Hand-to-Earth: Recipe for Figs from the Garden

Wealth in a bowl.

Figs, sheep's milk, honey.  A trinity from the garden.
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This is sustainable.  And, a choice.  An acre of land, a few chickens, a couple of sheep, bee hives, potager, a pleasure garden to increase pollinator habitat, & connecting hand-to-Earth.
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Hand-to-Earth.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic Amanda Brooks.
 

Garden Design: Double Axis are Mandatory

Walking into my back garden this week, below.

Looking from my back garden, below, toward the same gate.

Double Axis.  Design a beautiful view, go into the view & turn around and design a beautiful view in the opposite direction.
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View, above, is one of my chief treasures.  Why?  You're looking into the neighborhood where 2 streets & several houses meet.  Chief treasure is understatement, pure pride.
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Have zero objectivity about my garden, none.  In my garden I feel tightly held by Providence.  Sorrows are taken into my garden & diminished, joys are carried into my garden and increased.  The toughest questions of my life have been taken into this garden, and answered.  Events have unfolded that were unacceptable, and my garden embraces me with great nurturing until acceptance is indeed found.  When I was in Texas and knew my father would not live thru the nite I went into an empty hospital room to figure out how to breath, not fall down, fight the grief.  A clear thought came into my heart, "You will go into your garden and figure out how to live without him."  From that moment grief began to recede.  Merely thinking of my garden began healing me.  My garden is more than my best friend, it's where I experience Providence.  Of course I adore, "G*d almighty first created a garden."  Perhaps it's this simple.  Copy the One who made it all.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken this week in my garden with my phone.

Petersham Nurseries: Cafe, Nursery, Garden, Entertainment

Are you on Petersham Nurseries email list?  

Get on now.

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Their pics are Garden Design classes.  And balm to the soul.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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pic Petersham Nurseries.

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Have never physically been to Petersham, merely a mental traveler.

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I travel farthest in my garden.

Front Porch: Take that Rail Off

"Take the rail off", I said.  Friend, not client, we knew the obstacle, husband.  Years passed. Now, below.    Understand intuitively who took the rail off & built the new step?

Ahead of the curve, they sold their lakeside mcmansion, and moved here, her childhood 2B/1 bath cottage.  When it's full of their 5 children, 15 grandchildren, & friends (lucky me) the house does not feel small, only unlimited horizons of love & joy.

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"Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now?"  William Stafford.  Gifting this lovely quote to my dear friend who lives in the cottage, above.  
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week.

Features to Copy from this Room into the Garden

In the garden you know exactly what type of arbor is required, below.  Arched, 3' deep, iron, creating an enfilade punctuated with an urn on plinth matching the one below.

Repetition, is one of your strongest design tools in the garden.  Maximized with interior repetition.
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Color & pattern, very easy to copy from this room into the garden.
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I never tire of a client saying, "I love that."  Exactly, I copied it from their interior.    Yes, it's that simple.
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Garden  & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Cote de Texas.    Why an iron arbor to match?  Contrast.  Yet, if the client wanted heavy cottage style I might do the wood.

Designing Redolence

Not only historic, I want my garden designs to be redolent of having read, and adored, E.M.Forster.  Jane Austen, Wendell Berry, my grandmother, you get the message.

A garden must be more than 'there', it must take me somewhere.
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For decades I've known, I travel farthest in my garden.
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The owner of this garden, above, discovered me in my gown getting pics at 6am.  I knew it was she who created the magic.  As I walked barefoot in the dewy grass we meandered while she told me her garden's story.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Piper's Cove, Jamaica.  The resort was built in the early 90's and she could only afford tiny plants.  I know exactly how she feels about each one.

Historic World Pivot Point: Rarely Captured in a Garden

Remnants of historic gardens, from garden design studies across the globe for decades, create a trinity: woodland, low meadow, stone focal point.

You are looking at, above, when-the-music-stopped.
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A concrete terrace built during the 20's for evening dances, think Gatsby, was topped with a stone fountain during the 30's.
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It is rare to see, in concrete, when the world shifted.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic Shaw Gardens, Jamaica.  Had quite a 'moment' when I saw this, of course my friends were happily obliviously walking past fast, before I told yet another garden 'thang'.  Poor dears, they had to tolerate my 1 track mind.
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Know what else you are seeing above?  Maximum pollinator habitat: high density with low density + water.

Vanishing Threshold: Dining Room + Landscape

Where, below, do your eyes land?

Mine went straight to the urn outside and its placement dead-center on the French doors, vanishing threshold.
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No accident the photographer caught it.  Douglas Newby has quite a nice day job !  We know the truth about easy day jobs, they require work.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Douglas Newby.   Photographers & interior designers rarely pay attention to Vanishing Threshold.  I START every Landscape Design at the Vanishing Threshold.

A Real Man Cave

From our lunch table overlooking the Caribbean the Cave Man stories intensified, Do you want to see the man who lives in the cave?  I did see him, he's 2 feet behind his fishing net, below.    

With every intention of shooting him, once I saw him, I could not.  He possessed nothing but his dignity.
 

From our lunch table, above/below, the Cave Man's sanctuary.

Haven't we all had I'll-go-live-in-a-cave Robinson Crusoe thoughts?  The Cave Man's foyer, below.

Coming face-to-face with a person who is living that life I saw the poverty surrounding his choices and his deep courage in retaining his integrity & spirit, though the choices take him to death.  He is free, burdening no one.
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No, I could not take his picture.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Again my love of seeing gardens across the globe stuns with epiphany.

Landscape Design Rule: Repetition

When space is limited use repetition to make it appear larger.

Seems so right, above, hard to believe it's a landscape design 'rule' in action.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Shaw Park Gardens & Waterfall.

Shaw Gardens: Tea Terrace + Cannon

A proper Tea Terrace, below.  Unchanged for a century.  Must I tell you what a Tea Terrace becomes in the evening?  Wine & canapes on the terrace, of course.

When I asked about the cannon, below, Mr. Adams said, It's never been fired.  Where did it come from?  He said, Oh it came from up above.  How did it get up there?  The Spaniards carried it up there, he said.  (You realize he means the Spaniards contemporary with Christopher Columbus.  I hear, George S. Patton, Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of Man.)  FYI, Mick Jagger has a gorgeous estate where the cannon was rescued.    

Mr. Adams, below, of Shaw Gardens.  More than love his job, he loves Shaw Gardens & showing it off.
He said, Take it easy, dozens of times as we traversed steep grades.  Before arriving at the best views he would say, Look where you are going or you will go where you are looking.

Today, mostly, I wanted you to meet Mr. Adams, above.  And know his wisdom, Take it easy.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Cannot imagine the misery of getting that cannon up the volcano !  Worse, the misery of Mr. Adams ancestor at arrival in Jamaica.

Faux Bois: Shaw Park

At a century old the faux bois lamp post, below,

in Shaw Park Botanical Garden, Jamaica, is perfection.
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Walk too fast & you would think it was a tree.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

Stephen Sills: On Acquiring Objects

"It's funny with objects.  If you're really passionate, and you really understand your sensibility, and you're patient, they will come to you..."

"That's what I love about the magic of objects.  You never really own anything in this world, but you can be lucky enough to possess something for a time, and enjoy it, and then it goes on to another person to enjoy.",

Stephen Sills in Town & Country, Oct. 2013.
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His simple gardens in the city are caressing arms.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics via Elle Decor.

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?

Remember Gertrude Jekyll's "....the first thing I consider, when planning a garden, is what to put on the house."
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For ease of maintenance I prefer espaliered woody shrubs.  No wires, no trellis.
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House & terrace, above, are vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Half Pudding Half Sauce.

Darrel Morrison: Native Habitat - Designed

Immersion in native habitat for designed habitat.  Left brain, right brain.

Darrel Morrison made it a science.  Creating grids from native habitat, similar to archaeology, to create designed habitat.  And he does not neglect 'spirit'.

With expectation of 'professional' enrichment Nature's landscapes are my favorite vacation zones.  Intuitive learning.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics from web.  Have only heard Darrell Morrison speak once, decades ago, a man ahead of his time.

Garden Design: Airstrip Neighborhood

The brilliant 'Urn Idea' atop their low columns was nixed immediately.

Instead, we'll hunt for these caps, above.
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Brain dropsy, I had forgotten airplane wings must easily navigate the driveway.
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Every home in their neighborhood has a hangar + plane.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Used portions of the gate, above, for another client.  Hers had to be chicken/rabbit proof at the bottom.  It's obvious I have the best job within the galaxy.
 

Charles Faudree: Creating Relationship with Opposites

"Establishing a relationship between unlike objects adds to the interest of a tablescape.

An antique French figurine is a three-dimensional companion to the painted figures

on the English foot tub."  Charles Faudree

Contrast.  The Arts cross-pollinate.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic from Details, by Charles Faudree & Francesanne Tucker.
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For inspiration in the garden I have been going to interior design writers for decades.

How to Choose a Design Direction: Before/After

You know what to do, below, of course?  Extreme rustic requires extreme

formal, below.  Contrast is one of the sharpest arrows in your quiver.

Of course an allee was needed between the Chicken Coop & Long Barn toward the Pole Barn.

For added formality Crape Myrtle standards were chosen along with espaliered sasanquas, below.

 Not quite before/after pics, pairs of urns not sited correctly and another 2 years of maturity needed.
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Path is wide enough to set up small round dinner tables during parties or a harvest table with twinkle lites in the Crape Myrtle canopy.
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Are you doing this?  Design your garden to enjoy in the fullness of life.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics last month at a jobsite.  Wish you could have seen the heirloom turkey trying to get rid of me while taking these pics.
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Contrast won't steer you wrong and keeps you from ever being 'stuck' on a direction.

Penelope Bianchi Asked

Merely pretty?  Think again, this is serious business.  Without pollinator habitat we die.  

What is pollinator habitat?  Macro description, you want high density & low density in your garden.  Micro details,  trees-shrubs-groundcovers and open meadow/gravel terrace, water.  With plant selection mixed for something coming into bloom all year.

Penelope thinks she's merely standing in her beloved garden.  More, she's bathing in maximum pollinator habitat.
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Why care about pollinators?  Increasing pollinators can increase crop yields almost 80%.
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Wendell Berry has been writing agricultural essays for decades about big agriculture with machines-chemicals-devastation of communities (every pun intended) vs. small farms, mostly organic, producing more/acre than big agriculture.
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Have had a crush on Penelope Bianchi since first seeing her gardens & interiors.  Loved her before I knew she existed.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Both pics in Penelope's garden.

How To Follow Through with a Theme

Fine tuning the smalls, below.

Dried flowers from the garden & Jacob sheep grazing outside.
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From property line to the center of your home the theme should be who-you-are.
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Do I know who you are from first approach at the property line?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last month at jobsite.  Sublime to see her reach this layer of interior design, the tiniest touches amplifying who she is.
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Hardest advice ever received?  "Be-who-you-are."