Landscape Design: Focal Point, Axis

Moments after seeing a subsidiary focal point (previous post) I see this charming bronze hat, below. DRAMA !! She's a terrace level below & gazing along a rill at yet another terrace level. (Counting? Yes, 3 terraces.) Down the steps, below, finally I see her. (She's backed with creeping fig.)

When she opens her eyes

she sees this, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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The rill reminded me of Helen Dillon's garden in Ireland, before she paved the lawn of course. I mentioned this to the owner & yes she had been to Helen's garden.

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Instead of buying a 2nd home the owners of this garden bought the house next door, demolished it, and created their dream garden.

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Bravo!!!

Subsidary Focal Point

In most landscapes she, below, would be a focal point on axis with a main view. In this Italianate garden she's a subsidiary focal point. A surprise, lovingly tucked in.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Remember, the landscape design rule: 1 Focal Point/area.
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Pic taken in Athens, Ga this month in the same garden as previous post.

Doorway Repurposed

Charming courtyard, below, created when an addition was added to their home. An original doorway, top at left, no longer needed.

Repurposed as a staging area for annuals.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Alas, poppets, I was there the day the annuals were ripped out. With drought, heat & the gardener just returned from vacation it was still fabulous. What fun choosing new annuals, new colors-textures-heights.

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This was the 3rd repurposed doorway I've seen like this. Mrs. Whaley's garden in Charleston, SC. A private garden in Greensboro, NC. And now this Athens, GA garden.

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Did you notice the color themes?

* Black shutters, furniture, doormat, windowboxes, plinth

* Terra cotta pots

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Pics taken last week in the same garden as yesterdays post.

Protecting Lemons

In Italy, centuries ago, when a late freeze threatened the lemon crop,

smudge pots were lit.

saving the lemons.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken last week in Athens, GA, same garden as the previous post. The gardener purchased these smudge pots in Italy.

Art, Multiple Axis

From the lower garden, formerly a tennis court, I first saw this sculpture on a plinth, below. (Did you notice, below, the dry stack stone wall?) Up the stone steps, below, curiosity is satisfied.

Drawn to another garden room, below, I turn & see a better axis for the sculpture. (Did you notice the mature canopy/understory trees+sky view?)

Inside the new garden room, below, the axis keeps getting better.

Then I turn body, but not feet, to my left & see this, below,

and about fall over in delight/surprise. Vanishing Threshold.

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Inside the room, above, the first sculpture is on perfect axis with the door in the center of the wall.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics, from Athens, GA, taken last week. Same garden as previous post. Think this is easy? Good, poppets, do it in your garden too. Remember, this is a subdivision with homes encircling the garden. Always a tough constraint.

Magic at the Corner

Behind the hemlock, below, a street & stop sign. View from the bench, above, another street & another stop sign.
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Yes, the front corner of a corner lot. In an almost century old subdivision in Athens, GA.
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Conifer-hardwood-shrub obscure views in one direction yet provide backdrop for another view.
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Ah, poppets, the bench. Elegancies of a dark stain, an overdose of curves, all-year warmth of wood, perfection of scale & an invitation of repose.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken last week. Stay tuned for more of this fabulous garden.

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

Enfilade

More windows than shown, below, view the patio. From the windows, thru the patio, across the lawn, and into

the woods. A complete view, an enfilade.

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Imagine, sitting on your couch, enjoying views of the patio, lawn & woodland.

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Nice, indeed.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in Athens.

Mark Worthington, TV Decorator

"If you have 5 period styles in one room, you're going to have a problem." Mark Worthington says.
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One focal point per area in your landscape. "Colors should match exactly or they should provide enough contrast that the contrasts feels like a conscious decision." Mark Worthington says.
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Drifts of green foliage next to drifts of burgundy foliage next to drifts of variegated foliage & etc.
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"It was one little change, but all of a sudden the whole volume of the space was different." Mark Worthington says.
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When I painted the white trim, of my red brick home, a faded Monet green my house grew taller & sat further back from the street. White jumps forward, darker colors recede in the garden.
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"show the history of how you've developed the space, with individual pieces from different moments of your life." Mark Worthington says.
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Do not buy all your patio furniture & focal points & pots in one afternoon from 1 store.
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You don't want, "a train-wreck look." Mark Worthington says.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken at Atlanta Botanical Garden last week. I'm teaching a 4 week class there this month.
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Mark Worthington is a TV production designer. He was interviewed by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

Are You Attractive?

"Perhaps it was strange for a young boy to have as his best friend an aging spinster, but neither of us had an ordinary outlook or background, and so it was inevitable, in our separate loneliness, that we should come to share a friendship apart. Except for the hours I spent at school, the three of us, me and old Queenie, our feisty little rat terrier, and Miss Sook, as everyone called my friend, were almost always together. We hunted herbs in the woods, went fishing on remote creeks (with dried sugarcane stalks for fishing poles) and gathered curious ferns and greeneries that we transplanted and grew with trailing flourish in tin pails and chamber pots." Truman Capote Capote goes on to describe, "Miss Sook, sensitive as shy-lady fern..."
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Are you attractive to children?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Taa
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Gardening for children? Futile in my opinion. Garden, fully, for yourself & Be-Who-You-Are. Children know the great characters.
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Pic taken in Susanne Hudson's conservatory.
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Truman Capote quote taken from, The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, copyright 2004, Random House, http://www.atrandom.com/. Thought it would have Breakfast at Tiffany's but only had his short stories, "literary fiction".

Fabulous Green

Puppet Barbuda discovered Vertical Lawns, below, in Italy. Vertical Lawns are over 2,000 years old. Modern interpretation of Vertical Lawn, below.

DISGUSTING.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Top pic via La Dolfina.

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Puppet Barbuda is incredulous a wall of 'green': involving 18 wheeler trucks, greenhouses, soil with peat moss & etc, attractive to weeds, needs watering, will die if it becomes shaded, containers made from an oil base, labor/expense to attach containers to wall... is shown off as desirable.

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Who is Puppet Barbuda? Landscape Design critic of course. If movies, books, paintings, music, clothes, perfumes, video games, & etc, have loving critics, shouldn't landscape design?

Foyer Speak

Meeting a new client, for the first time, in their foyer is intense. My eyes are chewing up the scenery, wheels in the brain spinning.Personality in foyer decor is at the top of unspoken clues I have for Landscape Design.
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Style, color, completion, tired, alive, dead space, friendly, cold, careless, anal, lamps, lamp cords, sconces, lamp shades, hardware, flow, interesting, boring, layered, halltree, chest, desk, secretary, books, art, flooring, switch plates, builder's original lighting or new, dogs, cats, children, music, fragrance, & etc.
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Attention to detail in the foyer predicts attention to detail in the landscape.
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Landscape design must give hints of the foyer. Who you are begins at the curb.
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Layers of Vanishing Threshold.
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You got this layer covered?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Foyer, above, by interior designer Susan Burks. Designing her landscape was a joy, her interiors already welcoming me at the curb.