Massee Lane: Millstone Collection in the Garden

Millstones collected for a lifetime & sited in David Strother's garden, now a public garden.

  Many were slave made.

Today, 1 millstone in a garden is special.  Hard to find, expensive, and getting it home & setting it in the garden, for most, requires men & equipment.

Concrete piers support these in the pond.

Doormat.

Only a handful are setting on the ground.  Showing off.

As time passed this pair, above, could have been sited where the evergreens are.  Their value, literally & historically, of incredible value.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken at Massee Lane Gardens, Fort Valley, GA, last weekend.  From their site, "The formal camellia garden at Massee Lane had its beginnings as the private garden of David C. Strother in the 1930's. He surrounded his farmhouse with camellias. Year by year, he moved out the garden borders to accommodate the camellias he wanted to plant. It is said he never included a camellia he didn't like, even if it were given to him! Mr. Strother donated this land to the American Camellia Society for its headquarters in 1966. 

Mr. Dave collected millstones and road markers - the millstones he brought into the garden have become a trademark. The old wire road mile markers, some with the mile number still visible, add another dimension to the garden. 

More than a thousand varieties of camellias are here, plus sasanquas, fragrant tea olives, Lady Banksia roses, and delightfully scented daphnes.

Enjoy a walk down Dave's Ville Walk - lined with his favorite camellia, 'Ville de Nantes', and admire his handiwork and smell the delicate aromas of tea olives. Always feel free to leave the pathways and walk among the camellias to find your own personal favorite."

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The daphnes & tea olives were blooming, and almost overwhelming.

James Farmer

James Farmer, below, gardens, flowers, interiors.  

In Perry, GA.

His shop was closed Sunday, but I liked everything I saw.

Had lunch across the street at The Swanson.  Real food, cooked on site.  From scratch.

A quick trip to see the camellias peaking in nearby Fort Valley, GA, stayed at the New Perry Hotel, in Perry GA.  You know which room was mine, it had the balcony !
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If you're ever in middle Georgia this trip is the Southern thing to do.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Camellias tomorrow.  Wish I had taken pics of the old movie theatre, above, it's transforming into an antique shop with booths.  Pic, above, Roadside Rustic.

Orchard Wall & Gate

Credentials.  Every element designed.  My general contractor had the audacity to ask if I sited the daffodils.
Receiving my gimlet eye, no words, he quickly backed away a couple of feet.  Literally.

I was at the jobsite this month siting the newest layer of plantings.  The guys loaded them from the grower, above, early in the morning.  My contractor spent over a week sourcing them.

Caterpillar had to be used to move each plant.  Planting holes had to be dug by hand due to electric/gas/water.

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I staked location flags for the load of plants then zipped the acreage shooting the pics you've seen the past several days.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Some of 'the guys'.  Hardworking, pleasant, humble.  Without them, no gardens.

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Considering the top pic for a logo.  Still amazed every element is designed, newly built/installed, yet Jane Austen rustic.  Everyone got it right.

Front Porch Simplicity

When the competition is an old Pecan Orchard I know to go simple, below.

Soon the tea olive, above, will engulf the end of the porch.  And then be pruned into a tunnel, for the pure life necessity of leaving the porch at its tiniest entry.  Silent Partner doesn't think this is needed.  He has his reasons, I have mine.  200 acres and I am particularly interested in this square foot.

