Don't Overlook the Mundane

In the garden & inside you must have cloches.

Seeing, above, I knew my predilection for the unusual inside-a-cloche completely ignored the mundane.
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A good day includes at least 1 epiphany.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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pic Paris Through My Lens    
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
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Details about online design services.
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Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
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Details about lecture titles here.
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I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Design Tools

Trinities are often a good template.

If you don't have matching pots, make sure the rims are each the same height.
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Of course this is also a marvelous display of repetition.  Your most important Garden Design tool.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic Janelle McCulloch, Country Estates of Australia.  Visit Janelle's Library of Design.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Conservatory Dreamtime

You must have a Conservatory in your garden.  Direct connection to an experience of Australia's Dreamtime.  

Too many busy days had passed without being in my Conservatory.  I feel its loss in my spirit.  Yesterday's 14 minute lunch had-to-be in the Conservatory.  Short & out of proportion to what is gained.  Spiritual well is filled.  No words to describe this direct line to Dreamtime.  

Moments in the Conservatory are atonement.  And abiding.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

All Creatures Great & Small

All Creatures Great & Small, by James Herriot.

Original episodes.

Sets, lifestyle, characters, pets, livestock, gardens, cricket, clothes, food, cars, scenery, romance, architecture, a way of life, change of seasons, humor, drama, it's all here.

If you don't know who they are, above, buy the dvd's.

Meet Tricky Woo, and you'll want to order the books too.
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Enjoy.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Chandeliers

Often I'm designing a garden when the interior is being renovated.

I adore seeing the lighting chosen.  Breakfast room, above, master closet, below.

A chandelier in my music room will soon grace the harvest table on the patio.  Beautiful & violent it has hit  many people in the head.
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Anticipating the new harvest table & chandelier on my patio is a January joy.
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Sourcing chairs now, table must seat 10.
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And which bonbon from the garage will grace the harvest table center?  Yes, this is fun.
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I'm not impatient.  This layer, the hunt, is excitement.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken last year at a client's home.   Before pics are already taken of the patio!
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Choosing the Best Urns

Urns that don't need planting are the best.

Rustic invitation leading to greater simplicity at the house.  My favorite template.
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What is the USA fascination with lawn to the street?
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic via Old Long Island  
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Front Door Pendant Light

Endangered object, below.

Sweetly scaled pendant light.
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A front door is always a focal point.  When architecture & materials are already good why compete?  Beware 'too large' exterior lighting at your front door.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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pic via DIY Home Staging Tips.  You'll love the link, it's the best tips of Home Staging for 2012.  Of course, too many decades of USA homes lack good materials/architecture, mine is one, so you want to consider the possibility of large exterior lighting.  Then, beware of lipstick-on-a-pig.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Color vs Light

 Pulled to color or light?  Both?  Yes, both.  I would love to see this room, below, when it's raining, at nite, in fall, winter, a storm.....

If you're fortunate a garden colors your light.

In your home, does garden light stop you in your tracks on occasion?

If your garden isn't doing this for your interiors it's time to rethink your garden.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Top pic via House Beautiful.  Bottom pics last week in my bay window.
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Historic Template

Shelf-steps, terra cotta pots, topiaried evergreens.

Big impact in the garden & easy resource for your interior.  A historic template.
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Recognize her?  Bunny Mellon.  I adore everything this woman does in her gardens.
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Garden & Be Well,                XO Tara
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If you want a garden that is a moat of grace around your home & life, contact me.
.
Details about online design services.
.
Learn action steps to creating your best garden & home when you hire me to speak to your group.
.
Details about lecture titles here.
.
I've written several garden books available on Amazon.

Create Enfilades

My childhood home was built around an open courtyard, many were during that decade on Galveston Bay.

When the courtyard is designed to be part of the interior an Enfilade, a view into a view, is created.
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Enfilades are the most common photograph of gardens to be chosen for hardcover books & magazines.
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A fact I noticed decades ago, and began then, creating as many enfilades as possible.
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Why should YOU create enfilades?  Copy what the best garden designers & photographers do.  Enfilades are historic for a reason.  Great impact with little input.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pics  of Pablo Paniagua's work.

Real Gardens

Historically inspired gardens demand Pleasure Walks, lunch with friends, wine by the pond, naps in the Conservatory, reading on the terrace, mental traveling, hearing Providence, exaltation at the cadence of Nature, gazing at the views.....
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When has testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch ever inspired any of this?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Castles, Crowns & Cottages.

How to Laugh at Fear

Decades ago, a great idea, and he (his house too) would say, "You can't do that." Garden plans would be diminished or stopped altogether.

Several years of this circus, I got off the merry-go-round.  No fear.  Began going to Europe, studying historic landscapes, received another degree, horticulture.  Opened a Garden Design business, new decades of family disapproval, "Use your engineering degree, don't be a bag lady."  Thanks for that refrain, dad.
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Many lean years.  To the bone.  I didn't care.
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Went to a career coaching weekend a decade ago & had an epiphany, "What would I do tomorrow if I were not afraid?"  Fear is a sure thing, it will keep coming back with new expertise/costume guaranteed.
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Jumping forward to the last 3 years, worst economy since the Great Depression, I've had the top earning years of my career.  Moved 'him' out, bought my own home & another home nearby to use as an office/guest cottage.
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Ironically, getting rid of fear taught me how to know if I'm doing the right thing in my career.  Choices are tough but once made, the choice is FUN.  And the choices aren't in my head, I ask my heart.  My head is a lizard brain.
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Are you afraid?  What would you do tomorrow if you were not afraid?
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic via Habitually Chic
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"Wherever our most primal fears reside--our fears of the dark, of death, of being devoured, of meaninglessness, of lovelessness, or of loss--changes are good that beneath them lie gems of wisdom and maybe a vision or a calling. Wherever you stumble--on a tree root, on a rock, on fear or shame, or vulnerability, on someone else's words, on the truth--dig there." Gregg Levoy

Overdose Your Color

Choose a color theme.

Overdose on your choice/s.  Works every time.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Of course the cat is white.
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Pic via Whimble

Exterior Color: White on White

A client's yellow house is going white-on-white.  Cannot wait to see the results.

Pay no mind to the landscaping, above.   Totally subdivision, 1960's brick ranch let's make green foundation meatballs a la testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch.  And those pots?  Lipstick on a pig.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara & Puppet Barbuda
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I adore Veranda, and subscribe, but know, too well, gardening is a pitiful stepchild to most editors.  Great exception was House & Garden magazine during the 80's.  See any at the junk shops buy-buy-buy.
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Pic via Veranda.

Large Pots

Something new to desire.

                           
                        And I don't mean man or child.  How did I miss these pots in Paris?

Desire, undervalued & counterintuitive.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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Wonder which client past/future will have these in their garden.  Love Magic Man, I know he can make them!  Will have to tack on a pair to an order for me-me-me !
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pics via Paris Through My Lens.

Design Simplicity

How little can you do

yet have a full narrative with your exterior?
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic, Paris Through My Lens

Bicycle Basket

Exactly.

I want one on the back too.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Described this to Handy-Man when I found a trio of bikes.  He got that glassy-eyed 'women-are-crazy' look.  Popped my balloon about being original, seeing the pic, but gave me a Cheshire cat smile because before the sun sets, Handy-Man will see this picture.
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And, Handy-Man, I want all my bikes to have 2 baskets.
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Pic via Paris Through My Lens

How to Design Your Garden

The most important garden views are from inside your home, vanishing threshold.  Laura, below, told me yesterday, body language, there was something GOOD in the garden.

I'm glad she did, otherwise I would have missed, below, completely.

Just outside the window, above, Torte-de-Shelle, her mother (now spayed) & my garden cat a neighbor left behind.
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Who needs TV with these delightful dramas?
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Design your garden for every window view.  In the garden, design your home's interior for every view into the windows.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday.  Much better drama, above, than earlier this year when darling Laura climbed the drape, shown, and pulled it off the wall.

Lawn

What is the fascination with lawns?

French parks have beauty, children playing, adults relaxing, Nature thriving, without lawns.  For centuries.
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Notice the choice to leave the tree trunks alone?  Brave.  Perfect.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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pic Paris Through My Lens

Penelope Bianchi: Interiors & Gardens

With heart-on-my-sleeve, & happy obligation, pro bono is done each year, and making my voice heard by our state's largest trade group.  'Voice' was asked to lecture this month about Social Media.  Oops, there is a price for 'voice' being heard.  

Too many in my industry are not using Social Media's platform.

Owning every room I lecture in, props are set.  I do 100's of acres, what is a mere room?  Setting one of my journals down I had a 'moment'.  Miss Confidence, yes Puppet Barbuda, with less than 60 seconds to start, saw, above, pages from an old journal.

My journals make my eyes, brain, & soul HAPPY.  They have pages of beloved words, below.

These pages, below, delayed my lecture.  And changed how it began.

Journal was haphazardly opened to these pages created years ago of a home/garden.  Though busy, my eyes were drawn into stunned revelation.
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This is Penelope Bianchi's garden, above.  I had torn, squished, watered, dried, flattened, taped, written happy words with Penelope's garden.  Into my journal.  Moons ago.
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Puppet Barbuda honors few gardens in this manner.
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How is it possible in this huge world of peoples, distances, time I fell in love with a person's garden, & Providence conspired for me to meet the person, fall in love with her, and only then realize I loved her garden before I loved her?
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Go to Penelope's garden, here, and you will fall in love too.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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top pic Penelope's garden, other pics from my journal.  My journals are a secret weapon for serenity & hearing grace.
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Penelope, You must know this experience made me, literally, woozy when it happened.  Everything you write to me about my work was mentored by Mary Kistner into my quiver of knowledge.  She's been gone for a decade, I miss her so, and yet I've met 1 person who embodies all that she was.  You.  I love you Penelope.     XO T