Showing posts with label Enfilade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enfilade. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Garden Design: Bedroom Axis

Try this for your interior tabletop design.  The largest piece...outside.


If there is another window in the room, I swoon.
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You do know about rooms with windows on 2 walls?  We are hardwired for them in our DNA.  Christopher Alexander,    A Pattern Language, describes the architecture our souls desire & thrive best with.  
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Ginger Barber, above, decorating.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic Ginger Barber found at Cote de Texas.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Pot + Plinth: Making the New Timeless

From the 1st appointment earlier this year I KNEW a focal point should be on axis with the front door.


Earlier this week, above/below.


A few minutes old, above, this urn looks as if she's been reigning at least a century.
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She's designed empty, with a floral designer brought in for catered events.  Remember, a pot must be so fabulous it can stay empty.
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Found the pot/plinth resourcing materials at the Americas Mart with client.  A great 1/2 day.  Would have taken a decade, at least, to hunt/gather what we found !
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this week at jobsite.  Shovels, 5 men, a level, were involved getting this beauty 'right' !

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Port Cachere: Before + After

I was hired to 'refresh' the landscape.
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Leaving the port cachere as-is was not an option.  This is their main family door.  
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We went shopping at the Americas Mart in downtown Atlanta last month sourcing merchandise.  Not everything had arrived by this week but enough to get started, below.


This table is temporary, above-below, a very nice temporary.  Soon, once a vintage large French buffet is sourced I'll get you more pics.


I made do with the few pots/flowers she had last Monday, above/below.


Small moments of beauty, above.
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As she gets into her car to leave, and then returns, her port cachere is embracing arms for going into the world & returning from the world.  A matriarch in every layer of her life, she has a lot going on and appreciates all Providence provides.  It's in the small moment thanks are deeply felt.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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pics taken at jobsite last Monday.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Interior Design: Urn on Plinth

Urn on plinth, a little interior Garden Design.


Whoever thought this up, I adore them. 
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic ?  

Friday, September 13, 2013

How to Tame Trouble

Met a new client last nite with a no-mans-land of trees/ivy/invasives/drainage ditch/weeds.  Its ownership 'looks' like it could be their property or their neighbors.
What to do is quite easy.


An entry & path will instantly take ownership and tame the trouble.
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Clearing invasives, controlling ivy/weeds, planting desirable understory trees & etc... will take a bit more time.  Happily, now there is a road map.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
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Exciting times, their brown brick home with brown shutters will soon be WHITE !
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Pic Litchfield Hills, lost provenance of photographer.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Garden Jewelry: Windows

This kitchen was a 1980's time capsule at my first visit earlier this year.


With kitchen & house renovations complete I was back at the jobsite this month to fine tune garden plans.


The kitchen window is new too.


From the garden, below, the window is pure jewelry.


The bricks were saw cut to enlarge the opening, barely visible, and soon the bricks will be lime washed.
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Exciting times, I've never worked with a window so stunning.  Sure, we'll have cobblestone edging & a stone terrace but the window will still be the focal point.
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Have known for years exterior lighting is jewelry for the garden, now windows are added to the list of jewels.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this month.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Before + After: Path & Hedges

Hedges + paths are designed, and installed, before the borders.  Hedges + paths are the backbone-skeleton-workhorses of the garden.


Hedges + paths, above, 2 years ago.


Yesterday, above/below, with borders filled-in.


Follow this garden design rule and you'll save labor-money-time.
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TIME, more important than labor-money.  No person can manufacture more time.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Bottom 2 pics taken at jobsite yesterday, top pic taken 2 years ago.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Do You Know When to Edge a Gravel Drive?

Soon the crape myrtles will arc & touch over the gravel lane.


Designing this century old property back-to-its-history the edges of the gravel lane, above, have been designed with extreme concern.  Perhaps you think they are undone?  Not considered?  Messy?  Amazing how subdivision landscape design taints perceptions.  I can see Flannery O'Conner walking down this lane not a curbed concrete ribbon in one of today's subdivisions.
 

Yet, at the end of the crape myrtle lane, above, a parking court is tucked in with neatly clipped hedges & gravel edged with cobblestones.  Formality.  Bang.  Huge garden design decisions not meant to be 'noticed', but, deeply intuited.  Even by those not interested in gardens.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics at jobsite last week.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Create Mystery

A path into my tiny back garden, below.


 A coop, conservatory, flagstone terraces & etc. are slipped with precision into their setting.


Who wants to see everything at once?  Discovery & delight are fundamentals of garden mystery.
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Plants are allowed to be themselves.  Mostly.  Camellias, azaleas, hydrangeas, tea olive, roses, boxwood, itea, aucuba, akebia, daphne.  Something is blooming every day, all year.  Now, it's hydrangeas & crape myrtles.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pics taken last week in my garden.  The entire lot is a mere 8500sq. ft.  Paths are integral to creating mystery in my garden.  

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Is Your Garden 'Art' on the Wall?

Every garden view should be 'art' on the wall.


2+ decades ago I visited a garden in Greensboro, NC with every window view taken into consideration.  Every window.
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Again, something learned from an 'uncredentialed' gardener changing the direction, forever, of how I design landscapes.  Not once during college did any instructor mention being inside a client's home to design a garden correctly.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Castles, Crowns & Cottages.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Front Porch: Long & Narrow

Placing table + chairs at the 'L' of a porch must be in the helix of our DNA.


The web has enough pictures to fill a seductive hardcover coffee table book.


 At the opposite end of the porch, above, more seduction, below.




