How To Create Exterior Simplicity

The hedge is brilliant.  Vine on the risers is more brilliant.

Topiaried green meatballs are fun.  Terra cotta on the table?  Perfection.
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Notice the lack of pattern on the textiles?  Be careful with exterior textile pattern.  Very careful.
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Many interior rooms look onto this view.  Without going inside I know it's an obvious Vanishing Threshold.  Without going inside I know the owners.
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How little can the landscape have and hold together?  Whoever 'tossed' out this much simplicity is good.  Very good.
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Low maintenance, weekly blow & trimming 2x/year. 
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Choose a color theme.  It should flow from the interiors. 
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic via Cote de Texas.  When I worked at a nursery one assistant manager was incredibly talented at displays.  BUT, we would always beg him to stop.  He would create the above, BUT keep going.  On his off day we would cleanse the abundance. 

A Slope In Italy: Drystack Stone

Olive trees sold long ago. These stones have retained this slope for centuries. No mortar.A new Drystack Stone wall begun by a recent DIY client.
Copy brilliance, I do.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Cannot wait for my client to finish their wall & send a pic.

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A previous contractor told me (with attitude), at a jobsite, this type of wall could not be built, "It has to be mortared." Should have quit using him with that job. But he was young & I thought I was mentoring. Alas. Months later 2 women clients (they don't know each other) called me in the same week, using the same word, misogynist, about this contractor. I'm sure he's missing my referrals.

Copy Landscapes

Resist the temptation to be UNIQUE in your landscape. It will slow you down, and fail. You & your landscape are inherently unique. It's already there. Lipstick-on-a-pig when you 'add' uniqueness.
I fell in love with Susanne Hudson's little cloche's, miniature tools & wood shelves, above.
All year I've been collecting, above/below,
old wood shelves, antique English lead garden pieces & little cloches. Soon, they will be in my new conservatory. Just like Susanne Hudson.

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Poppets, everything in my garden is copied from somewhere. EVERYTHING.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Every effort at uniqueness does not fail, obviously. Don't let me sway you from trying something deep in your passionate soul bursting to get out. Ironically, uniqueness arrives in my garden when I DON'T try.

Still Life: Creating Effortless Beauty With Your Ephemera

Arriving at Pecan Orchard's home/garden a couple of weeks ago, below.Carrying landscape design paraphernalia my goal was to simply unload it from my arms. You know, the chaos of arrival.

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The pic isn't styled but it could be a catalog shot for: the chair, the boots, umbrella, baskets or perhaps a brick manufacturer.

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It would be fun to see a series of pics, taken throughout the year, at Pecan Orchard's iron chair. Without words the story of a family's life.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Poppets, did you notice my fabulous umbrella? My dear girlfriend brought it back from Spain for me. Alas, beloved girlfriend is moving to London at New Years. Proud of her professional successes but it stinks having her move so far.

Garden Room: 101

Before construction, Susanne Hudson & I knew our Garden Room was fabulous. Understatement yes? We designed architecture & landscape, decorated & styled with only items junked, rescued, borrowed. (Well, we did buy tin roofing, gravel & a few pots.)

Tiny, potent. Peek thru, below, see our potting table?

Alone, or with girlfriends, this Garden Room is a life changer. Virginia Woolf territory.

Delightfully different views into each side.

Leftover pavers from edging the gravel. Voila, a table. And a meadow, does it get any better? Yes, hearing the crunch of gravel, smelling the fragrance of meadow & woodland, sound of rain on tin, seeing the chandelier & lamps on at nite. Knowing you have a bolt hole.

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My favorite part? Building the garden & Garden Room with Susanne. And this was work?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Built for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, on site at Le Jardin Blanc in Douglasville, GA. Poppets, I had to spend several nites with Susanne while we created this Garden Room. Attended a Gala 1 evening. Progressive dinner another nite. Behind the scenes for a huge wedding at Le Jardin Blanc another nite. Mexican & margaritas another nite. Garden tour & Thai food 1 nite. Oh my, FUN.

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Want a Garden Room? Susanne & I can create one for you, contact here.

TUB: BEFORE & AFTER

23 years old, below, never used. Dahlings, I NEEDED a soak after gardening. Collecting affordable ideas from client bathrooms across the years. My new bath, below.

Clawfoot tub, circa 1910, was in my garden many years.

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Planned to paint the tub but its rust looked so sassy once inside it will remain.

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Easter afternoon I have grand plans. Gardening for hours then inside to SASSY. Epsom salts & a garden book by Beverley Nichols.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

SIMPLICITY

This is my weakness: leaf litter mulch. No edging. Moss & lichens. Evergreen flowering shrubs. Petals on the ground. Patches of bare earth. Bench & bush. Low meadow leading to wildwood. Fragrance. Sound of wind thru leaves. Birds. Beauty.
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Do you know yours?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Castle Renswoude Utrecht, Netherlands via It's About Time.

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Lighting

When it moves outside it's a trend. Fabulous lanterns. First Rules of Landscape Design: copy, simplicity, repetition.
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SENSUOUS, above. Crunch of gravel, trilling water, warmth of candle light, hearing refreshments poured from a pretty pitcher, feel of foliage upon your arm, repetition of color house-furniture-shutters-arbor-fountain-gravel, scale, flow, texture, vanishing threshold.
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Beauty w/Low Maintenance in the garden is sensuous & feng shui.
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Design, above, for yourself. Grace IS a destination.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, Michael Partino via Brabourne Farms

IT IS UNCOMPLICATED

This landscape had me at its gravel. Did you notice this landscape requires no skilled maintenance?
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Pillow? Already telling us something about the home's interior.
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Vines adding lushness without taking up space.
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Pot clusters created as still life's, art. Not some stupid notion of need-a-garden-idea-here.
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Do you feel the pots, bench, plantings, gravel leading you to the back door?
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Sense how this garden room can be as easily rearranged as an interior room?
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This tiny garden room gives a huge sense of the woman living here. Does your garden look like your inner self?
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Do you think this garden was professionally designed? Yes? Me too.
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If this were your garden room, and you didn't have it professionally designed would it look this good? More importantly would it have cost so little to implement? Of greater importance would it be as easy, cost effective, to maintain? Topping the importance list, would you have created a garden room inviting you to use it?
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PUPPET BARBUDA loves this Vanishing Threshold garden.
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Pic from the movie, It's Complicated.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara aka PUPPET BARBUDA

KISS: Keep It Simple Sweetie

How little can you do in your landscape and have it evoke in picaresque who you are? Splendiferous you.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Thank you Krystol for this pic