Real Men

When a man hires me,

                                                                  via
delight never fades in seeing

via

the little boy in his eyes, smile, thoughts & gestures.

.

Watching them become aware their domain is a canvas for joy & play not 'work'.

.
Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
.
pics via Castles, Crowns & Cottages.

Garden Stairs

All new construction, below, constraints galore.  Never knew steps & under-the-steps could be this joyful.

Use lattice or ceiling boards under the step treads?  (1 of 87 questions about the steps!)

Across from the steps, below.

Repetition wins again.  Paint color too.
.
Lattice is special order, Magic Man added a strip for more privacy.
.
A new room & deck were added above creating wonky space below.  We should all be so lucky.
.
The space is grand enough to be used as a Foyer in addition to the Outdoor Kitchen we created.
.
Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
.
Hired a professional to shoot this project in January.  Leaving the Foyer yesterday I said something about keeping a green table because of the green urn blah-blah.  Beloved Burt wasn't there.  Apparently Burt said the exact words only hours earlier.  Finally, a Tara'ized Burt!!!!

Fast Food at Home

Lunch at home on work days is always fast food.

Cottage cheese, pistachios, soup, vanilla yogurt.
.
Back to work.
.
Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
.
Pic last week.  Some days are too hectic for this much and it's cottage cheese, yogurt & an apple.

How to Prune & Live

"... mental discipline of a scientist and the emotional responsibility of a poet."

              Peter Schjeldahl

Exactly the knowledge needed for pruning.  And living.
.
Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
.
Pic taken yesterday in Ryan Gainey's garden.

Vanishing Threshold with Liz Caan

Eye catching, welcoming, simple, confident, a statement, sense of place, timeless, elegant.

Inside Liz Caan Interiors, below,

the Vanishing Threshold frames exterior views & is a backdrop for her aesthetic.
.
It's the biggest impact when you can do all these things with the fewest amount of materials.  'Elegance is refusal.'
.
Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
.
Pics Liz Caan Interiors

Gardening With Dogs

Suzy.

Every garden step Suzy's nose touched the back of my bare thighs.  The era before daytime mosquitoes, and gardening in shorts.

I'm good at camping.  It's all about delegation & knowing your own job.  My job is to be charming, read Jane Austen, drink champagne, walk from Edisto to Edingsville at low tide, ride my bike, play in the water, eat a delicious dinner of vegetables grown on the island & seafood caught in the morning, and always-always-always be with Suzy.

Suzy loved lake life better than the beach.  Her little sidekick Taz & her mom Chui Chui, above.  The ride home was always the same, sound asleep.  I can still smell those rides.

Happiest girls in the world, above.
.
Time does not heal all wounds.
.
Garden & Be Well,                   XO Tara
.
Suzy taught me a lot about gardening with dogs.  Virginia Hendrick, a client, had a dog who was a RUNNER.  Her dog completed my gardening with dogs education!  As proof, her garden was chosen for the cover of a book.  And her dog did not destroy it.
.
Content in a Cottage has a woman & dog love affair story running thru it.  A lucky woman.

Office Renovation

My real office is your garden.  When you hire me it's to turn your hopes & dreams of a garden into plants-hardscape-house, a Vanishing Threshold, that ephemeral bonding of joy letting you hold onto faith, expand your spirit & gather grace.

 This zone, designing gardens, is intoxicating, Joseph Campbell speaks of it as experiencing eternity here & now.

My office must let me leave ties of place to become a Mental Traveler.

Letting the Muse of writing, lecturing, powerpoints, & Garden Design 'dance'.
 

In homage to Bunny Mellon, my basket table.  Each client for the day goes into their own basket, a lecture in the evening has its own basket too.  Adore multiple basket days.

Long-distance Garden Design is done, above.

Administrative tasks here.

Overlooking the garden, below.  Best place to blog, surf, read.

No rugs or art yet.  Enjoying the simplicity.  

.

Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

.

Laskett, left above, devoted to me no friends like him!  He pays them zero attention.  If there is a loud crash or something 'wrong', daily occurrences, it's Laura, right above.

.

Love walking into my office every morning.  Decades of joy.

.

I adore looking at offices, thought it fair to show mine.

Which is Cheaper: Yew or Perennial ?

Low maintenance & affordable are ubiquitous in a mission statement.

Why have a perennial garden?  Requires skilled labor to maintain & most disappear in winter.  Per square foot & volume & maintenance perennials are ridiculously expensive compared to the long life-size-maintenance expense of yew topiary.
.
Yews survive centuries, perennials survive years.
.
Of course Garden Centers & Design-Build-Maintain businesses promote perennials.  Perennial flowers are intoxicating.  And important to their recurring  bottom line.
.
Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
.
Went less maintenance than the above.  Used understory trees & groundcover (no mowing) in a checkerboard pattern in the front garden for a young couple with babies in their starter ranch home.  How did they get so smart so young?  Me?  I planted zillions of perennials at their age.  Now, only the hardy (iris, dianthus 'bath pink', lenten rose, fern, peony) remain.  Zillions more blooms with my flowering shrubs & trees & vines & groundcovers.  Love my garden but zero time for much maintenance and became disgusted with the thief of time/money with perennials/annuals and don't get Puppet Barbuda started on the dreadful eco impact of perennials/annuals.  You know, greenhouses, heating/cooling, water, soils, pallets, insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers, 18-wheeler trucks.
.
Pic via My French Country Home

Quietly Good

New construction completed earlier this year, below.  House & garden stand sentry as old souls.

Shadows fall on their proscenium as atonement.

As if they think, "Of course we abide here.  This is ours, the rent we pay is grace."
.
Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
.
Pics taken at a jobsite last week.  Asked the client for a walk through with both of them.  Wanting to know, "How are the parts working?"  A lot of challenges with this site & no room for error.  Exactly my type of fun.

Use Repetition

Right side of her front door, below, variegated liriope is already established.  Space is limited at the front of her 30 year old townhome.  

 In a tight space repetition makes space feel larger.  Variegated liriope was chosen for the left side of her front door, below.  If it had been asiatic jasmine already on the right side, then that would have been the left side choice....

She said, "I don't know if something is wrong with me but I do not like RED!"  Double flowering Encore azaleas were sourced, below.

She is sourcing a new light fixture now.  Will not show you the 'after' pic until this offensive unit, below, is gone.

When the guys had pick-ax to 30 year old green meatballs she was JUMPING.  When they were safely deposited on our dump truck she hugged me.
.
I really like what I can do for professional women over 60!!!!!!
.
Yes, I was jumping & hugging too.  It never gets old, REMOVING UGLY.
.
Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
.
Helen Dillon says REPETITION is the most important thing in Garden Design.
.
When space is tight at a property line I often use what the neighbor already has planted.  A win for my client, a win for the neighbor.  Both gardens look larger & FLOW better.  My ego isn't about annihilation and a clean slate.  My ego is all about getting it right.
.
Can't wait till spring, we're doing her back patio.

The Secret of Black

New construction, established neighborhood, million+ dream home.

Tight property line, above.  I knew to use 4-board fencing with hogwire, stain it black & plant confederate jasmine.
.
Their home, to the right of the fence is brick painted white & black shutters.  White was never a choice for the 4-board fencing.  Black recedes, makes the area 'feel' larger.
.
Loved being able to have this bit of Chatsworth in the suburbs.
.
Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
.
Pic taken at jobsite last week.

Furniture on Furniture

During WWII this cupboard stored canned garden vegetables.  I rescued it from grandma's Georgia red clay basement and put it on my patio.

Years later, rot, so it was brought inside.

Moving office this week I knew the cupboard had to go onto the mahogany reproduction desk.

Scale of the room & sloping ceiling, above, can take the height.

Furniture on furniture.  Does anyone else have this fetish?

It' imperative I get the office gorgeous & comfortable.  Wireless arrived this year & I'm most often in the garden room, above, working.  Too many distractions.  Laskett is one, above.

.

Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara

.

Perhaps next week the project will be complete.  Can't wait to be better leveraged for productive work.  Tea Olive Terrace is my view from the office.  I won't be 'losing' views only distractions.

Chinoiserie Coop, Repurposed Materials

They wanted chickens, I suggested their small unused covered patio.

Old windows, door & lumber were reclaimed from a century old cabin at Lake Burton, GA.

Chicken wire, hinges, a few 2 x 4's were the only new materials.

Once the new wood is cured the entire Chinoiserie chicken coop will be stained BM-Alexandria Beige.
.
Their garden is tiny Alexandria beige will make the coop recede.

Th girls fighting for grapes is greater drama than any football match.

Nesting boxes were repurposed from the same cabin.

.

These 8 heirloom girls hatched 1st week of April & produce about 7 eggs/day. 

.

Amazing how many clients have chickens.  Adore watching them walk, hear their noises, see cliches come true.

.

Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

.

Bidding a job last month My Guy suggested they repurpose the child's swing-set fort as a chicken coop.  Love it when my team shines past me with creativity.  

.

Girls are safe in their coop & run from hawks, dogs, cats.

How To Choose A Window Box

In addition to length & width properly scaled.....

A window box must be so fabulous it can remain empty.
.
Give yourself this choice.  Window boxes are high maintenance.
.
You will need it.  Guaranteed.
.
Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
.
Of course no one reading this blog EVER puts fake flowers in their window box.  Good window boxes are hard to find in stores.  Pic via Egypt Gift Shops

Gardens & Junk

                                            30 years of appointments across Atlanta metro area.

Consistently stopping at thrift, junk & antique stores on the way home.  Who knew cable TV would create  shows about my lifestyle.  Except my lifestyle is BETTER.  It's Gardens & Junk.   

Yesterday was a particularly good haul, because,

the prices were in the realm of fantasy.  Sold.
.
Remember, 'A penny saved is a plant bought.'
.
Have 7 boxwoods on order, delivery today, from North Carolina, 3' x 3' B&B.  Didn't go larger because I want granite cobblestones in a square at each of the boxwood.  This choice hurt.  The bigger boxwoods were a stunning good price, but I want the granite cobblestones immediately.  No waiting, doing without, building character.  On this topic 'I' think plenty of character has been built.  Providence laughs.
.
Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
.
Been eyeing the chest for a year.  Finally put on sale.  Offered less.  She said 'yes'.  Chest & shutters already at my new office.  Lattice piece came from yesterday's jobsite & will be put into the screen door at my new office.

Theory vs. Reality

Today I'm off to a jobsite, outdoor kitchen & foyer, mostly complete, to place lighting.  Of course locations for the sconces & chandeliers are already chosen.  Do you think that matters?  No.  Real world placement trumps theory.

I need a sofa at the foot of my bed.  Dozens of pics later this is the only one I've liked.  In theory it's perfect.
.
Susanne Hudson, the decorator on my team, is sourcing it now.  She'll get one with the right dimensions & fabric.  Perhaps she'll have a list of bullet points, or a single reason, why this sofa isn't right.  I'll trust her judgment, it's her specialty.
.
It's something my clients have taught me!  Patience, and trust.
.
Too much money is involved to make a mistake.
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Patio Furniture Mix

Calm.  Quiet.  Then revelation.

Lunch in Kemah yesterday on Galveston Bay.
.
Quietude of patio furnishings to perfection. Wicker, metal, wood with repetition throughout of colors, heights, invitation to relax.  They hired a designer.  That much is obvious.
.
How things change.  I grew up here.  Designers?  In my youth nothing was paved.  Dirt roads, oyster shell parking lots & the seafood available was coming off  shrimp boats.
.
At my back, while taking this pic, is Galveston Bay with the boats coming in to Clear Creek and Nassau Bay.  Remember the Hilton Hotel where the woman ran back/forth over her husband & said it was an accident?  Near here!
.
Beware using all metal furniture on your patio/deck.  Exceptions exist.  Be sure yours is.......    
.
Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
.
Crabcake sandwich & bowl of shrimp gumbo.  Fed the birds until someone pointed out the signs, "Do not feed the birds."