Showing posts with label Gate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gate. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Edwardian Simplicity

Pecan Orchard needs a gate. A simple gate.Visiting an English country house & garden I fell in love with this gate.
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Simple, but not.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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This gate starts a conversation, Pecan Orchard needs a taller/wider gate. The garden, above, typically English, a wildwood beyond a gate luring you away from the formal garden. Wondering, finally, if you'll find Sirens, Nyads, Dryads, Satyres.... The last 2 sentences summing up the best of Landscape Design !

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Depth in Simplicity

Simplicity. Flat wall softened into 3-D with: light fixture, bell, foliage, arbor. Kinetics of bell, gate, foliage, light, invitation for eye & foot. Repetition of color. Just inside the gate, below.
Piquant surpise, below, look closely, an outdoor shower.


Not far away, below, more depth in simplicity with stones in the wall.

Surprise, a second gate, below.
A curve, using iron instead of brick & wood amplifying depth in simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken in Athens, GA last month. Same Italianate garden as previous posts. Begun in the 70's this garden is still evolving, enjoy walking thru it. A landscape design class could be taught here.
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Notice the diminutive light fixtures? Perfection. Leaving intact a design feature of th Edwardians.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Foyer, Hallway, Doorway

Welcome to the foyer, below. Beyond the terra cotta urn on a plinth is a hall leading to a frontdoor (iron gate). Ah, creation of mystery & privacy.
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MORE, poppets, if you can stand it !!! Gate & terra cotta urn are on axis with the bronze hatted girl in the previous post.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Landscape Mix

Old gate, below, in a new fence.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Another pic from yesterday's post. This lucky girl sleeps with her carpenter & yardboy. Aside from putting in the old gate in their new fence he also designed/built their deck & more....

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Don't Overbuild

Solving a slight drainage issue easily, affordably, without pooling water, without breeding mosquitoes & will last over a century, below. Path was terraced, #89 granite gravel poured, slope dug into with stone laid (dug in about 1"-2" at each base) angled into the slope.
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Unskilled labor required at each phase, above. Easily woman powered, or man.
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Water, now, follows the path. As does the eye & foot.
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Too often I am at a new client's landscape and discover French drains already installed. And already NOT WORKING. Excepting mosquito production. And They Are UGLY & Expensive.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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New path, above, in Jeri Farmer's garden. Not all areas, obviously, can be solved with the method above. Some areas, alas, do need a French drain. Dahlings, I don't want you oversold by a contractor wanting your money instead of the right thing for your landscape. Studying gardens in Europe I saw this same method used countless times in many countries. Built one in my garden 2 decades ago. Will find pic and post it soon. It's fabulous!!!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Checkerboard Flooring

Checkerboard flooring, below, in shade. Grass won't grow.
12" X 12" concrete squares.


Gorgeous all year. Affordable, low-maintenance, unskilled labor, rain water only. Add crocus, scilla, blue grape hyacinths.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Yesterday's client's office has a black/white checkerboard floor. Soon the garden outside her windows will have checkerboard flooring too.
Pic taken last week in Susanne Hudson's garden. She installed the checkerboard flooring herself. 18" X 18" concrete squares? Too heavy. Unskilled labor & woman powered.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

At The Gate


From the Tea Olive Terrace, below, looking into my backyard. At the same gate, in my backyard, below, looking into the Tea Olive Terrace.

Double Axis: 2 views fabulous. A fabulous view in 1 direction must be fabulous in the opposite direction.
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There are no exits in a garden, only entries.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in my garden. See the template? A Trinity of the Ages: Path, Gate, Boxwood. Ramped up: painted gate, gravel path, blooming hydrangeas.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Sacred & Profane of the Best Landscapes

The best landscapes have elements, below, of the Sacred
and elements, below, of the Profane.

Landscape design is about contrasts.
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The Sacred & the Profane. Got both?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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(Big leaves with small leaves, blue foliage next to burgundy foliage, pyramid forms next to horizontal forms, blowsy hydrangeas bursting over neat green hedging, spikey flowers by round flowers, & etc.)
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Top pic taken last week at Stone Mountain Park, bottom pic England.

