Old Trinities Are The Best

Don't recreate the wheel.  Choose successful trinities.

Penelope Bianchi sent this pic over the weekend.  She had a question about her vines.
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Epiphany for another Tara Trinity: Vines, Gravel & Boxwood.
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Vines, Gravel, & Boxwood have worked for centuries in the best & most charming gardens.
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Tara Trinities?  Shade perennials: Hosta, Helleborus & Ferns.  Shrubs: Azalea, Camellia, Hydrangea.  & etc.
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I'm sure you see trinities you adore all the time.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Recently received a 1940 cottage project.  Vines, Boxwood & Gravel?  You bet !!!!
 

Sir Roy Strong & Mirabel Osler

Sir Roy Strong & Mirabel Osler will be in conversation

October 19, 2011, Castle House Hotel.
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Both Strong & Osler are authors of  "life, gardens and travel."
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Please, go, if you can & put it all on YouTube for me/me/me.
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Look closely at the path, above.   Melts my heart.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic & more information via Hereford Times.  A garden nerd I have Sir Roy Strong on google alerts.  Monty Don too.

Begin Inside

Landscape Design begins inside your home.  Site lines, axis, from your main views.

In college they taught Landscape Design from the street looking in.
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Beauty designed outwardly is beautiful in its opposite direction.  Something I had to learn on my own about Landscape Design.  Of course the historic landscapes of Italy began inside the villa.....
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From this desk, above, is my Woodland Walk, aka, air-conditioning side of the house.  With azaleas, camelias & hydrangeas, I don't see the a/c.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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At this desk I pretend I know how to watercolor !!!

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Appear Less. Be More.

"If you have a closet full of clothes, and nothing to wear, you don't know yourself very well."  Bill Blass

If you have a landscape full of plants, and not a fabulous garden, you don't know yourself very well.
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From Advanced Style, "Appear less. Be more."
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Landscape more.  Garden less.
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My career overflows with the type of  woman, on the blog, Advanced Style.  
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Look at these women, they equal fabulous landscapes, CONFIDENT.
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These women stretch me, expand my comfort zone, make me feel 14 years old as I approach their landscape design.  Russell Page, blessedly, said, a garden designer SHOULD feel a little fear with each project.
Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic of Mimi Weddell, by Bryant Woodd, via Advanced Style.
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Seeking creative inspiration is a daily joy.  Hunting/gathering from music, books, friends, solitude, exercise, pets, gardens, what I say 'no' to,  & more.

Stretch Chair

ABC Carpet & Home,

Stretch Chair, by Carnevale Studio.
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Of course I would need 6 in the garden.  At $89 I thought, "No, need to get the fruit trees & boxwoods first."
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You KNOW I was reading too fast, Stretch Chair, $895.00.  Ha, and I decided $89 was too much for me !
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic from the ABC Home site.

Creating Dining Spaces: Inside & Out

An odd thing happens when plans are drawn for the Landscape.

More dining areas are created inside.  Better views, drawing you toward them, if you're not already drawn outside to dine.
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It's a small drama, wondering, "hmmmm, where do I want to eat?", but sublime.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Cottage Garden: Layered On Formality

Flagstones, edged in brick, below.  Bricks hidden for a few weeks in a cottage garden facade.

 Self-seeding blue ageratum were, indeed, pruned to create a narrow foot path.

 A look of the country, in this tiny subdivision with minuscule lots, within a metro area of millions.

 10 weeks, no appreciable rains.  Doubts the blue ageratum would bloom on schedule?  None !

Variegated boxwood, above, in a large formal terra cotta pot.  Engulfed in a sea of ageratum.  A temporary bouquet.
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A change for the season in color and style.  Soon, the formal lines of winter will return to my little flagstone terrace.  And the terra cotta pot will return.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in my garden.  Yes, garden cat Torte De Shelle following me.  It was hard to prune the walking path, wanting to keep it solid meadow.  Ha, I had to get thru !!!  Reality intruded.  Plans for the fruit orchard are percolating.  Trees will probably come from the big box hardware store & boxwoods from a wholesaler.  If this sounds formal, it is.  Love a good meadow, cottage garden AND formal lines too.

Where To Shop & Lunch In Atlanta

Boxwoods has ambience, antiques, plants, urns, everything a grown child desires.

 Souper Jenny, around the corner, has the best soups, sandwiches, cookies & I always have to stand in line, and never care.

Between appointments this week, I got to Souper Jenny & saw her cute new food truck.  Made me want one for Landscape Design.
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POUTING, I had to leave Souper Jenny without a visit to Boxwoods.  Had to get back on-the-job with a client.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Top pic from Velvet & Linen while at Boxwoods.  More Pouting, I only get to do this 1-2x's/year, or less.

Name It to Claim It

Her face so lost I didn't recognize it.  Ellen Barkin is in a new movie, "____ Year".

If opera is an intensification of reality; a garden is opera.
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Manohla Dargis on Barkin's movie character, "....a refugee from the ordinary..."
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Quite nice.  A sentiment, a lifestyle I discovered in my garden decades ago.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic from Cam Archer/Cinemad Presents in New York Times.

