Showing posts with label pots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pots. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Nicky Haslam Guide to Lining Up the Pots

Do it like Nicky Haslam.



What is Haslam doing ?
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Copying.
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Specifically, below, he's lining up pots and statues/plinths, and repeating a minimalist color theme.
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Copy the copycat.  He's not original.
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Yet, totally original.
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Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.
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I discovered, Lining up the Pots, while on a tour of historic gardens across Italy decades ago.
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Been lining them up ever since.
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Not convinced?
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Still wanting to be original & unique?
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If it's beautiful in another garden it will be beautiful in yours.
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Every site is unique.
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Price point has no claim to this garden design rule.
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When choosing your pots to line up they must be so fabulous they can remain empty.  
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If the pots lining up do not match, their rims must be at the same height.
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 Liking a good sentence, it's not uncommon for me to bath with Nicky, below.

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Perhaps you should start bathing with Nicky.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Wall Street Journal pics of Nicky Haslam's home.  And, mine at bottom.
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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.
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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.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Top Garden Design Feature to Help Sell Your Home


For decades this, below, was a bare slope with mulch.


Now, flow exists around the entire home.
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Flow.  Is it easy to walk around the entire home?
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90% of my out-of-state Garden Design work has come from past clients hiring me for their new home. They've each said the same thing, "You helped me sell my home, fast."  The ubiquitous beauty, color, lighting, etc. was important but I know the, unexpected, #1 reason they assume their Garden Design helped sell their home.  Flow.
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Flow.  Get you some.
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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.
                                                                                 .
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.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Front Porch: Formal + Informal


Design Rule: Contrast.
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A touch of the Queen + Ellie Mae Clampett.
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Urn on Plinth + Galvanized Buckets hanging with ropes.

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Your garden must tell me who you are before stepping inside your home.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic taken this month.  Jeri Farmer's lovely home/garden was on the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival Garden Tour.  Jeri & Susanne refreshed the garden this year and time/money were both running short yet pots were still needed for the ferns.  Of course Susanne said, "Put them in galvanized buckets."
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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.
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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.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Garden Design Course: Free in a Single Pic

Under a pecan tree not much grows.
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Tara Turf is best.
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Why?
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Increased pollinator habitat increases crop yield up to 80%.
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 Susanne Hudson found herself with 4 benches needing a home.  Exquisitely, they found a home.
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Please put this on one of your Pinterest boards.  It's a free Garden Design course !
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Garden Design: backdrop, canopy-understory-groundcover aka ceiling-walls-floor, color, texture, scale, flow, garden rooms, mystery, serene, poverty cycle, curb appeal, focal point, subsidiary focal point, vintage theme, simplicity, low maintenance, pollinator habitat, urban gardening, structure all year.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic snapped with my phone last week.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
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.
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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.

Friday, May 23, 2014

2 Important Facts about the Pots in your Garden

All of your pots must be so wonderful they can remain empty.
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Every pot you own should be so fabulous it's fought over at your estate sale.
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A pot by Deborah Silver, below.

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Curating pics to Pinterest many Deborah Silver pots are on my Focal Points board.
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Her pots are seriously well chosen and the plantings majestically yet simply arranged.
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I subcontract pots, well executed pots, to 3 different specialty companies.
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Look around your garden today.  What are your pots telling you?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pic from Deborah Silver.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
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.
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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.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Garden Pantry: Staples

Bare essentials, below.


Pair of square planters, pair of round planters, and jewelry.
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Just as salt/pepper are pantry staples, gardens have staples too.
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Love the garden jewelry, above.  Garden jewelry?  The rails.  Pure jewelry.  Lights too.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic via Habitually Chic.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Friday, March 21, 2014

The Little Terra Cotta Pot: Give it Away

Terra cotta pots.


Your secret weapon to bring inside.
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Plainly with patina and an herb, or geranium.  Perhaps a topiary.
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An old ironstone plate.
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Once you get good at this, have several.  Invite a young kindred spirit to lunch, someone you don't know well but would like to.
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As they are leaving, hand them the terra cotta pot & ironstone plate.
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Lunch Ministry.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic via Fanci Taste.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Choosing Color at the Front Door

Moving the pots, below, a mere inch wider will make the doorway wider.
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Staining the pots the same color as the siding, and moving the pots 3" wider creates an entirely new entry focusing on the custom door.
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What is the right answer?
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Don't know without seeing the interior.


REPETITION,  is your best friend in a small space.


In the Daily Mail Associated Press pic, above, I forgot about the topic/article I clicked on when I saw these pots.  Elegant, understated, quiet, no need to show-off, seemingly bespoke.
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Ironically, & counterintuitively, designing small spaces is tougher than acreage.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic, 5th & State.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Friday, December 27, 2013

Creating Lush

Vertical lawn, below.


Don't have a stone villa?  Espalier a woody shrub.  No wires or trellis needed.
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Oddly, the perfection above is undone without the  rattan chair.  Then it becomes an ad for patio furniture.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Those white cushions?  Not in my garden, crape myrtle tree debris would win in a day!
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How lush can a garden be and have very little?  That is the best gardening question.  This garden, above, wins.