Monday, May 10, 2010

A Landscape Design

Think this is unkempt? A landscape design, above, an illusion of country. Nature. Not one leaf is unconsidered. The dirt path? Part of the landscape design.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Took pic in England.
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Living with a manicured lawn yet love the garden above? Yes? Life is too short not to have a garden nurturing your spirit.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

CHOOSING A WHITE LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Last Friday I was in Douglasville, GA, below, at Le Jardin Blanc.Completed by a doctor, as his private home, just after the Civil War it's close to town & the railroad tracks.
Friends Susanne Hudson & Jeri Farmer bought & operate this manse as a wedding, events &

tea house. Suzanne designed a white themed landscape. Their budget of nothing but creativity & resourcefulness produced a white garden beautiful & easy to maintain. (NOTE: Jeri & Suzanne are women-of-a certain age with only pennies to put into this landscape yet its fabulousity helps sell their venue. Indeed, their landscape is woven into their business plan. Moral? YOU CAN DO IT TOO.)


Doublefile Viburnum, above.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Other pics of the Doublefile Viburnum include dogwood & #89 granite gravel. Don't you love their white picket fence?
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Suzanne & Jeri also created the annual Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival. It's June 4-6 this year. A garden tour, vendors: plants-fine arts-antiques-jewelry-food-more, a standard flower show, shuttles available. Flower show & Main Street Market are Free, Garden Tours $25/person.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

OWN YOUR SKY

Chinese snowball, Kwansan cherry, cypress + dwarf abelia hedge, below. Ha, now the dwarf abelia hedge is apparent, below. You see my gate.
Glimpses, below, of the Bay Terrace. Shot pea gravel, adirondack chairs, terra cotta pots.

The street view, above, of my tiny sweet garden. Excepting the sky. As designed; I own the sky. Nothing tiny or sweet about that.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken 3 days ago. Wish I could say all of the above is original. Nope. Historical landscape design: ceiling (trees), walls (shrubs), floors (gravel), hedge, gate, axis, pots, furniture, bloom sequencing, scale, flow, color, focal point, textures.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

ENTRIES

Landscapes cannot have too many entries.Not always gates or doors. Use pair of: trees, bushes, urns, stones, wattles, columns & etc.
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Entries in gardens are PROOF of garden magic. No matter the direction, they are always entries. Something I try to remember about life. It may feel like an exit but it's always an entry.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via It's About Time. From door, bricks, edging, vine, vista, colors, lichens, meadow, season, I can feel the coolness of the bricks on the palm of my hand, the push & sound of the door trying to open it further & smell the air.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

PURE ROMANCE

Deepest winter, camellias in bloom, a pierced brick wall, a boxwood sentinal,

perennials peeking through, the dormant vine enticing me to come back.
This bit of garden, last week in Charlotte, NC, displays many desires.
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I want to know how to make cast stone urns, a pierced brick wall, forge an iron gate, paint a watercolor of this scene, write a poem about nature's delight & of course garden here.
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Perhaps this is why my contractor told me, "You are a gay man in a womans body." Ha, most of my girlfriends want to do these things too.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken last month at Wing Haven.






Wednesday, February 17, 2010

IRON: Ugly to Fabulous

Lost my head in envy seeing ugly Ranch Burger iron welded (why didn't I think of this?) into fabulous gates, below.


AND they are flanked with a pair of heterosexual

statues.





Gates, statues? Where do they lead?
DAHhhhhhhhhhhLINGS, last week

I entered the gates to the promised land, above. In Birmingham, AL.
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Each piece sourced from around the globe........more later. Ta ta, tootles. Must draw a landscape design this morning.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in Birmingham, AL.

Monday, February 1, 2010

STUDIED INSOUCIANCE

Charming insouciance. But not enough. If this were MY wood the gate stays, posts are replaced with split locust & the hideous new wire replaced with rescued old wire.
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Dahlings. Really. Indeed. Informal wildwood landscape design is as serious as a designed formal potagere.
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From Mirram-Webster, INSOUCIANCE: lighthearted unconcern.
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You think an INSOUCIANT woodland walk in my garden is serendipitous?
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Garden design is pairings: ying/yang, formal/informal, & etc..............
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from House & Garden magazine via Brabourne Farm.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

This IS Designed: FRISSON

Old tools, old shed, below, works every time. Totally designed, above. Ha, you thought it was an area 'not done'? Hardly.From the same garden, above.
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Create FRISSON in your landscape.
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Tension between formal/informal. Ying/Yang.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken in Susanne Hudson's garden.

