Air Conditioners: Before & After

If you have an eyesore put a focal point nearby.  

2 weeks ago Susanne Hudson & I created a garden/porch for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.

Our garden beliefs: simple, historic, focal points, axis, comfort, beauty & simplest.

 We pride ourselves on how little we can put in a garden.

We bought very little for our display garden.  Breezing thru with what we already own.  Proving our beliefs in what we created.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this month.  Hydrangea 'Blushing Bride' in the galvanized tubs.
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Nurseries don't like Susanne or me.  They want to sell you annuals & perennials, mostly.  Many independent garden centers have been slammed in this economy and are gone.   I know why.  They forgot gardens are what people want intuitively, from their soul.  Without knowing it, most people are intuitive gardeners/designers.  What they don't trust, within themselves, is the counterintuitive skillset garden design demands. 

In the Background

The armillary sundial is potent with its curves.  Have used it in many gardens thru the years.

This rarely happens, above.  The backdrop is gorgeous.  And not a bit of it is theirs.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic same garden as yesterday's post.  Backdrop?  Mostly it's neighbor's driveways, air-conditioners......

Child's Play

Children- need- a- lawn is default thinking.  Ask any realtor.

Children need magical play too.

Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken in the same garden as previous post.

Kitchen with Porch

In the kitchen.

Simple, pretty, functional, evocative.  And, my favorite, not styled for a photo.  You're seeing 'everyday'.
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You can see the porch in yesterday's post.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic taken last weekend, same home as previous post.

Covered Screened Porch

Garden view, daybed, lamps, table w/chairs, blue/white, cozy, stuffed with amenities.  Staycation is too small of an idea for this room.

Flowing from garden to kitchen with doors, & views from master bedroom and living room.

This couple is always doing something with their grown children & spouses with grands.

Tipping point for the TV is obviously the grands.

Daybed, slounging chairs + a table with chairs for projects/computer?  Perfect trinity.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics same house/garden as previous post.  It's obvious Susanne Hudson has put her skills here.   I have a strong weakness for grandparent/grandchild relationships.  Mine still fills me with incredible strengths.

Mass Market Annuals?

Mass market annuals are one of the least sustainable-eco-green things produced.

Insecticides, fungicides, weed-killers, water, electricity, heating, plastic, gasoline, trucks, soil, labor.
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Compare to a packet of self-seeding annuals or the vignette, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic same garden as previous post.  I was a professional grower for years.  We grew from plugs, seeds, cuttings.  Mostly plugs.  Adored doing the hydrangea cuttings late each summer.
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Mass market annuals do have their place & when needed I always put Jenny Hardgrave's company, Simply Flowers on the plan.

Perfect Front Porch

Of course the patina of the rooster is white.  It's her theme.

To the left of their front door, below.

To the right of their front door, below.

Mary Poppins said it best, "Practically perfect in every way."
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic same garden as previous post.

Basement Door is now the Dowager's Porch

It's common to see a basement door with lawn.  And nothing else.

Mother-in-law Suite doesn't aptly describe this rendition.

Common furnishings, off the shelf shutters, a simple arbor, concrete pavers & voila !

Color theme was chosen and leveraged with punches of yellow.

Boxwoods, liriope, hollies prettier AND easier to maintain than ubiquitous lawn.  Notice, above, the garbage can?

Between driveway & Dowager's Porch is a tiny foyer, above.  Gravel, above, pure brilliance.
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Most basement doors are the throw-away-zone.  Worse, the criminal zone.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last weekend at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.  This garden belongs to Jeri Farmer, co-founder of the PMHF with Susanne Hudson.  Susanne helps Jeri with her Garden Design.  

Where to Start

Don't know where to begin your Garden Design?

Begin with a table outside.  You must eat.
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Then, begin with layers of green: trees, shrubs, groundcovers.  Each suited for your zone-sun-shade-parched-moist areas.
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With the greens add focal points on axis from window views.
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You've just created a garden in vanishing threshold with your home.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic via Bumble at Home.   Truly, keep it this simple.

Keeping Plain, Plain

There is no 'architecture' at my home.  I've created my own.  The humble cottage.

Instead of lipstick-on-a-pig with the front door.  I've left it as modest as the day it was built.

With only a hint of character.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in my garden.  Before the garden I can remember disliking my home so much I would cry coming back from any vacation.  This is my starter home, here 5 years then off to something 'better'.  That was almost 3 decades ago.  If away for a night I cannot wait to get back and see what has transpired in the garden.

In Relationship

If your secondary subsidiary focal points

are 'animals' make sure they are in

relationship to their surroundings.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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For many years I maintained a small  townhome back garden for a client.  She had a little rabbit that I would move each week, as if it were nibbling her flowers.  Her garden was always done on Fridays, her area of town has the BEST estate sales.  These cats are at my front door, pics taken this month.

Using Words in the Garden

Be wary of words in a garden.  

Welcome?  Don't have it in a 'word', say it with your front door, paint color, light fixture, door mat, plants, & etc.
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Let 'words' in your garden be subsidiary focal points, amplified in the song of your garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken near my front door last week.  A Christine Sibley piece.  Of course bought long before she died.  The ivy 'Gold Heart' is not aggressive.