husband was befuddled by the "messiness" of our planting.....and I took him through the nature preserve next to us....a haven for birds, butterflies, bees......and wild animals.....and I explained.....this is my goal!  A pond......to attract ducks and waterbirds whose habitat has been almost eliminated here.....native plants where birds can nest......NO LAWN  (18 years ago!)  and permeable paths and terraces.....gravel.......no hardscape....we had chickens in Pasadena (the only ones....honestly!!)  and a place for them too!

Does “beloved”  want to understand these things?  Or does he just want to drive his tractor over everything!  (just asking??!!)

 I don't mean to be sticking my nose into things.....I just had a very unhappy marriage with someone who had no respect for my taste or talents......and did not have a tractor...but if he had had one.....would have mowed down everything that I created that mattered to me.....because he liked it "tidy”!  

 Saw a perhaps red flag there…..and I am not trying to make trouble…..I want nothing but happiness for you…..I know how long you were in the pit of “unhappiness”!

 I am just disturbed by the mowing of your meadow……and what feels like disrespect of your brilliant ideas! Sorry to be a buttinsky!  And I sent this privately….I just adore you and all your beautiful ideas and your descriptions of how you learned…..I just see some danger signs……I was married twice before I found my mate for life!

 First marriage at 18 (my Daddie died when I was 4);  I was in college at USC in Los Angeles…..a freshman…….divorced seven months later….(I did make him change his last name……kinda funny);  then married the second time at 21!  after graduation!   We had a child…..My daughter Ella…..now 47!

 Never studied decorating….English major….started decorating in 1970!  (scary long time ago……still love every second!!)

 (If he didn't learn from your "staging" of his "vacation house”;  which sold right away!!!!) and your vision for your lovely farm (mowing down your loved meadow because he likes "mowing"; ) are you sure?  

 I do not mean to sow doubt......I mean to let you know that it is lovely when your man trusts you and lets you do things aesthetically.....in a house and in the gardens (in my case…both house and garden……wildness in the garden!!!)  when he knows and admits you know more than he!  Frankly, you know more than anyone I have ever met!!!

 Just a slight nudge in your ear!  Please forgive my buttinski!!  I don’t mean to!  I just love you and all of your ideas……your explanations…..your knowledge….deep and thorough…..and wish for your happiness in your next relationship.  There are some men who simply do not respect and will not acknowledge talent and creativity  in others…especially women........(they know it ALL)!

 I am hoping that is not the situation…..there are just sounding alarm bells in my head…….I was there……twice.

 

I have been married for forty years……almost…..and I still have to yell every now and then!  “NO!!!  Do not cut those olive branches!!!”  “No!  That is not a hedge”!!!  He tells the gardner to stop.  Same problem!  Gardner wants to trim trim trim…..and I want him to stop stop stop!!)

 Fortunately….even though my husband……and my beloved…….(total);    doesn’t understand…..he pretends to understand…and the branches do not get cut.  That is the secret.  He respects my taste here…..and , most importantly, he knows I know more than he does about the aesthetic part..  We have been published in lots of magazines….(I don’t think that is the reason……he also listens to what people say).  Visitors…..sigh….and they “get it”  Key.  Isn’t it?  Have people who "get it” visit often!  

 But there are lots of men who don’t get that some people “get it” and some don’t!  Who knows????

 I send this with love…..I just hope you are not springing against a brick wall……I know what that feels like.  I did it .  It doesn’t work. Ever.

 I admire you so much!  And my goal is a speaking engagement here this year!  YAY!!! "

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Receiving her note, above, I did know.  Thought I could hold it together.  Yet every layer of my life, screamed TARA TURF.   

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Janis Joplin, sang, "Freedom's just another word when you've got nothing left to lose.".  Bobby McGee is gone.  What have I learned?  I have everything to gain.  

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Sent a note, to my friend, above, after he left, told her what happened.  And, asked her, How did you know?  She didn't pause a second, "He didn't respect your work."

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Which part of spraying TARA TURF with round-up was I trying to hold together?

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Now you know why I've been gone.  I'M BACK.  God is good.  

QUICK Free Garden Design Class: Putting Together Patio Table & Chairs For Lunch

 At first glance, below, knew something 'off' about the dining spot.

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Beautiful, yet its layers are a mere simulacrum of beauty, below.

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Did you notice quickly too?

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The garden takes your heart and mind.  You go into it thinking, your body doing.  The garden is not telling you what to think but letting you think.  Thoughts being worked on by living organically, from before the dawn of time.  A wisdom, coming at your thinking, in partnership with your garden.

 

  

Pic, above, here. 

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Joy to have the millstone, base, chairs, urn, above.  Yet, you don't want to put them together like this for a lunch, or dinner.

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Looking closer, do you see why?

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Gorgeous urn, above, at center of table, is too large for everyone to see each other.  Conversations affected. 

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Fabulous chairs, above, are improperly scaled to the table, chair seats too low.  Chair backs are too low, and chairs have no arms.  Comfort for all your family & friends adds to lingering conversations.  Their depth, their connection, their life.  Your life.

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Garden chairs, especially at your Garden Table must have arms for comfort.  And, the backs of your chairs should be tall enough to lean your head back, onto the chair, and fall asleep, if desired.

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Your chairs could be field gathered, aka don't match each other.  They'll blend beautifully if you paint them all the same color.

In defense of the photo, above, it looks like a quickly conceived shot for the photo spread it was a part of.  Perhaps the photographer's assistant was asked to put it together with what was on hand.  No issue with that.  Excepting, if you're new to Garden Design, you're not looking at Garden Design, yet think you are.

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Hope you liked your Quick Free Garden Design Class.  See it Do it ! 

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Yes, it's a big deal, your table in the garden.  Your table to eat a quick bite alone, take a phone call, have family, friends gathered round.  Life happens, your life, better.   

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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

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"Teaching is a sacred profession.  Art is a form of teaching."  Merely creating your best table & chairs in your garden,  inviting friends for a meal, teaches your art to others.  It's how I learned, not in a classroom.  Women who cared enough to mentor me, you are receiving my favorite women, lunches & dinners, and conversation......

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 Best in 2021.  Good health, good thoughts, good actions.   

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"Bad Times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good, we are the times: such as we are, such are the times."  St. Augustine ca. AD 354-430, Sermons to the people, 80:8.

2 Surprising Christmas Decorations

Pop from the inbox a few days ago, below.  Brilliant.     

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More than style, are the Christmas colors.  Along with the Constance Spry silhouette, & choice of vase. 

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Jenny, my mother-in-law has been gone for 25 years, age 57, breast cancer.  This Christmas arrangement spoke.  First time, in a quarter century, I wanted to text Jenny a pic, and say, 'I'll do 2 of these for the Christmas table.'  Holidays were always at her home.  Her beautiful dining room filled with her children, their spouses, grandchildren, maybe an elderly aunt or grandmother.  The full monty of a true Southern matriarch.  

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I couldn't text Jenny, so it's for you.  Hope you put this in your visual file for a Christmas or Winter meal with friends, family.  If you truly love it, list, below, of ingredients and their designer. 

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"Poinsettia, paperwhites, and amaryllis bring Christmas cheer to a lovely crowd of blooms and greenery in a masterful mix by Kiana Underwood of Tulipina."

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Pic, above, Flower Magazine.

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These flowers, above, are Chekov, The Cherry Orchard, in far too many ways.  Hint of heartbreak, sinking into the poetry of their beauty.  Sifting both, into, now.  Trusting the beauty.  "Stories are carried in the body.", thankful of living this story.  The honesty of beauty, its victory.

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Pic, above, here .

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Of course, so simple, above.  First thought, "All those Christmas trees seen at thrift stores for nothing.", passing them by for years.  'Hubris of ignorance.', much?

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Our ca. 1900 home has a front porch and back deck needing a bit of lit forestry.  Plenty of time to hunt/gather trees, next year, and figure out how to weight the trees on the back deck from often brutal winds.  

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Ah, next year.  "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the nose." Mike Tyson.  Epitaph, 2020.

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"How we see a tree is how we see the world, and in the act of seeing we reveal what we are: "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way."  Maria Popova.

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Two gifts, above, surprising Christmas decorations. 

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

How To Think Like A Farmer

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." Ralph Waldo Emerson..