My competition, above.  Fields, Pecan Orchard & Home, a perfect trinity.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken this month at jobsite of several recent posts.  Leaving the Pecan Orchard alone includes creating Tara Turf, siting daffodils, boxwood & historic brick path, keeping fence at the road and saying 'no' to foundation plantings.
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Another fabulous Landscape Design making me unemployable to the largest landscape design/build/maintain companies across USA.  Planned obsolescence of irrigation, keeping fence, no foundation shrubs, no zoysia, no annuals.
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MATH on what 'those' companies would lose in installation & a single decade of maintenance with my design.  New fence, irrigation system & rows-upon-rows-upon-rows of green meatball shrubs. Lawn: 2 acres sod, mowing, irrigation, pre-emergents, fertilizer, edging.  Shrubs: several prunings yearly, mulch in the beds, pre-emergents, fertilizing, replanting annuals 2/year.
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Minimum annuals charge is $500/season by the best firm (of course I use the best, Simply Flowers, & of course they are needed in many commercial, and residential situations.)  Monthly maintenance $500.  Fence $4000, irrigation $4000, mulch 350/year, chemicals/fertilizer 200/year, &  foundation shrubs $5000, 2 acres zoysia sod $52,800.
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$141,300.00 for a decade of traditional USA Landscape Design.  My Landscape Design, above, $50/month maintenance fee, no foundation plantings, no irrigation, no chemicals, no mulch, little pruning, no sod, little mowing, keep fence, no fertilizer, no annuals, $6,000 for a decade.  (A kind woman, I give away the concrete foundation expense of the brick path, mine are in dirt.  Otherwise add another $5000)
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$135,300.00 difference. 
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Has the math sunk in?  
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My work/style is not meant to save money, yet it does.  It's historic Italian.  Enfilade from the interior of the home, pollinator habitat, a thanks to Providence, a joy to look at and live within.  When away on vacation my gardens are carried in the heart with a yearning to know everything while gone & return soon.  If you can leave at all.
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Chill Pill Urban Ag!  There are other ways in this industry to make money.  Ask Silent Partner !  Thank you for letting me be on your Outreach team.

On the Porch

Unused on an upstairs porch at the master bedroom, below, she brought the sofa downstairs near the kitchen and potager.  Much better, it's been used for a few naps.

My trugs are plastic, functional.  Hers look so good.

My favorite garden boots.  Ankle support, no dirt gets in, the boot works the shovel, not my foot.  Plastic clogs are great for most days but when it's digging & function it's my almost 30 year old Danners.
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Pics taken this month.  Same garden as several previous posts.  Graham Stuart Thomas is excellent on the garden boot.

Siting a Vintage Bell

They bought an old bell, below, and needed to know where to site it.

Have you considered where to put a bell historically?  Adore a new brain path.  Acreage, working acreage required signals.  Most important would be an emergency.  Secondarily, calling the hands to meals.  Here, above/below, the bell is close to the kitchen.

Soon the camellia hedge will obscure the cabin.  I do like the Double Axis pics, top/bottom.  Formal  & informal.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this month.  Same garden as several previous posts.

Eye to the Sky

Cone shapes draw the eye.

Draw the eye to the sky, use 1 per garden room.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken this month.  Same garden as several previous posts.

Lunch Ministry

Lunch Ministry.

Wildly productive.

Who do you target?  Why?

Providence conspired, for decades, to include Lunch Ministry in every Garden Design I create.

I say to certain clients. "You will have lunch and invite ________.  You'll join your Garden Club & host a meeting.  You will find a local Garden Tour, contact them and be included.  Friend getting married?  You will host a gathering.  You will send pics of your garden to xyz magazine."

She was gathering materials, above, for our lunch.  Things to talk about, information to share, not wanting to forget to include anything during our lunch.
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These things are not done for others.  Lunch Ministry is for you.  Your spirit.  Giving away what has been liberally given to you.  What you get back is profound & humbling.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this month.  Same client as several previous posts.  Please tell me you know what to do with the dirty dishes at Lunch Ministry.

Guest Room

Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, says bedrooms are best with windows on 2 walls.  

Windows on 2 walls in their guest room, above/below, With the good fortune of a

 fireplace too.  Local pottery, & feathers from their pastures.

 Outside the windows, below.

This doesn't mean much to you now, below, it is

foliage & buds for summer's blooms.  The native oakleaf hydrangea.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics taken at a client this month.  Same home/garden as previous several posts.  2 regions of the brain are accessed with the camellia & oakleaf hydrangea.  Wish I could see a scan of it!  At least I know the joy of what it FEELS like.  Too bad for non-gardeners, they aren't wired for this brain cocaine.    .
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Will get this entire room for you this year, promise.  You'll love the bathroom.  Views of the back porch......  And you haven't seen the bed yet.

Details

Multiple meetings with the mason, iron monger & carpenter.

Each with decades of experience.