Pic Veranda magazine.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
.
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.

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.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Things That Inspire

Their home is large, and so are the drives, garages & port cachere.  Beyond the garages, a fenced garbage can area.  
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Really?  Beyond the garages?

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Guess where she keeps a garbage can?
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Of course, near the back door.
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Planter, above, is in my Garden Design.
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Behind the planter, her garbage can.
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Years of ugly, she's excited to see the planter from her kitchen & family room views.  
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic Things That Inspire.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Empty Fabulous Pots

Pots so fabulous they can remain empty are the best pots.
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Why?


What fun to doll-them up for a party.  And that's only reason #5.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Had the empty pot epiphany at Glamis Castle, and named this garden design rule, The Queen's Pot !  

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

How to Site a Focal Point

Chunky hunka aged concrete, below, is a railroad abutment ca. 1900, found in the garden.


Perfect for a plinth it was easy to place.  It's on perfect axis with the dominate gable of the house, below.


When something requires a Caterpillar to move, perfection is required.
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Driving the Caterpillar he says, Are you really sure?  These moments are amusing.  Of course I'm sure.  His eyes say, Glad I'm not you.  This is my job.  KNOWING where things go.
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Ironically, the urn is temporary.  We are still sourcing the right statue.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic last weekend at the jobsite.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Stephen Sills: On Acquiring Objects

"It's funny with objects.  If you're really passionate, and you really understand your sensibility, and you're patient, they will come to you..."


"That's what I love about the magic of objects.  You never really own anything in this world, but you can be lucky enough to possess something for a time, and enjoy it, and then it goes on to another person to enjoy.",


Stephen Sills in Town & Country, Oct. 2013.
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His simple gardens in the city are caressing arms.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics via Elle Decor.

Friday, October 11, 2013

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?


Remember Gertrude Jekyll's "....the first thing I consider, when planning a garden, is what to put on the house."
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For ease of maintenance I prefer espaliered woody shrubs.  No wires, no trellis.
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House & terrace, above, are vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pic via Half Pudding Half Sauce.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

How to Choose & Site Pots in the Landscape

300 acres, 3 'mostly' matching pots totaling 3 centuries of age and no pots placed on the property, yet.  
(Does the pot, below, tell you, "Touch me."?  If it does it means you are an old soul & kindred spirit.)


Pots must be so wonderful they can remain empty, if desired.  Here, they needed to match the history of the home & be within a certain size range.


Perfect, above, they do not draw attention to themselves.  And still allow seating on the low stone-capped columns.


2 men/pot setting them in place.  My general contractor said, as the pot, above, went up, "...That's a ballsy spot."  As if he earned a response.


3 years getting to this layer, placing pots.  Best part?  Looks like they've always been there.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last month.  Found the pots, plus several more, at Scott Antique Market a couple of months ago.
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Did you pick up on the major component of getting the right pot in the right spot in your landscape?  Something few are good at, patience.
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Knowing to choose pots that can remain empty is such an important 'discovery'  I claim it as one of my inventions.  If you think through the carbon footprint of 'annuals & potting soil & fertilizer' for container plantings along with your time & money you'll understand beautiful empty pots.
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Of course planting sublime pots is a layer of fun in the right season of a busy life.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

French Planter: Color

I put these planters across the front of a home last Saturday, though a bit larger.  


However, zero temerity for foundation plantings, plenty of gracious #89 granite gravel.


Not this big, above, but did put in this size for a home needing to hide garbage cans.
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Taxus x media 'Hicksii', pruned similar to Great Dixter's, is the plant choice.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top pic Old Long Island, bottom pic, Things That Inspire.  .
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Color.  Client house is gray, white trim, black shutters, apple green door.  Planters can be any of those but white.  A nice amount of space but not quite enough to handle the boldness of white.  Apple green is my choice but the gray or black are acceptable too.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Front Porch Plants

Choose pots, containers, plant stands so fabulous they can remain empty, if desired.


It's obvious, below, these plant stands can remain empty or filled easily for a party or whim.


Hydrangeas are in their black plastic container, hidden with erosion control fabric.
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This front porch is meant for reading, I'll give you something worthy: "Wendy (nothing to do with Peter Pan but short for Wendell) Howell was a grand American gone native (How yer dawgs?) whom I prized as a friend because she did not take to just anyone and made an exception for me.  She like whippets and whisky and had too many of both.  Lots of husbands (including a Roosevelt) had come and gone and she eventually settled with a lady vet in one of those Irish cottages which were rare then and now only happen on postcards.  It had an earth floor and stable doors and, in the sitting room, a vast opening for the fireplace where, if you bent down to look up the chimney, you could see a big patch of sky. At the entrance to the cottage was a sculpture of two whippets, old friends to me as they were an echo of a similar model by Gott at Chatsworth.  Wendy held a pilot's licence but luckily never offered to take me for a spin."  Debo Mitford.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken last month Susanne Hudson's front porch.

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.