Places to read, serve a meal, have conversation a basic trinity for your porch.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics shot last month on Susanne Hudson's porch.  A field gathered collection of furniture with a tight trinity of color: green, brown, white.  Comfort oozes in her still life's.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Curb Appeal Before Entering the Front Porch


Don't tell me 'welcome' with letters on a sign or doormat, show me.


The curb appeal of this tiny frontyard says, "Yes, you want to see the porch, inside the home, and the rest of the garden."


And you're experiencing the potency of the garden's color trinity, without being aware.


Adore the smartness of cast stone urns filled with cast stone flowers & fruits.
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Get the color trinity?  Green, brown & white.  Trinity of the ages.  Low maintenance, serene, elegant.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics shot in Susanne Hudson's garden last month.  Girlfriend is serious!  Curb appeal + front porch fabulosity.  We are working on a book together and planning another spend-the-night this month.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Garden Path: Before & After

Leading to our porch garden, below.  Iron gates roped to the trees.  
Yes, horrendous security gates reborn with grace.


After the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, below.  Hard to imagine the gates were ever there.


Terra cotta pots, top pic, are Cinderella-after-the-ball, below.


In my garden, above, the pots are still where I unloaded them.
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"Scope for the imagination", as Anne of Green Gables would say.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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More of the garden Susanne Hudson & I created for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.
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Taking down a display garden is quite depressing.  It feels like the killing of a soul.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

In the Background

The armillary sundial is potent with its curves.  Have used it in many gardens thru the years.


This rarely happens, above.  The backdrop is gorgeous.  And not a bit of it is theirs.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic same garden as yesterday's post.  Backdrop?  Mostly it's neighbor's driveways, air-conditioners......

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Perfect Front Porch

Of course the patina of the rooster is white.  It's her theme.


To the left of their front door, below.


To the right of their front door, below.




Mary Poppins said it best, "Practically perfect in every way."
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic same garden as previous post.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Hiding Ugly Views

Pleased as the Cheshire Cat.  One of my chief accomplishments.  Do you see why?


A few feet away from my house, above, is a neighbor's house.
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Yet the view is a Woodland Garden: contorted filbert, hydrangea, camellia, azalea, hosta, fern, helleborus, bulbs, meandering path edged with tree limbs.  And the air-conditioner.
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It's a lifestyle choice.  Anything else, for me, is subsistence living.
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I travel farthest in my garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday, lovely rains all day.  The Woodland Walk is morning sun, with Tara's Trinity of the Southern Garden, azalea-camellia-hydrangea, there are blooms EVERYDAY all year.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Dining Room with Antebellum 'Feel'


The bones of this house 'feel' antebellum.  


Though it's ca. 1900.  


                                               Architect & owner knew what they were doing.


                        Doors, molding, ceiling height, scale & flow redolent of an earlier era.


Dining room, above, flows into the front parlour, and also the central hall and kitchen.
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It's great drama between these rooms with function, paint color, and natural light.  A treat to see a tapestry of color instead of the ubiquitous mono-color shown in most magazines and catalogs.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from same home/garden as previous post.  They've only lived in this home since last August.  It's obvious I'm running all cylinders to balance the interiors with an equally detailed rich-in-history garden.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

How to Copy Interiors into your Garden

She will have a stone roundabout with historic French church gargoyle setting atop a plinth of granite, at its center,  in her garden.


Quickly took pics in their home and realized, once I returned home & saw the pics, her Gargoyle Roundabout will be shaped like the central portion of the chinoiserie pattern, below, and outer line of the massed platters, above.


This happens all the time, designing in the garden and seeing validations inside the home.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics same garden as previous posts.  She is also the queen of rugs, picking & placing.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Central Hall: Front & Back Foyers

Built in 1900, they're the 3rd owners of this home.
Beautiful & tough hardware, below, on the door is original.


Aside from the scope of the land, an acre, a few large camellias & trees the grounds/garden do not exist.  A  30 acre Pecan Orchard in a state of Chekhov-meadow-reverie flows from the back garden .  Did I mention the entire length of the driveway abuts the Funeral Home parking lot?
Central hall, below.

She adores, and showed me a pic of  P. Allen Smith's front garden at his cottage.  Indeed, perfect, but I'll add heavy doses of Loutrell Briggs at Mrs. Whaley's Charleston, SC garden too.


We walked the grounds, had lunch on the front porch, walked the grounds again.  Her husband was able to come for the 2nd round of walking the grounds, and lunch too.  He loved my idea of Bahama shutters at the pavilion, and asked if they could be 3/4 vs. full length.  Fabulous.  Yes.  Love teamwork, makes me better.  A lawyer, he likes doing carpentry.  As I left he was already heading to Craigslist to begin the shutter search.
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Back door foyer, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday on the job.  I helped with their Macon, GA garden a couple of years ago, it's in Southern Living this year.  Who knew a move to Jackson, GA was in their future?  You will be seeing more of this home.  She did every ounce of the interior decorating from colors to furniture to art to rugs to knocking out walls.....

Monday, May 6, 2013

Framed Views & Historic Hedge

Every home should have numerous framed views.


This historic hedge, rare in USA, has a Friendship Gate pruned into it between neighbors.


They had dinner & shared champagne last nite celebrating Cinco de Mayo.
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What makes a historic hedge, aside from age?  A mix of plants: pass along plants, bird seeded plants, wind seeded plants, no invasive plants, tiered layers, something coming into bloom throughout the year.  If next to meadow, historic hedges are maximum pollinator habitat.  No watering, no chemicals, no fertilizer, hi density, low density, poof-viola, maximum pollinator habitat.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday.