Showing posts with label Still Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Still Life. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Wickedly Neo-Unprepossessing

Across Europe the best gardens, with attenuated home of course, invite you thru a neo-unprepopressing entry.
 Arriving, above, I knew it was a carriage house or guest cottage.  How?  They told me I would lecture in the porte-cochere.  Executed to perfection, below right. 
 Whoever owned the estate HAD ME at the curb. 
 In the porte-cochere, above.
The bench is a metaphor for the house and garden.  Detailed, quality, elegant, enduring, comfortable, welcoming.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Did my 4 lectures in 2 days last weekend in the porte-cochere, at Sugarloaf Country Club Garden Tour & Boat Show.  This house & garden donated proceeds to Mothers & Daughters Against Cancer.  Of course I have more pics for you.

Monday, April 2, 2012

This Landscape Never Has Chores


Under the Chinese snowball Saturday.


I don't have to do any garden chores.  Ever.  Have you noticed?
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Sure, the petals will have to be blown when they brown.  How can that be a chore?
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It's an act of grace.  And thanks.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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When you have good garden accidents you know you've done it right. 

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Still Life

 Waiting, below, for the next event.  Quiet still life.

 Her old Dairy Barn coming alive for various gatherings. 

 Simple.   
Meeting needs.  Spare, with deep richness. 
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Abiding.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken earlier this month.  Her sense of abiding is palpable.  A gift.  When she told me this inner most feeling I understood immediately.  Feeling atonement on my land. 

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Steal The View: Stone Wall

Classic Landscape Design, below, focal point with backdrop.
What you don't know?
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Bench, tiny flagstone terrace, pots are at the property line.
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Behind the bench?  Trees & low stone wall are on the neighbor's property.
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Landscape Design rule: steal the view.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic taken last week in a client's frontyard.  Love a win-win.  My client's garden looks larger and the neighbor's garden looks larger.  And, this new garden area has a 'presence' immediately.  So much of landscaping takes 'time' to develop a presence.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Intimacy In Large Spaces

A folly in the landscape.  (aka, a one-room cabin.)

Light from the landscape a palpable force.
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Beyond the door, acreage in open meadow & wildwood.
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Design intimacy into landscapes with acreage.  
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Let Nature reign in open meadow & wildwood.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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Pic taken at a jobsite last week.   I wish you could walk thru this door, into the acreage.  Know the spirit of this land.  The stewardship of its owner, dancing with Providence.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Design So You Don't Have Style Anything

She set her hat down, below, before coming into the house.
She wasn't home yet when I took the pic last week.
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My favorite type of pic.  No styling.  Real.
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This is her life.  Unfiltered.
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Simple.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Seeing another woman, over a decade ago, set her hat down upon a kitchen table creating a beautiful vignette without effort, I knew, design interiors and exteriors leveraging life and be beautiful.  No styling.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Seating On A Deck

Pair of matched chairs. Works every time. If it's wood in her garden it's painted her special green.Directly below this deck, pathway to her rescue run. She rescues & fosters dogs.
From this portion of her deck, below,
you can see her wooded frontyard or the backyard & lake.
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Seating areas are throughout: garden, porch, deck, dock, woodland.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Same garden as previous post.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

How To Color Echo

Most important, below, Landscape Design feature? SIMPLICITY. Nothing between view, meadow, lake. (Bushes seen were already there. Client asked for more bushes! Puppet Barbuda KNOWS Mr. Testosterone-On-Wheels-Mow-Blow-Go-Commodify-Everything-I-Touch would, indeed, put more bushes here. CHA-CHING. )
Those chairs? Ubiquitous plastic wally-world cheap. Painted, they become HERS.
At the top, above, of her drive, colors arranged to PERFECTION on a simple bottle tree.
Colors Echoed in the chairs beyond.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday at my client on Lake Coweta, she's DIY, in Newnan, GA. Her garden is on tour today. Can't wait to show you more of it.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

How To Design Delight

Necessities of life delighting me in other gardens. Gravel, chair, hydrangeas-roses-sasanqua-boxwood, collection of old watering cans. Of course I designed them into my garden.
Provocateurs of epiphany.
And beauty.
Filled with rainwater from the same storms killing-destroying in North Carolina, Chinese snowball petals fragrant at the top end of new decay.
Always, on to the next season. Always.
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Always, leaving this season. Always.
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Frisson, more delightful & engaging than perfection, to me.
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What is delightful to you in a garden? It's this simple, yes, to design delight into your garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from my Potager this week.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Blooms, Wicker, Toile

Bringing home blooms this week, below, in the back of Tess.Blooms - Wicker - Toile !!
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Puppet Barbuda delights in trinities.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Tess is my little van. She has 6 doors & is tricked-out for ALL things garden designing, lecturing, touring, shopping. Tess brakes for Open Gardens with Tea & Scones.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Still Life: Is This You?

As she came in, below, she set her hat & pruners on the window sill.It's a peculiar fetish of mine.
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Life creating still life without effort. The detritus of your life telling a story, beautifully.
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She? I snapped the pic in Ireland. Yes, Helen Dillon.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Friday, March 18, 2011

Ireland: Helen Dillon & A Classic Tablescape

Helen Dillon's Irish garden, below.All the potted plants from South Africa, all terra cotta pots, all full sun, landscape design rule of big leaves with small leaves.
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Timeless. Did I take the pic last summer or 1998? (Big concept, taking advantage of it? The best gardens across the globe do.)
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Travel assignment, visit Helen Dillon's garden in Ireland be sure to have tea/scones too.
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You thought this was just a table-in-the-garden-with-a-few-pots? Hardly.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Formula: 2 Chairs + Table

Woodland, palace, mid-century modern, cluster, townhome, shotgun, split-level ranch & etc.2 chairs + table; works every time.
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Of course, you must choose the correct vernacular.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Another pic from MIXSON at my job in Charleston, SC.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Something To Make You Smile


Last year when I designed her landscape her kitchen was sheet rock. Last week, below, still unfinished it's already fabulous. Sheepishly, she said, "I know it's ridiculous but it makes me happy to look at my new chandeliers."


A wise observation. Over a decade ago, in Penny McHenry's garden, I realized the same thing about things that made me smile. Her garden, tastefully, had many.

Near my front door, above, the cat. I bought the cat for no other reason than it made me smile.



Go ahead, give yourself permission. Choose things that make you smile.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Monday, November 29, 2010

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.

Friday, October 29, 2010

NYTimes & Anne Raver: Backwards Design

30 years with a beautiful flower garden, Page Dickey, finally creates a fabulous Landscape Design. "We need an overall plan: more green architecture & less plants.", she says. How? "The first step is to replace perennials with shrubs & ground covers."Page has arrived. ATONEMENT.
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Anne Raver, yesterday's NYTimes, knew to lead her delicious garden column with these facts. It's human nature to garden backwards. Flowers are seductive.
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Magazines & nurseries pimp flowers.
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PUPPET BARBUDA is miffed her industry, Landscape Design, is tainted with the Flower Pimp industry.
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How many flowers do you see, above, in my conservatory?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Poppets, did you see the pic of Page Dickey? I want to look like her when I'm 70, sexy gorgeous !!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Tables: Square or Rectangle

Still life, pot collection, flagstone terrace in dirt, groundcovers, vines, conifers, meadow, high & low density for maximum pollinator habitat, contrasting textures & colors(foliage), color of window trim, timelessness, Vanishing Threshold, rectangular table, & which continent is this..... (Did you really know so much was in this gorgeous pic?)Puppet Barbuda cannot abide round tables for terrace/patio/deck.
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Puppet Barbuda loves square or rectangular tables; they are so flexible. Pushed next to your home, a rail, edge of terrace, behind a bench.
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Puppet Barbuda loves the flexibility of 2 square tables; used separately or pushed together.
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Imagine the pic, above, with a round table. Ick.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Tara Question: Pic of your patio/deck should answer, "Is this so wonderful I must see the garden & is this so wonderful I must go inside & see the interiors?"
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Pic from Dana Gallagher. Puppet Barbuda knows there are exceptions to her round-table-disdain.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Desert Dweller

At the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert are axis views of landscapes & gardens. Vanishing Threshold, seen-lived-designed-photographed by landscape architect, David Cristiani. Above & below, same line, 2 views, Double Axis.
Creating Double Axis, AND, the still life, below. David expands the world in each detail.


Walls, arbor, vine, sidewalks, neighbors, plant combinations, pots, colors, below, made me laugh in joy. Why? How often do you see SO much look so simple?
We know it's beyond simple. It's MAGIC.

From his laptop, above, another axis & more than magic. Grace.

A bedroom view, treated as a painting on the wall.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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All pics taken by David Cristiani.
David, I really do laugh out loud, & learn, seeing your landscapes & gardens. You are ANAL about Vanishing Threshold, Axis, Double Axis. Providence smiles in simplicity & grace within your work. Thank you for sharing your talents.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Shotgun Lot

Only a few feet from this window, below, are the neighbors, below.


From a front room view, below, see the brick chimney? It's where this antebellum home was 1st located. As family fortune increased they built a new antebellum home on the same site, moving this home to its current location.


In the same room, as above, another view, below, on a different wall.


With a smile & sparkle she proclaimed her home the "first mobile home in Athens, GA."
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Yes, poppets, this is the same home as in the previous post.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last month in Athens, GA. Stay tuned for more interior shots. Beautiful views from shotgun lots are among the hardest achieved.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Details in Simplicity

Simplicities: trim color is not a bright white, no window screens, interior window treatments are elegant, lights on inside, contrasting foliage textures, contrasting foliage colors, espaliered lushness upon home, well maintained, easy to maintain, urn is fabulous enough to be empty, urn is not hugging wall of home or frontdoor, classic template of centuries copied, design is elegant in winter, makes me want to see the interior, makes me want to see the rest of the garden, the landscape describes the owners. Front of home, above, and its backyard, below.
Shown in yesterday's post too.

A retired couple lives here. They maintain the garden.
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Two important questions to ask yourself about a pic of your home.
1. Is it so wonderful I must see inside?
2. Is it so wonderful I must see the entire landscape?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in Athens, GA