After an appointment late this summer, gardeners are essential workers in Georgia, so far, during the pandemic, I stopped by a friend's home.  We had lunch on the veranda before walking the garden.  Fruit trees to site, and a decision about a pair of dying maples to be made.  

  

Pic, above, here.

As lunch was ending, she began a sentence, stopped, and said, "I must remember to think like a farmer."

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A thought giving statement.  No time to take it further, we had the garden to walk-talk-choices, then schedules separating us.

 

Pic, above, here.  Thrift stores have glass containers, above, and roadsides have plenty of stems.  For your new year or to close out this year, give yourself this bit of happiness, glass pot/stems.  Brought inside, you'll know why.  Trust me.  You'll know.

I don't agree with Emerson's quote, at top.  Nature's secret is deeper/wider than patience.  Nature is a constellation of acts, with myriad more parts, each pivotal, changing by the minute.  Parts needing attention, on Nature's timeline, not ours.  This-Is-How-It's-Done, teaches Nature.  Not an aspect of this, separate from Love.

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As a tree is fully known, across centuries, it is thought sentient by some.  Certainly, wiser, kinder and more productive than people you have known.   With a few instances you'll admit to being in their category too, I do.  No worries, gardens seek, and receive forgiveness.  

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Pic, above, here.   Don't have the vista, above?  Easy, site a hedge behind the bench.  The road, your neighbor's fence, whatever, poof pouf, gone.

Nature goes about her business.  You can partake, on her timeline, but not control.  More, another layer of Nature may take out your every effort, though you've thought-like-a-farmer.

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Siting, How to Think like A Farmer to your career/retirement/parenting/grieving/friendships/etc, "1. Prepare the soil.  2. Intentionally plant seeds.  3. Once you've planted the seeds, let them grow.  4. Remove any weeds.  5. Learn from previous harvests."  Full article in Forbes, by Amy Blaschka, here.

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Pic, above, here.  Showed this pot table, last year this time.  Have you brought any plants inside for winter?  Choose a table to 'ruin'.  No guilt.  Thrift stores have plenty.  For centuries pots brought inside to overwinter, for their useful flowers/foliage/cooking/medicinal, too tender to over winter. 

Nature gives you her pace, if you accept.  Nature's pace gives your thoughts space to percolate, or answers.  Nature's pace will zing you plenty of epiphanies.  Nature's pace will change you more than you change your garden.  Nature's pace is sacred.  Your garden, Nature, gives you all of this in joy, and earnestness of life.

  

Pic, above, here. Garden beyond the windows/doors, above, makes the room.  Makes a life.  A friend's home always has a good balance of live and fake plants/stems inside.  This could be one of her rooms, above.  Can't wait to show her. (GOOD fakes.)

Who's really thinking like a farmer?  After decades gardening, you will realize, if you're fortunate, it is your garden that has been farming you.  Your garden thinking about you.  When you have years of Gardening, your conclusion will be the same.

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Pic, above, here.  Garden, above, is a modern Garden Design course.  Better, this garden is maximum pollinator habitat.  Trees + Shrubs + Meadow = Beautiful Garden

No, I don't just think all this stuff up.  The garden does.  For me.  For you.

A favorite epiphany from across all the decades in my garden, You choose the plants to put in your garden, choose the people to put in your life.

Templates in gardens, abound across centuries, cultures.        

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Thinking like a farmer, carts with it, modesty.  Layers unseen in Nature, layers unseen you've been in your garden.  

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Pic, above, here.  Tasha Tudor, perhaps the best combination of modesty and gardening.  You do want her book, Tasha Tudor's Garden, here.

"For my part, I don't think that modesty has much to do with what you do or don't know......Instead, modesty is about what you care about, and how that changes your experience of the world......Modesty is more like a way of breaking out of the blinders that experiencing life in a self-regarding way can impose." Nicholas Bommarito.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Simple Gardens: Love, Relationship, Poyeema

 Garden Design was settled in method centuries before Christ's birth.

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Whether we think so, or not.

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'There are places we can walk the road to ourselves, Nature is one of those roads, rare, meant for all.'

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God first created a garden.  His poyeema.  Sustenance, beauty, teacher, partner to our body microbiomes.  Gardens so love us, we're given the same poyeema to partake, or not.