Some Deaths Are Not Socially Acceptable

"...Sir Timothy...after a night of high wind had brought down 2 magnificent elm tress on the edge of the ha-ha.... It was a sad sight.  The trees were lying with their roots upended and their trunks slanting across the ditch to the ruin of broken branches and smashed twigs on the lower level.  Sir Timothy ...as much distressed as if they had been the only trees he possessed.  There were tears in his eyes as he kept repeating: 'Wouldn't have lost them for the worlds!  Known them all my life.  Opened my eyes upon them, in fact, for I was born in that room there. ....It's this damned sunk fence is to blame.  No root room on one side.  Wouldn't have lost them for the worlds!'".  Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford.

 Written of an era a century old, and a true story, I love Sir Timothy.

Clients & friends, calling me through the years, "Tara, my tree died."  Then tears.  Women of course.  But men too.  Successful men, trophy house, car, family, and they are still the little boy within.  In grief they remember me, someone who will understand.  I've cried with them all.
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No, not many will tell family, friends, co-workers, "Called my garden designer today, we cried about losing my tree."
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You do understand these are big trees, over a century, with energy giving spirit.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics from BBC

Squeezing In A Retractable Clothesline

Between Conservatory, below, &

 house, below,

finally, sheets drying on the line.
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Sadly, I win the blue ribbon for, she-who-waited-longest-to-put-in-retractable-clothesline.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

Awesome Beauty & Deer Proof

 Andrea Filippone, designs gardens & sells antiques.  Her garden, below, proof of prodigious talent.

More, her garden has a herd of 40-50 deer daily.  Boxwood are her solution, along with "allium, nepeta, Solomon's seal, jack-in-the-pulpit & hellebore."
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The New York Times had a lovely, rich article about her last May.  They have a slide show of pics with it too.
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You won't be disappointed.  This article & pics have stuck in my mind/heart since it was published.
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Garden & Be Well,           XO Tara
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Pic from New York Times, by Randy Harris

Hartwood Roses

There was a time I paid attention to cliche's about roses.  Needy, needy, needy.

Wrong, the best roses are tough, tough, tough.
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Choose a rose KNOWN to be good in your area for at least 2 decades.  Buying from the supercenter or asking someone who mows grass for a living isn't an option.  Would you ask your dermatologist about heart palpitations?
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I went to my local Rose Society to discover the BEST roses.   Climbing 'Dortmund', above, was one of the choices.  It's never watered, fertilized, or sprayed with chemicals yet it blooms early summer till frost in my garden with pretty hips throughout fall.
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Hartwood Roses is a delightful nursery.  They WANT you to have the BEST roses for your zone/garden.
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Connie, of Hartwood Roses, sent this note yesterday:
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This is a quick message to remind you that this Saturday, September 24, 2011, is the final scheduled open nursery day of the 2011 season.  Even though the summer heat and dryness was hard on the garden (and the gardener) there are quite a few roses in bloom to see if you are planning to visit to choose your roses in person.

Here is an offer for those of you who do not live nearby that may help you to decide to buy the roses you have been waiting order.  All rose orders placed from now until October 7 will get half-price shipping!   Orders will be calculated manually and invoiced to reflect the reduced shipping cost.

Please remember that I have decided to take a year off from mass propagation of next year’s crop to concentrate on other aspects of the Hartwood Roses mission that I have not had the time to develop.  Stay tuned for details of planned workshops and hands-on demonstrations to help you learn to grow better roses.  There will be a few new rose varieties available next spring, along with the roses that carry over from this year, but not in the quantities that are usually available. 

The realities of the current economy have been hard on the nursery business.  Hartwood Roses will continue to exist, but it must evolve to reflect the new reality of reduced time and interest in rose gardening, especially heirloom varieties of roses, and tighter household budgets.  I have worked too hard to build this business and its reputation to throw in the towel because times are hard. 

On a more positive note, if you are in the area and want to see the debut of my new program, “How To Grow Beautiful Climbing Roses”, plan to visit the Richmond Rose Society meeting this Sunday, September 25, at 2pm, in the auditorium of Children’s Hospital.  (Click HERE for address and directions).

In closing, I would like to thank you for your support of Hartwood Roses, as it grows and changes to meet today’s challenges. 

Sincerely,

Connie

P.S.  Keep up with the happenings in the nursery, garden, and in our family in a more personal way by reading my blog.  www.hartwoodroses.blogspot.com

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Keep It Close & Line It Up

Early 19th century North American home & garden.

Vegetables, herbs, fruits, water, livestock, above, all close.
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Sustainable meant a lot more in this era.  Lose your crops/livestock & your family could die.
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Keeping things close is easier maintenance & to protect.  Obvious but overlooked.
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Often I'm asked to site a playset or child's vegetable garden.  The requests arrive with a wave of the hand pointing to the back, somewhere.  Somewhere.
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Patio/deck areas are often a sunny spot.  Perfect for a vegetable garden in large pots, 24" diameter, with several things stuffed into each.  Ha, yes, I site the pots too.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Notice the Landscape Design tool in the pic?  All the lines: fence, trees, vegetables, herbs, paths, dependencies are lined exactly parallel or perpendicular with the home.

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.