Attention to details.

Each layer, their own voice.

You see, above, a messy wax myrtle too close to the gate.  By design, it will be pruned into a tunnel of green.  We are awaiting a bit more growth to prune.

Perhaps by year 3 a tunnel of green engulfing both sides of the gate.
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Yes, an idea from childhood, The Secret Garden.  I can still remember my 3rd grade teacher reading it too us after lunch.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pics at jobsite this month.  Same garden as previous several posts.
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Attention to detail?  Learned quickly studying historic gardens across Europe for 2 decades.
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. Details are not restrictions, they are liberations.

You Must Create Complexity Into Simplicity

Only the tree was here when we began. No gravel road, walled garden, bushes, gate.

How do you create complexity into simplicity?  Expose yourself to the best gardens, burn their DNA into your brain cells.

Christopher Lloyd's , Great Dixter, below, inspired the topiaries in Tara Turf, above.

 Soon we can choose shapes.  Each yew will be allowed to speak.
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My reservoir is deep, understanding Themistocles, "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city."
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Have had the good fortune of meeting Christopher Lloyd in USA, we had lunch and toured several gardens. Met him again in his garden, Great Dixter.  Have no books by Lloyd?  You are not a serious gardener, yet.
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Same garden as previous several posts.

Front Porch Views

Common once-upon-a-time the cabin.

Built on acreage outside Athens, GA this 1 room cabin was 'home' for many years as monies were saved to build the main house.

Keeping some views pristine from the cabin's front porch honors its past.

 View, above, sitting in the rocking chair, below.  Daffodils were planted last year to look 'as if' they had always been there.  Georgia red clay, above, isn't a problem it's Providence.

Keeping the original pilings, above, was paramount.

Not far away is the home, already a century old, the family in the cabin dreamed, worked & saved to build.
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This story was common, once-upon-a-time in USA.  Hard work, saving, doing without, no security net, fortitude.  Plan B when Plan A fizzled?  Hard work, saving, doing without, no security net, fortitude.
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And the man who built the cabin?  I would be proud to walk 'his' grounds and show him my work as he told me stories of its past.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week, same jobsite as previous several posts.  This project is using everything I've learned in 3 decades, and teaching new lessons.  Adoring the drama of directing the eye, foot, tire, spirit.

Poverty Cycle Into the Music Room

The library across the hall, previous post, is moody with northeastern light.  The music room, below, hums in southeastern light.

Eastern light, below, in the mirror, southern light, window above.

The garden view, below, is one of my proudest achievements.

I took the garden, a century old, to its Southern roots in time & place.  Using the Poverty Cycle.  Looking in the window, below, seen, above.

Tara Turf to the foundation, granite curbstone step instead of green-meatball-foundation-plantings, drifts of daffodils as-if-they-were-always-there.
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Plenty of areas to play & show off in this garden, and I have, but without using the Poverty Cycle the garden would lack soul, character, integrity, & have too-much-uneducated-ego.  Of course you've deduced, this is my ego, above.  This is a portion of the front porch, hence, double ego!
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken last week at jobsite.  Same garden as previous several posts.
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Ego for doing-the-right-thing makes me unemployable to the largest design/install companies across USA.  Why?  It's all about sales.  Are you beginning to understand the prevalence of green meatballs & foundation plantings and, and, and?
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Oh my, a little Puppet Barbuda this morning.  Uneducated ego?  Testosterone-on-wheels-mow-blow-go-commodify-all-I-touch-get in fast-get out fast-sign my contract-pay me every month.  Sad, you'll pay later in lower house value, higher HVAC, increase maintenance expenses, poison  ground water with fertilizer, destroy pollinator habitat, and worse, harm your spirit with ugliness.  

Design Interiors From Outside

Front porch, below.

 Lamp seen from the front porch, above, and from inside, below.

Further to the left of the lamp, below.

You do know this already?  Interiors must be gorgeous from every garden view.
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Your home is the focal point of the garden.
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Walking with new clients, around their garden, seeing an ugly interior view I will turn my head, look into their eyes and my right eyebrow goes up.  Enough said.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.  Same home as previous several posts.