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Garden Design, below, using Nature's residential Garden Design.  Stay with this.  It is for you, even if your home is atop a high-rise in NYC or you've just downsized to an apartment.  Gardens are a belief system.  A manner of living.  No matter the era or where you live.

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Decades of studying historic gardens across Europe, a pattern emerged early.  Trees, meadow, hedges.  Trinity of abundance.  

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 Trees, meadow, hedges, below.

  

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Our era, we go for flowers, I did, ca. early 80's.  Showy flowers.  Never considering whether native, invasive, or food for wildlife & soil.  That was me.  You'll never get judgment here, how could I?

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"With unexpected turns and a wicked humor, a meandering narrative that nevertheless knows where it's headed......The practicalities mere scaffolding for the good stuff." Aysegul Savas.  Hope you're already  smiling at this.  Putting together your first garden design is a gift of Providence.  Smiling Providence.

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Take the poyeema for your own to wield, see what you get, and what it does.  That's why you're here.  Trying to get there, or you're there, and enjoy the companionship.

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Know what's in the Garden Design, above?  Tree allee, low meadow, tall meadow, house on axis as focal point from gravel drive directly to front door, color trinity green-brown-white.  If oak trees, above, they're a top pollinator habitat, food for other animals, home to beneficial wildlife/fungi.  

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Two layered meadow, above, is another maximum pollinator habitat for wildlife.  A playground for your, viewshed too.  Welcome, is inherent.  No pokey, 'Welcome' sign needed.  Welcome is spoken in the Garden Design.  God's language.    

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"...only the ego can blind an artist to the recognition that all creative work begins with imitation before fermenting into originality under the dual forces of time and consecrating effort." Maria Popova.

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'Surprise', is your tool.  A layer of good Garden Design.  Below, a detailed garden room appears, passing from the tree allee.

 

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Surprise, works at all price points AND size properties.  Share-croppers cottage, mid-century modern, or, above.  Notice the pair of evergreen rounded shrub balls, above, at the entry to the right?  You want that shot too?

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Selfishly, I want this garden, above, shot again in a decade.  Instead, it's in my head, 10 years ahead.  In my head, quite a few plants have been removed.  What remains, maturing beautifully, beyond anticipation.

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"In the course of creative endeavors, artists & scientists join fragments of knowledge into a new unity of understanding."  Vera John-Steiner, Psycholinguist.

 

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Cone shaped conifer, above, if grown into a solid hedge, will create Surprise, and a pair of garden rooms, instead of a single garden room without surprise.

  

Same conifers, above.  Excellent shot, explaining why low hedges enclose precious plantings.  For centuries low hedges have kept chickens and turkeys from eating the family vegetables, herbs, pollinating flowers.

This garden needs no npk fertilizers, chemicals, or irrigation once established.  Less mowing than traditional lawns.

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Trees + Hedges + Meadows + flowers/herbs = Good Garden Design across thousands of years.

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Site layers of the equation on axis from views inside your home.  Place drives & paths on axis from doors, entries from property line, and meeting each other as needed.

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Why does it matter?  We're running out of bees.  There are few bugs of any type killed on our windshields.  Fertilizers are sterilizing soil and toxic to groundwater.  We don't need chemicals in our gardens, we need Natives and near natives  You can bring back what we've killed.

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"Peterson - as did Jung & Hillman - warns that failing to dialogue with Time leads to a forgetting of adaptive modes of human living & thriving: a loss of values or what keepers of indigenous shamanistic traditions call a "Loss of Soul".  

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You've come looking for your Garden.  Instead you've found more.  Congratulations !  It's the result of Nature giving you a personal poyeema.

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' Logoi  =  Codes of an Age '

 

Later in the season, above, the tall meadow has grown.  Not the decade shoot I want to see, but better already in a few weeks.  Imagine a decade.

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These gardens, above, are not about ego.  This garden is about Love, Relationship, Poyeema.  Trinity given to each, from Providence.   Will you trust, and take?

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How does it relate to living in an apartment?  Love, Relationship, Poyeema follow you all the days of your life.  Whether you partake, or not.

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Garden Design is this simple.  Always has been.

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Using Natives...................Trees + Hedges + Meadows + Flowers/Herbs  = Good Garden Design 

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T 

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More, about poyeema.

 

All pics, above, here.