You Need This Garden House

Enough gardens (historically) have these garden houses, below, I realized your garden needs one too. 

Why did this epiphany take so long to arrive?  No matter.  Get you one of the garden houses.
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What will you do in your new garden house?
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Me?  I will watercolor or play the dulcimer perhaps write letters maybe read Beverley Nichols, Sir Roy Strong, Cecil Beaton.
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Seriously, these garden houses are going into most of my Garden Designs.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Lost source for the pic.  This epiphany is so new I don't know the best dimensions to tell you to use.  There seems to be 2-3 'best'.  Loving the scope for the imagination on placing these Garden Houses.

Camp Boxwood

Boxwoods is a delightful garden, gift, & design shop in Atlanta, GA.  Their private getaway was recently in Traditional Home magazine.

Sold in their shop, below, is a porcelain hydrangea.  Furnishings, antiques, plants, art & more too.

 I like everything Boxwoods does.  Alas, haven't been inside their shop in more than 5 years.  Bittersweet, driving by but no time to go inside because I'm working at client gardens.  Of course it is saving me a lot of money, not going inside. 
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic via Traditional Home magazine & bottom pic via Boxwood's. 

Lunch in the Conservatory

Lunch in the Conservatory.

 Pears, yogurt, cottage cheese, pistachios.  There's something about multiple little bowls,

mismatched silver spoons, plate, linen napkin, making the choices.
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Walking across the garden & choosing where to sit in the Conservatory.  These are the great dramas I want.
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Amid hectic days my Conservatory never fails to enrich my spirit.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Wish lunch in the Conservatory were more often but you know I'm happy to be at jobsites too.
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Deer In The Laundry With Arbor

We were so busy in the garden I never had time to ask about the deer in her laundry.

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Didn't realize the pic was getting the awning outside.  She has several, this one is over the gas grill.

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A style quite common ca. 1910.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pic taken last month.

Decorate With Multiple Collections

She drinks alot of Perrier perfect bottles for rooting cuttings, below.

 She inherited boxes of shells, it took about a year of spare time to sort them, below.

 Old, broken, water salts & moss make her terra cotta better.  Of course the arrangement is fabuloso, below. Have you noticed how people that arrange flowers seem to be able to arrange anything?

Clustered & themed, she uses collections to decorate. 
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This trinity of collections are close to each other in her Conservatory.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken last month in Susanne Hudson's Conservatory.

Garden View From Her Desk

Her desk, below, in the kitchen.

 With its

garden view.

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Inside & outside she's created her own world, it's not of this time.  It's timeless.

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Have you done this for yourself.  Created your world?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last month in Susanne Hudson's garden.

Pruning Leyland Cypress

Leyland cypress used well, below.

They call their creation, Big Ben.

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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara

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Taken in the same garden as yesterday's post.

Columns

Their home is Craftsman bungalow, almost a century old.  Along the fence & at the arbor are these columns.

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A post card of history alive and well today.

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Except I was totally had.  Every column was made by the current owners.

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Cinder block with stained stucco capped with a concrete square.  Concrete & rebar filling the bottom layers.

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Faux is rarely this good.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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This garden belongs to friends, their home is at the gate of Stone Mountain Park.

Architect Meeting At Jobsite

Ironic scene, below, in the chaos of construction at the pool, garden,

 and now, below, the house itself.  Two rooms will be added overlooking the pool.

 Met with the architect early this month, above, for the rooms to be added here, below.

 The pool is humongous, below, built in the 70's for the house next door.  Don't ask. 

 I have a real problem with the architect.  He's smart, witty, intuitive, hardworking, cute, and

 wears white socks.

 Doesn't he know white socks are total birth control?

He, nor his wife, got the memo.  They have lovely children.
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Now you have all the important points from my meeting with: homeowners, my contractors, architect.
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Unless we should talk about the orange breakfast poundcake & other delicious etc. she served.  Remnants are on the drawing in 2nd pic.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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OMG, lots of awkward choices with this project, hence full arsenal teamwork.  The best part?  It doesn't feel like work.  Homeowner is one of Atlanta's quietly successful interior decorators.  You only get her by word-of-mouth.

Small Moments 2 Bathrooms

 Not large her bathroom, nonetheless, creates

 its own world, above/below.

 Classically designed new home, below, had a

 surprise.

 Rounded, soft pebbles for a son's bathroom.

The rest of the home is straight from an English novel. 
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I should have taken bathroom pics for the past 30 years. 
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Bathrooms & Gardens.  Yes.  A new magazine.  Of course Garage & Garden would be fabulous too.
Dogs & Gardens.....
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara

Interior Decorate From Garden Views Too

Views into your home

 from the

 garden

must be considered.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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Same garden as previous post.  Back of picture frames, tv, couch?  Hmm, not in my realm of Landscape Design.

How To Add Size & Magic To Your Home Affordably

Both sides of most USA homes are a waste land of HVAC & meters, along with little to no landscape improvements.

 Turn a window at the side of your home into French doors.  Exactly what this tiny home did.

You'll create flow & a new room on axis with your interior.
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This 2 bedroom historic cottage lives bigger than most 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath homes.  More beautifully for sure.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Same garden as yesterday's post. 

Make Small Front Door Zone Live Large

The narrative of who lives here is already written before you knock on their front door.

 Everything about this home is TINY PERFECTION. 

 That boxwood, above, also provides mystery.

Who knew the hydrangea was there?
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Would never have thought to add drama to it by putting it in a pot. 
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Don't you know life is much better when the drama is merely putting your hydrangea in a pot?
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And the boxwood/hydrangea continue the frontdoor zone....metaphorically.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Same tiny home/garden as yesterday.
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Now, this moment, what does the narrative about your frontdoor zone say about YOU?
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How To Design A Small Frontyard

Nestled in a row of other homes, below,

 is the tiniest lot in historic Douglasville, GA.

Their backdrop evergreen hedge smudges visibility to their neighbor's home.
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White picket fence stretches the white clapboard home's footprint.
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Stone wall frames the view & directs foot traffic.
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Horseshoe shaped lawn controls & expands visually the small space, its curve contrasting with the lines of the home.
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Perennials are playful but the serious business is done at the house with evergreens.
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Invitation is engraved on the stone column with boxwood in a pot.  A very sure hand.
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Private world is created for public view.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Underlined portions are How To design A Small Frontyard.  Notice it doesn't include, "Oh, I just love this plant."
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Of course without that primal URGE I wouldn't have a career !
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This frontyard belongs to the waterfall post 2 days ago.  Sir Roy Strong said, "If you have an irregularly shaped area put a bonafide geometric shape in it.", when he lectured at the Atlanta History Center ages ago.

Designed Not Natural

"Spurred by the environmental movement and controversies over clear-cutting forests, and with support from top management, he launched an innovative visual resource management program, including training, land management and monitoring functions."  ca. 1965

Written about landscape architect Edward H. Stone II, USA National Forest service.
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USA National Forest lands had become a mix of Nature, hucksterism, garbage dumps & a quick buck for clear cutting & etc.
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Edward Stone became our Capability Brown.
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What's YOUR visual resource management program?
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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pic from a private totally designed landscape via Architectural Digest.    Sad the wheel keeps needing recreating.  Central Park in NYCity is another example that needed an intervention. 

Tabletop Talent Outside

Atop a huge stone wall of water, below.

Too large in too small of a space for my camera.

 Their living room view, above & below.  Tiny home, tiny lot, big living.

He treated the top of his waterfall exactly as he's treated his interior tables & chests.
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Tiny home, tiny lot, big living.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Waterfall is humongous.  Out of scale to the lot & home.  And PERFECT !!!

Porch Porn 101

Front Porch PORN

 My newest book.  Already written 5.

 If Porch Porn 101 must be 'written'

 it's the wrong approach.

 When Porch Porn is PORCH PORN no words,

just pictures.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Jeri's Front Porch PORN.  I can see the franchise: Patio Porn, Back Porch Porn, &tc....  Words can be added to the 'Porn' franchise.  After cocktails Jeri served......    Yes, this is good.  Recipes, porches, porn.  Cats & dogs allowed into the pics, not people.  Cannot imagine the exceptions to that rule ! 

Screened Porch

I let a butcher block go thinking, 'what would I ever do with it?'   Jeri knew exactly what to do, below, on her covered porch.

 Intuitively she knew, below, it's important to make flat walls 3-D.   

 Builders never complete a house properly with shutters, it's your job.

Her porch is mostly black, white, blue.  She wears a lot of man tailored white shirts with black leggings & a pop of pink lipstick. 
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I always look to what my clients wear for the secondary colors to their trinity.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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More pictures from Jeri's garden, she's Porch Porn.  

A Secondary Front Porch

Near the front door, is

 another door.

 Another welcome.

Black, white, green.  She keeps playing with color trinities.  Yes, more of Jeri's garden from previous posts.
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There is no part of Jeri's garden left 'undone'.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara