Garden Design: Dancing Naked in the Potato Patch

Ca. 1900, below, a 1794 engraving.  Have designed across Atlanta for decades, of course I know where the best junk shops are, and go when clients are nearby.

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Tried not to buy this platter, barely $10, below.  Yet its image seared the might of Providence & what we've lost across centuries.

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The scene, common until post WWII, and in thanks of Providence.  Food & lifestyle & health & metaphor combined.

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Why WWII?  Cheap gas, in USA, and the selling of lawn chemicals to housewives 'needing' to protect their children from harmful insects.  Did you know housewives were a first target of international chemical companies?  

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Men needing their testosterone lawns.  Power equipment, weed free, deep green, perfect.

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Not where I'm going with this post, just a primer for the direction.

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Saw the cabbage truck driving, below, last weekend.  A few slid off on the curves & made cole slaw.  Understand the mood we were in?  Adult giggly, silly, happy for a fine day, and down time.

From childhood have adored garden sheds, garages, garden rooms.  The smells, tools, solitude, no adults near, atonement.

 Harvested last weekend, the dirt gracing these potatoes, below, made me want to find their field, take off my clothes and roll.  A primal urge.  I must be a potato'ist, or soil'ist, no man/woman has ever made me feel this way.  Skip naming my team the Redskins, I'm a potato'ist and can name my team the redskins.
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Soil on these potatoes is alive & asks my hands to reach out and touch.  I do.  There is benediction. Never felt in church.  Read, gout de terroir or, taste of the soil.   

Views from the farm stand, below, there it was again.  Perhaps a slight sprinkle of rain, everyone let's take off our clothes and go dance in the field.  This vanishing threshold of bounty & nature is high church.  Let's give thanks in dance.  Prayers in singing.

Along the side of the road, below, where we first saw the cabbage truck.  This is why Garden Design never bores.  Providence humbles.

Had a wonderful day of Joan Rivers last weekend.  She always said what everyone was thinking anyway.

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This is what I was thinking at the vegetable stand.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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I shot the pics last weekend.  

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Baby, hope this explains why I kept telling you to get the okra but my brain/mouth were saying squash.  Was lost in naked dance with the soil in the fields, thanking Providence.   

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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.

Why You Need to Know Dinky is Stinky

Aside from repetition- contrast- color- copied the window boxes are screaming one of my favorite Garden Design rules.

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Dinky is Stinky.

At the entry way to this hotel, above/below, are begonias.

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When I'm asked a question, and the answer is, 'Dinky is stinky", I know what comes next, widened eyes & complete epiphany.

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The best gardens know, Dinky is Stinky.  A treat to come across a commercial garden getting their garden right.

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Nothing dinky or stinky here, of course we stopped for a refreshing summer cocktail on a hot afternoon in the Great Smoky Mountains.

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 Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Pics shot last weekend.  Gin, elderberry, cucumber, lime, sublime.

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Those begonias !  Remember well, a tiny era during the 80's when interesting begonias were easy to find.  Those days, long gone.

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Collateral information, if you can count the number of flowers, you don't have enough.

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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.

Garden Design Ideas: Double Axis

Garden Design is almost a features game.  A template of features show up in every good garden for over 10,000 years.  Literally.

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Focal point on axis, below.

Focal point on axis, below.

When the same focal point is viewed in 2 axis you have a Double Axis.

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You must have Double Axis with your Garden Design.

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At a minimum.

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But don't stop there.  Sissinghurst Castle has a male nude statue on axis from 5 main views.

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Do the math, that's 10 axis views.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Slow down, go back to the 10,000 year remark.  Why did I put it in?

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A little point made, you will not recreate the wheel.  Instead drive the known wheel, make it travel where you want.  That, alone, is enough to keep you occupied for a lifetime.  

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I shot the pics last month.  

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.

Front Porch: Remove the Rails

No rails.

Shutters are full length door scale, adding 'height'.  Screen door with long top panel, and a plain bottom panel, again adding height.
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Gravel to the house.  Yes.  Downspout is piped away, and round, very nice.
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To enlarge the space further, add step across entire front & side.  More flow/movement.  Cole Porter's, Don't Fence Me In.
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Wonder how the shutter color is being used inside, curious about the color on the ceiling.
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Ironically, everything is done with a sure hand except the pots.  They seem like mere filler (or magazine staging at its pinnacle of pots/pillows) until the correct pots are chosen/planted.
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Historically designed, low maintenance.  Unskilled labor could easily keep this in shape.
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Maria Killam had this pic recently & nailed it on the color.  Made me laugh, all I could see was the 'entire' excellent garden design, color included.  Of course I'm always happy seeing a front porch rail liberation. Would like an architect to do a post on this pic next !
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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.

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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.

Learn to Love Garden Design Styles You Dislike

Didn't like these types of gardens, when I began.

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Didn't understand them.

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Decades, and continents, of study later.

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I understand.

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Love these types of gardens.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic lost provenance.
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Historic Garden Design, not ignoring answers for you.  Use your own brain.  That is the gift in this method of learning.  Do you already 'get' these gardens?  What do you 'get' ?  I had the joy of learning this way.  Why take that joy from you?
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Garden Design overlaps much with interior design.  And goes beyond.  As it must, Providence is on the team.
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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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

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

Gathering Pears: Safety

Their mom wanted to move, the house was for sale.

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Her friends thought otherwise & connived an invitation for me, to come with them, to her luncheon.

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Since then, their home is off the market, we have become bosom friends sharing tears, laughter, grace.

Her husband is now one-of-my-husbands.  He's handy.  Their old deck obliterated, enlarged, improved, a game 'chancha' for their home.  All done with his intellect, heart, muscle.

The helmets were his idea, they had to shake the pear trees to get the last of them down.
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As the layers of my Garden Design arrive, these 2 sprouts, above, are always, as they should be, the focal point of the garden.
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Received these pics a few days ago.  Without words, they tell me I've done my job well.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Last winter's freeze caused pipe damage & flooding inside their home.  The entire downstairs affected.  Lost this husband to his interior work.  Now complete, we've got him back in the garden.  And, when it was time to put furnishings/art back after new floors, walls, painting etc. she did things so differently it was obvious she's entered a new chapter of life.  Simply from how the art has gone back up, the original lunch group 'saw'.
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Pics from client.  Thank you for permission.  Won't begin to tell you more about these girls, aside from how smart they are with common sense and lovely deep streaks of creativity, kindness, humor & wide ranging interests.  Manners, athletic.......and.
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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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

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

Be the Designer Families Pass to Children & Grandchildren

Why women hire me, below.

Of course I'm hired for many reasons but this is the best, grandchildren.
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Singleness of mission, driven by love.
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Of course they want to be the coolest grandma on the list, more, they want an enchanting garden to inspire & delight growing minds.
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This is a particular sweet spot, my grandma remains the best relationship of my life.  Understand 'grandma think' because mine nailed it.
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Have already designed dozens of gardens for clients, now grown, children.  Don't know when, but it's coming, I will design my first garden for a client's grown grandchild.
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Who knew this would happen, being the garden designer families pass thru  generations?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic The Lime Walk.  The greatest shocker?  Time.  Doesn't seem possible for this to happen.  Designing gardens is fresher, a greater desire, now, than when I first began.
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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.

Place Focal Points Like Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst

You must see the table + 2 chairs the way I first saw them, below.  Hidden amongst the boxwood parterre.

Walking a bit further, along the front garden's main central axis, below, a hint.

Walking toward this wickedly sited subsidiary focal point, below.

  Walking toward the home and old millstone table, below.

 Walking away from the home, the impromptu trinity of furniture in the garden, below.

Here's the deal with well sited focal  focal points.

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The more axis a focal point has, the better the focal point.

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There is more detail about this in one of my books.

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This isn't something you learn in school or a symposium lecture.

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You learn it studying the best historic gardens across the globe.

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For decades.

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I have a favorite, easy, multiple axis design.

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Works every time.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken this week.  Same garden as previous post.   Remember, the more axis a focal point has the better the focal point.

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Sissinghurst has a naked man statue, on plinth, with 5 axis.

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Hello, I was awake & got the epiphany.

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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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

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

Warning: Strawberry House

Viewed from the front of the house, below, the Strawberry House sits calmly at the side of his antebellum home.

Viewed from the back of his antebellum home, below.

When told it is his 'Strawberry House' the game changed.

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My life must include being able to say, "Let's walk to the Strawberry House."

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Until yesterday I was clueless about the lack of a Strawberry House in my garden & vocabulary.

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Adore anyone forcing me to up my game.  

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These are the moments keeping me in gardens across the globe.  

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The hunt. For delight.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken yesterday in the same garden as previous post.

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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.

On Houzz: Stone Steps in Waiting

Recently on Houzz here, below.

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Modern renovation to vintage home.

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Seriously good modern.

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Made me laugh.

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Why?

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Happens all the time with new architectural construction.

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Tunnel vision harking back to the old map makers, "Beyond this point there be dragons."

With long term clients, they learn to finish 'certain' landscape items sooner rather than later.
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How do I know?
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They tell my general contractor, "Don't tell Tara, we will not do XYZ yet but please put in those 3 stone steps so she won't be so upset."
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This beautiful old home with new renovation, above, went international with its 3 gorgeous stones 'not complete'.  In Tara Talk those stones are jewelry-for-the-landscape.  Setting is complete, stones are bought, please let the jeweler do their work.
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Best part of this home/garden?  Nothing has to be 'undone'.

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

.

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.

How to Create Wall Art Using Old Tools

Their collection, below, better than most museums.

Do not know the names of 95% + of these tools.

 Do not know how to properly use most of them.

Decades of scouring for old tools, never found most of these.

 If this homeowner is in Garden Club they're a perfect venue for a monthly meeting.

There must be someone who knows all these tools and could speak about their proper use, name, era, what the earlier/later versions were, what types of wood they are made from, how the metal was forged, which parts are handmade vs. machine made, how many decades of use they encountered, which crops each tool could help with, which parts of the country they were most widely used, what is their derivation from the European counterpart, & etc.

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Each tool, silent witness to greatness.

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Pulling Earth's bounty to our benefit.

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The action feeding mind, body, spirit.

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Perhaps this is the great metaphor from Providence, personally pulling Earth's bounty.  We don't work the tools they work into us every good thing.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Heading off to any trip Beloved has learned he must say, "We are not going into any museums."  Luff me a local museum.  Guess who always says, "I'm glad we came in this museum."

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Asked to lecture at a huge symposium for Atlanta Botanical Garden, they gave the title, Tools.  Honored to be asked, via phone this was pre-internet, I hung up in sinking fear.  What did I just do?  How can I speak for an hour about tools?

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Straight to my 8" thick Webster's dictionary for the Latin & Greek derivations of 'tool'.

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First definition is, 'weapon'.  Interesting.  Second definition is, 'penis'.  Yes, talk was in the bag.

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You know what happened.  Have been asked to give this talk many times since !

Took pics at an open garden this spring in Buckhead, aka Atlanta, GA.

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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.