Peony Mrs. Roosevelt

Few peonies do well in the South.  Martha Tate's, Mrs. Roosevelt, below.

Martha Tate has, Garden Photo Of The Day.  It's new & fabulous.
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Martha is a real gardener.  I trust her instincts.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Martha & I have the good fortune to share a friendship with an E.M. Forster type character, Mrs. Moore, from Passage To India fame.  In her 90's Margaret Moseley mentors us both.
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Pic by Martha Tate.

Boxes Of Flowers

 One duty, during my nursery career, was ordering gloxinia, cineraria, freesia, Christmas cactus & etc. throughout the year.

 Cases of each, arriving on 18-wheeler trucks.

Dozens of cardboard boxes holding 6-8 potted plants, in full perfection of bloom.
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It was my good fortune to strip the tape off all the boxes & be the 1st to look inside.  Of course it was my job to get them off the 18-wheeler truck, by myself, and into the shop too.
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Cellophane sleeves were removed & I set the plants on various display shelves according to the lite they needed.  As the week passed I removed spent blossoms, watered and pulled off yellowing leaves.  And poof, all the plants were sold.
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This wasn't a sissy job, I also handled trees, shrubs, groundcovers, annuals, perennials, statuary, potting up 3 gallon roses, hand-watering, sales, accounts payable/receivable, deposits, & etc.  
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I wish you could experience those boxes of gloxinia, cineraria, freesia, & etc.  Pure abundance of beauty.
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This story is over 25 years old, and I've never seen such decadence in abundance of those flowers again.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics via It's About Time.  

Regretting The Organ Pipe

Grandma donated a new pipe organ to her church.

 From the old organ she saved 2 of the largest pipes.  For me & my sister.

 A freshman in college, I skipped my senior year of high school, I asked Grandma why she saved the pipes.

She said, "For your garden."
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Ha, smart enough to get into college early I saw zero use for an old organ pipe in any garden of mine.
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Regret is carried in the form of fantasizing where I would put an organ pipe focal point in my garden.  Better, having conversations with Grandma about where to 'site' the organ pipe.  Of course it's very Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses, Grandma's  been dead almost 3 decades.
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The Wall Street Journal had an article recently about old pipe organs being discarded.  No good, I want the EXACT pipe Grandma saved for me
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We all get back to our own Rosebud.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics from Wall Street Journal

Garden & Gun: Eudora Welty

Garden & Gun magazine

 has an article about the garden

 of Eudora Welty.

 A friend sent the link this morning.

Already ordered and I'm laying on the daybed in my Conservatory reading it.  In my imagination !
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Garden & Be Well,              XO Tara
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pics from Eudora Welty LLC. 

P. Allen Smith & Helen Yoest

Have you discovered P. Allen Smith?  Gardener, decorator, author, cook, tv personality.

 Have seen several of his books at client's homes.  Great pics & ideas.

 Helen Yoest, garden designer, was in Smith's garden recently.  And had an epiphany, here.

Helen writes about gardening,  Gardening With Confidence.
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Enjoy.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics by Helen Yoest

Copy Precedent

Researching a sleeping porch I went straight to, An Affair With A House, by Bunny Williams.

 Simplicity, roof line, methods, lattice, doors, heights, colors, interior, exterior & etc.

Initial thoughts were Chinoiserie lattice.  Studying Bunny's book, and others, chose rectangular lattice.

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'Our' porch won't have solid panels at the bottom of the walls, they will be rectangular lattice.

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COPY, it's the most important rule of Landscape Design.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Both pics from An Affair With A House, by Bunny Williams.  REPETITION, close-close-close to being the most important rule of Landscape Design.

The National Heirloom Exposition

The Heirloom Expo, Sept. 13-15, 2011, Santa Rosa, CA.

"...Dr. Shiva founded the Navdanya, a movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seeds.  Dr. Shiva's attention is now focused on preventing imperialism over life itself.  "I don't want to live in a world where five giant companies control our food and our health"
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From the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center comes 'regenerative' a new & better choice than 'sustainable'.
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Interesting.  The winds are changing.  Refining.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic taken last week, future site of Ancient Orchard.  Alice Waters is at the Expo & many others.

Designing For Magic

Russell Page, "You design a garden within all the limitations of a site, of a client's requirement, the climate and the nature of the soil, of the local culture and of your own capacities as artist and technician.  All of this is, with practice, relatively straightforward, but if your garden is to have 'magic' you have to take your work further and give it an extra dimension." from The Education of a Gardener.

Beyond this lawn, above, I was asked to put in an ancient orchard.
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Getting it right didn't mean making my client happy, getting the new 'ancient orchard' in a magazine or book, or on TV.
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Getting it right, for me, meant creating MAGIC.
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"....but if your garden is to have 'magic' you have to take your work further and give it an extra dimension.  I think that awareness of the interplay between objects, whether organic or inorganic is of major importance if your garden is to be also a work of art."  Russell Page.
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Garden & Be Well,               XO Tara
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Pic taken last week.  Hope, fervently, more than a few of you know what it is to create magic.  Have never done coke, lsd, heroine blah-blah.  How they must pale compared to the muse dropping you a bit of magic.

Are You A Confident Stylist/Decorator?

The meadow growing in the cracks of my stone terrace fills my soul with JOY.

A dear friend, last week, said my meadow needed pruning, "There isn't even a path."
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Path?
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I'm taking the JOY.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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I travel farthest in my garden.  Pic of my mudroom which could use much help.  With me the garden comes first!!!

Penelope Bianchi: Favorite Things

Wish I hadn't seen this chicken coop, below.  Was already planning a spot for 4 heirloom chickens this fall.  

 How did I miss this garden?  Honoring animals, below, in stone.

 The floating duck house, below.  Keeps babies safer from shoreline predators.

 The best relationship in my life was with my Grandma.  BEST.

A lucky little girl, loving her Grandma.  Penelope's granddaughter, above.    
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Penelope Bianchi, known for interior design, is the full package.  She designs gardens too.  Magic is in the loving life she creates for all entering.
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This is what I adore about a gardening lifestyle.  It meanders thru the layers of life.  Nature, travel, loved ones, antiques, pets, a new project, being with old friends, meeting new friends, cooking, solitude, & etc.
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I adore the sublime inspiration from Penelope's blog.  She reminds me of E.M.Forster when he writes of 'resources'.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Pics from Penelope's blog.  I'm dangerous now, have a picture of an idea for the chicken coop.  Of course the bid will come back, budget will say 'no', then I'll connive something fabulous & affordable.  

The Garden Cat

Laura, below, was born in my garden this spring.

 Her mother, below, is feral.  A tortoise shell I call Torte De Shelle

 Torte De Shelle's lover, Gray Cat, feral too, has a big head, big balls, a lot of John Wayne mixed with Robert Mitchum sprinkled generously with James Dean.

Today, Torte De Shelle is at Life Line Animal Project, AtlantaPets.  It's not a spa treatment.
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Spay, rabies, worming, ear mites & etc.......
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Wish me luck with lover boy.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic of Laura taken this month.  No worries about her, she's mine & HOME.  Found homes for all of her litter.
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THANK YOU, Life Line Animal Project for the services you provide.  You are saving lives with your low cost spay/neuter.
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If you've read this far, I know you are a pet person.  You can't imagine how crowded the lobby was with people bringing in animals this morning.  Extremely emotional in every good detail.

Abolish Your Foundation Plantings

What to do when your foundation has plastic coverings at the windows to your basement?  

 With this eyesore, abolish your foundation plantings.  1st, maximize the plastic coverings in function/aesthetics, 2nd, can they be glass?  If they can be glass, determine to find the glass for free.

When I received the question, yesterday morning, I immediately thought of this garden, above.  No foundation plantings but lots of  LUSH.
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And this garden has the charming table/chairs.
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Proof of the landscape design rule: place a focal point near an eyesore to draw the eye away.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
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Took the pics in England, admired it's beauty & economy of maintenance needed AND usage.  Not a garden only to be pretty, a garden to be enjoyed.