Monday, January 18, 2010

EXPANDING ARCHITECTURE

Welcome, below, begins at the gate. Imagine the landscape, above, without the gate/arbor/fence. Much smaller. Expand your architecture, leverage your welcome.
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Resist temptation to use a property line for fencing.
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The more entries a landscape has the better a landscape is.
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Placing a gate on axis with your frontdoor creates an enfilade, a view thru to a view. Most desirable.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic on Lane Realty, via, Hooked on Houses.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

PRAY, LOVE, GARDEN

Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert was fascinating. A page turner to the end. Reading was what I imagine watching a slow motion train wreck to look like. 1995 had me Gardening & Praying, fiercely, for 2 dear friends & a mother-in-law with cancer. 1996, all 3 gone. A humbling way to learn to pray for God's will, too.
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Christmas 1999, discovery of COLLEGE BOY's choices. Choices made without my knowledge. Choices draining every dime I ever earned or invested. Almost losing my house/garden.
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Into my garden I went. Already friend it became confidant, nurturer, comedian, storyteller, peacemaker, mirror, shaman, shock absorber, grief counselor, career coach, home & more.
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Oh my, the women I've connected with the past decade because of my garden. Women who have faced a violent husband/boyfriend, the murder of a child, an alcoholic spouse/child, solitude of raising children & more. They too turned to their gardens. What I love most about these friendships? We LAUGH.
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Talk about troubles? Ridiculous. We talk books, food, movies, gardens, design, careers, travel, and silly stuff from shoes to men.
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It's amazing how many find a path from survival to thriving in their garden.
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I travel local/national/international for work but I TRAVEL FARTHEST IN MY GARDEN.
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Eat, Pray, Love gave me awareness of a trinity in my life. PRAY, LOVE, GARDEN.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from my front garden. Decided to move Christmas lights to the gate, they look fab, and keep them there all year. Fine, I'm hearing the lyric, "Like my girls a little on the tacky side." too!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

LANDSCAPE DESIGN: MOON GATE

Can you read the landscape design elements supporting this Moon Gate? Canopy trees, understory trees, coarse texture, fine texture, dark green foliage, light green foliage, cone forms, arching forms, horizontal forms, round form, branching forms, coarse stone, fine stone, plaster surfaces, wood plank surfaces, wood shingle surfaces, filled space, empty space. This picture, alone, a landscape design class.
Taken at Atlanta Botanical Garden last week when I taught a class.
The Japanese garden is looking the best I've seen it throughout many years.
A tiny garden, it lives big. Behind the wall, above? Covered seating to enjoy the view of the garden. It's another landscape design class with a pond, stream, bridge, plantings & more.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Monday, August 31, 2009

PHOTOGRAPHING YOUR LANDSCAPE

Having trouble landscaping? Look at your landscape thru the camera. Not metaphorically, literally. Even the brownest thumbs are intuitive landscape designers thru a camera lens.
Looking at a picture & knowing: something bushy goes there, tall here, get rid of that, throw out those pots, curve the shrub border this way, add groundcover in that bare patch, move the chair closer, need new light fixtures, and the house cannot be painted white another moment & etc.
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Your thoughts are probably on target but you don't know which plants, what color, style of furnishings, shape of terrace or lawn & etc. Then you get frustrated and toss out ALL of your ideas.
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Slow down. Trust your instincts. Take a landscape class about plants, take another about design & tour gardens. If you can't slow down, of course, hire a landscape designer. For DIY use the camera to help you design.
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Pics, above, were a surprise. The gates are at each end of my side garden. Not close in the landscape it was interesting coming across the gates, together, in photography. Seeing them together changes my perception of the side yard. How odd.
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Always learning.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara