Front Porch: Formal + Informal

Design Rule: Contrast.

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A touch of the Queen + Ellie Mae Clampett.

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Urn on Plinth + Galvanized Buckets hanging with ropes.

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Your garden must tell me who you are before stepping inside your home.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic taken this month.  Jeri Farmer's lovely home/garden was on the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival Garden Tour.  Jeri & Susanne refreshed the garden this year and time/money were both running short yet pots were still needed for the ferns.  Of course Susanne said, "Put them in galvanized buckets."

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design Rule: Hint of Invitation

In the bright morning light, below.

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Hint of something, saying, come-this-way.

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Gravel path, boxwood, bench & hydrangeas.

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Paths should engage: foot, eye, mind, heart.

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The language of invitation.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pic taken this month in Susanne Hudson's garden.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Window Valences: In the Garden

Since the early 80's I've collected vintage garden books.  From those the memory bank retained this window arbor, below.

A delight seeing them at Susanne Hudson's historic home.

Susanne's were just moved from back to front on her carriage house receiving a new coat of paint and light renovation.

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Yes, gardens do need exterior valences.

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Gotta love a color theme, of course the garden valences are white.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken last week.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Tool Bouquet

Tool Bouquets, below, used as sconces.

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Begun with rot, aka beloved use, these tools are prophets with honor in Susanne Hudson's garden.

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For centuries mankind honored the connection of tool to Earth as life sustainer.

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Betty Friedan  wrote about the 1st generation of women disconnected from hand-to-tool-to-soil.

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Their children would not learn the names of farm tools, their use, how to raise livestock, plant crops, cook, care take others, much less know how to feed their own spirit.  Bugs & weeds, instead of pollinators increasing crop yield, became poisoned inconveniences.

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Their children played in clouds of malathion as evening trucks fogged mosquitoes.

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(No time to rewrite, for this era, Friedan's work, back to tools.....)

Study Susanne's art of tool arrangement.  She's the best.

An exquisite wedding planner, Susanne treats Tool Bouquet's exactly like flower arranging.

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It's easier to find designer clothes at a thrift store than old tools.

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I'm always on the hunt for old tools.  And, seeing walls, inside or out, needing a Tool Bouquet.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Tree House: Harm No Trees

No trees were harmed in the building of this tree house.

Rough hewn wood was rescued from fallen trees on site.

The tree house is supported on its own platform and existing trees were built through it with zero contact. 

Most of the other materials were repurposed.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken in Susanne Hudson's garden last week.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Lamps in the Garden

The old altar table, below, has a new life.

In Susanne Hudson's garden.

 Doesn't every garden need lamps, books, gravel, art, a copper wash tub, large mirror, and

hydrangeas too?
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in Susanne's garden, it was on the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival tour.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Plant Obama Bowers Now

Something in Obama's tone made me believe his comment about American's energy bills needing to double.  This was during his 1st term.

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Results, in my garden, below.

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Crape myrtle 'Natchez', below, shades my house from sunrise to noon.

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The western sun was planted in crapes years ago.

Most money saved on energy bills involves discomfort.  Who wants to be hot or cold beyond necessary?

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Choose beauty for savings.  And more places for the song birds to thrive.  Butterflies & native honeybees too.

Before the crape myrtle blooms the Chinese snowball, above/below, blooms in the same garden room during March.

 Other crape myrtles in my garden save almost $40/month with electric bills for decades.
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Math is in the thousands, tax free.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Top pic taken this morning.  Bottom pics taken in March.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Garden Design Course: Free in a Single Pic

Under a pecan tree not much grows.

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Tara Turf is best.

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Why?

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Increased pollinator habitat increases crop yield up to 80%.

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 Susanne Hudson found herself with 4 benches needing a home.  Exquisitely, they found a home.
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Please put this on one of your Pinterest boards.  It's a free Garden Design course !
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Garden Design: backdrop, canopy-understory-groundcover aka ceiling-walls-floor, color, texture, scale, flow, garden rooms, mystery, serene, poverty cycle, curb appeal, focal point, subsidiary focal point, vintage theme, simplicity, low maintenance, pollinator habitat, urban gardening, structure all year.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic snapped with my phone last week.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

3 Reasons for a Checkerboard Path

 Checkerboard path, new.  Concrete squares, cheap.  Unskilled labor, mostly.  Easily traversed.  

With exceeding distance the drama disappears entirely.  (Go me, garden fact = people metaphor.)

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And, you can see more, above, of the porch from previous post.

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Checkerboard Path: Cheap, Easy to install, Easy to walk.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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Pics by Tara Dillard last week.  Susanne Hudson's garden.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Macro vs. Micro Design: Fail at Micro & Macro is Gone

Freshman year, 1st semester, a professor continually referenced margarine.  

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Stubborn, (skipped my senior year of high school) weeks passed before asking a classmate what was going on in class.

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Professor's fast/thick accent was saying, 'Margin'.  Economics 101, truly.  This one incident taught me, 'Wake up baby girl it's sink or swim.'

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This delightful man also used, macro/micro teaching methods.  Blessedly, got that immediately!

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Micro design, below.  Susanne Hudson's new porch.

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Seemingly insignificant, every detail, above, screams, "Pay attention to me-me-me !"

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The porch, perfect too, is macro.

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How important is macro vs. micro?

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  Without macro/micro, design (art) is incomplete.

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Landscape design is all about trees, hedges, paths first.  Then flowers.

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Human DNA loves flowers.  But, of course.  It's all about pollination.  Providence is divinely serious, with an obvious sense of beauty & humor.

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Driving in the car, too much, to appointments I cannot abide talking on the phone.  Not for safety reasons, my mind is lost in music & gardens & happy.

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Last week, Bonnie Raitt has been blasting her hedges in my car!  Repeat button on Thing Called Love.

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Once the epiphany about macro/micro arrived in Garden Design it arrived in Art Understanding.

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After listening dozens of time to, Thing Called Love, I still can't decide if it's the band or voice attracting me.

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Then I realize it's a good garden, her macro & micro are out of the ballpark with both.

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(Thinking in metaphor is the norm, you too?)

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Some weeks it's Cole Porter or Sinatra or Patsy Cline or Willie or Norah Jones or Mozart or AC/DC or Foghat or Bob Seger or John Williams or Elaine Stritch or......

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They get their macro/macro.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara 

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Pic taken yesterday at Susanne Hudson's.  Bonnie Raitt's pic from NPR.

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Treat yourself to Elaine if you don't know her, chose Ladies Who Lunch !  Remember, it's Broadway when it was truly Broadway.    

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Don't believe in spoon feeding anyone.  Label 3 elements of macro garden design.  Label at least 1 element of micro garden design.  Answers, above.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Design Deeply: Connecting Dots

Some of my best work, below.  

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See the connected dots in the garden, below?

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Those who understand hire me to design their acreage or townhome.

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Or, hire me to lecture across the USA.

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Some offer book contracts or ask for magazine content.

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 The best?  People who share appreciation of their epiphanies with my work, tell their stories, enriching my knowledge.

View, above, from client's Music Room.

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What type of Garden Design is this?

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Why do Garden Centers abhor this type of garden?

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What are the tough choices made?

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What type of ecosystem are you looking at?

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What is the relationship, and why, between the ground layer & tree layer?

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How does this ecosystem keep other layers on this property thriving?

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How many other layers would that be?

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Why would a PhD professor at UGA Ag school want his students to intern here?

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Why did Historic Williamsburg, after my lecture there last year, pick up many of the layers shown, above, for their topics in this year's symposium?

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What is the relationship between government laws & this type of garden?

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Took me decades to connect the dots, including myriad trips across the globe studying historic landscapes.

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What else is in this garden?

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Answers in previous posts.

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Did you realize my stories connect these dots?

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The teacher appears when the student is ready.

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Ironically, with this client,  land-plants-livestock-wildlife-weather-buildings-roads taught us.

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We listened.

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And we share.

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Don't live on acreage?  No worries, many layers are HOA approved & adaptable.

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What does this type of Gardening have to do with property value & HVAC bills?

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Yes, have taught at the local college for years.  Atlanta Botanical Garden too!

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I don't believe in spoon feeding knowledge, passionately sharing yes.

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Tasha Tudor believed in, "Take joy."  Here, it's "Take Knowledge."

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Both are there, always.  All you have to do is 'take'.

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Life conspired, teaching me, take both, everyday.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

 For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

This Old House: On The Cover

Their Macon, GA garden had a shaded back corner which neighborhood dogs enjoyed as a powder room.

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"Do something with the back corner", they said.

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Creativity is a Muse & this time she knew immediately there would be an 'L' shaped conservatory, #89 granite gravel, a chandelier hanging from the oak over a table.

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He knew of a recently condemned property, over a century old, ripe for rescue. 

Quite fun, the client, nor I, knew we were on the cover.

Their front yard, above.

More of their home, above/below.

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The garden was designed in 2010.  

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More than 4 years to this story.

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Due to work changes, the clients moved.

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Hired  to design their new garden, another historic Georgia home, we had a moment of grieving about their previous home/garden.

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Their new garden includes a Chicken Coop in the plan with Conservatory.

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Haven't had the call yet, "Tara you must come see the garden!"

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Steve Bender of Southern Living chose this garden & Ralph Anderson shot it.

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I first sent Lisa Mowry pics of the garden.

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Another surprise about this garden on Instagram, for Southern Living Magazine, written on Ralph Anderson's Facebook page, 

"Ralph that photo was put on SL's instagram page and it has gotten more likes than any other photo they have posted!! congrats!! "

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Recently had a call from Lisa Mowry about gardens to scout.  A national editor was in town blah-blah.

Gathered pics, did captions, connected with clients to get permissions & make sure they could fluff their garden for scout, wrote little stories about the gardens for Lisa all on days already too full with work.

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Lisa emails that the gardens were too 'hardscape' for their particular focus.  They would not be coming.  This 2nd story is the typical-common-normal story.  Decades of them.

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Any gardener, any, with credentials in the media, has done dozens of things that never fruit.

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Thank you to every client saying 'yes' when I call in a hurry asking a huge favor then nothing happens.

 For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning:

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.