Free Garden Design Class: Flow

 “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”

— John Muir, 1838-1914, American naturalist, author, and wilderness advocate

Arriving at jobsite yesterday morning, below.  Already knew: 3 generations, 80 - 7 mos., gather here, 400+ acres, cattle, 3 acre lake, view a mile deep from the back porch.

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Matriarch wants a new gate, below, patriarch a stone column.  Will match stones to the house, field gathered from the property, smaller stones as plinth with fieldstone topper as done a century ago.  Sourcing historic farm gates from England making every effort to keep this gate's frame & let an iron monger copy our new (old) idea.  

Do you know what an Alice In Wonderland house is?  They get bigger the closer you walk.  That's this house.

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Go slow reading this, v e r y s  l  o  w.

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What is missing, below?

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Flow.

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Cole Porter wrote about this house, don't- fence- me- in.

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Coming off the right side of the porch, I've put steps.  

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This door, below, leads to the kitchen.  What do you think I designed here?

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Seriously, design this, right now, in your head.

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From the corner of the front porch, and along the entire side of the house I've put in local gravel, 26' wide, straight to the foundation of the house.  A priority making things simple for the matriarch & matriarchs she's raised.  Aside from being historic they must unload groceries easily from their car.  

What else did I do, below?

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What would you do?

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Remember, Cole Porter.

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Have sited fieldstone steps, gathered on site, into hillside.

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More about 'exactly' where they go in another post.  Very easy, stay tuned.

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View, below, from the back porch.

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Have removed the 1st fence, not needed for cattle anymore, and put a gate, needs to be sourced, into the second, with a stile too.  A path of invitation to the lake, adding a flagstone terrace, fire ring, and Old Town canoe with tiny motor attached.

Do you see, below, Cole Porter again?  Where?
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Help, I can't get on/off the porch at the side of the house.
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At the open end of the porch, below, I have put in steps.

Fireplace, and 2 pair of French doors are inside this screened porch.

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Help, I can't get out.

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A pair of screen French doors have been designed into the far right panel, on axis with an interior pair of French doors, with stone steps.  You knew that, right?

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 You should be in the swing of this 'flow' thing.  Finish the song.
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1 thing left to do, below.
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What is it?
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A pair of steps off the left side of the front porch.
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Voila, FLOW.
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Garden design, for plants, must be vintage with no maintenance.  What do you think I did?

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Sleep on it.  Will post the plant design soon.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara

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Pics shot at the jobsite yesterday morning.

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This patriarch is one of the closest copies to John Muir I've met, though he looks exactly like Deke Slayton, who lived around the corner and my dad designed booster rockets for, with Wernher von Braun, and trained at the controls .  The matriarch?  I bow low in praise of her.  Met one of the matriarchs she produced, close to my age, at a jobsite we shared, and how I came to the work.  Matriarchs are a special love of mine.  Yet many do not produce matriarchs themselves.  Odd, yes?  When women of a certain age have not crossed into the matriarch zone it is Joseph Campbell, 'if you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere.'   Discovered Garden Design 'flow' at Lake Rabun, the family home I married into/out of.  Would marry that alcoholic again solely for what I learned about Garden Design at Lake Rabun.  Driven for Garden Design?  A bit.  Toss in decades of studying historic gardens across Europe.  Yes, I was anal enough to add a motor to the Old Town canoe !

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Flow is done in a Garden Design first.  Not plants.

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Please pass this post to any of your friends who are interested in Garden Design.  It's that important, aka it took me 30 years to be this simple, and sure.  And, my work for Hedgerow Farm.  

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.

Garden Design: Dancing Naked in the Potato Patch

Ca. 1900, below, a 1794 engraving.  Have designed across Atlanta for decades, of course I know where the best junk shops are, and go when clients are nearby.

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Tried not to buy this platter, barely $10, below.  Yet its image seared the might of Providence & what we've lost across centuries.

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The scene, common until post WWII, and in thanks of Providence.  Food & lifestyle & health & metaphor combined.

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Why WWII?  Cheap gas, in USA, and the selling of lawn chemicals to housewives 'needing' to protect their children from harmful insects.  Did you know housewives were a first target of international chemical companies?  

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Men needing their testosterone lawns.  Power equipment, weed free, deep green, perfect.

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Not where I'm going with this post, just a primer for the direction.

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Saw the cabbage truck driving, below, last weekend.  A few slid off on the curves & made cole slaw.  Understand the mood we were in?  Adult giggly, silly, happy for a fine day, and down time.

From childhood have adored garden sheds, garages, garden rooms.  The smells, tools, solitude, no adults near, atonement.

 Harvested last weekend, the dirt gracing these potatoes, below, made me want to find their field, take off my clothes and roll.  A primal urge.  I must be a potato'ist, or soil'ist, no man/woman has ever made me feel this way.  Skip naming my team the Redskins, I'm a potato'ist and can name my team the redskins.
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Soil on these potatoes is alive & asks my hands to reach out and touch.  I do.  There is benediction. Never felt in church.  Read, gout de terroir or, taste of the soil.   

Views from the farm stand, below, there it was again.  Perhaps a slight sprinkle of rain, everyone let's take off our clothes and go dance in the field.  This vanishing threshold of bounty & nature is high church.  Let's give thanks in dance.  Prayers in singing.

Along the side of the road, below, where we first saw the cabbage truck.  This is why Garden Design never bores.  Providence humbles.

Had a wonderful day of Joan Rivers last weekend.  She always said what everyone was thinking anyway.

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This is what I was thinking at the vegetable stand.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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I shot the pics last weekend.  

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Baby, hope this explains why I kept telling you to get the okra but my brain/mouth were saying squash.  Was lost in naked dance with the soil in the fields, thanking Providence.   

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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.

Why You Need to Know Dinky is Stinky

Aside from repetition- contrast- color- copied the window boxes are screaming one of my favorite Garden Design rules.

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Dinky is Stinky.

At the entry way to this hotel, above/below, are begonias.

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When I'm asked a question, and the answer is, 'Dinky is stinky", I know what comes next, widened eyes & complete epiphany.

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The best gardens know, Dinky is Stinky.  A treat to come across a commercial garden getting their garden right.

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Nothing dinky or stinky here, of course we stopped for a refreshing summer cocktail on a hot afternoon in the Great Smoky Mountains.

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 Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Pics shot last weekend.  Gin, elderberry, cucumber, lime, sublime.

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Those begonias !  Remember well, a tiny era during the 80's when interesting begonias were easy to find.  Those days, long gone.

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Collateral information, if you can count the number of flowers, you don't have enough.

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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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

The Best Garden Design Ideas

The best garden design ideas are simple.  And have been done for thousands of years.

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No worries, ever, about copying them.

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Each site is unique.

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Any garden design idea you choose to copy will be original and fresh in your garden.

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Focal point on axis with backdrop, below.

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With greater surprise as the garden is walked, there are more axis on this focal point, below.

Same table, above/below, as yesterday's post.

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Except shot from different axis.

Backdrop hedges are as important as the focal point and axis.

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Without the backdrop hedges you would see a mash-up of other garden rooms.

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Gardens must have mystery.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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I didn't want to copy pretty gardens when I got out of college.  I wanted to be unique.  Those unique efforts created cringe worthy gardens.  Aside from ugly, they cost money, and the worst loss, TIME.  No one can buy more time.

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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

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Garden Design: Beautiful Gardens are in Trinities

Watching a TV cooking show, many years ago, one of my most important Garden Design epiphanies.

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Creating magic, the chef said, "I'm using the trinity of Cajun cooking."

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EXACTLY.

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Tara's Trinity of the Southern Garden: Azaleas, Camellias, Hydrangeas.  Tara's Trinity of _______, became a lecture title.  And great handout.

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Beware, this trinity, below, is not for amateurs.  Yet, one of the easiest Garden Design Trinities accomplished.

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Garden path flanked with an entryway pair leading to a backdrop, below.

Keeping my feet planted, below, I've turned the camera to the left 2 inches.  The pot, above, at left, is the same pot, below.

Still keeping my feet planted, I've turned my camera to the right 2 inches, below.  Potted plant, below, is the same plant, top pic, at the right.

What is this Garden Design Trinity?  Trinity Axis: Backdrop, Living Room, Dining Room.
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Literally, interior architecture & interior design turned into Garden Design.
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Creating entries, hallways, parlors, etc 'outside' is one of my favorite things to do during the walk/talk phase of Garden Design.  Watching  owner's faces, 'see'.  Especially if they've lived in their home a long time.
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Best Garden Design Trinity to know?  You must choose a color theme, green-brown-white, is the enduring winner.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Shot the pics last month.  Have another axis shot for you from this same spot, stay tuned.
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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

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Garden Design Ideas: Double Axis

Garden Design is almost a features game.  A template of features show up in every good garden for over 10,000 years.  Literally.

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Focal point on axis, below.

Focal point on axis, below.

When the same focal point is viewed in 2 axis you have a Double Axis.

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You must have Double Axis with your Garden Design.

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At a minimum.

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But don't stop there.  Sissinghurst Castle has a male nude statue on axis from 5 main views.

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Do the math, that's 10 axis views.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Slow down, go back to the 10,000 year remark.  Why did I put it in?

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A little point made, you will not recreate the wheel.  Instead drive the known wheel, make it travel where you want.  That, alone, is enough to keep you occupied for a lifetime.  

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I shot the pics last month.  

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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Front Porch: Remove the Rails

No rails.

Shutters are full length door scale, adding 'height'.  Screen door with long top panel, and a plain bottom panel, again adding height.
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Gravel to the house.  Yes.  Downspout is piped away, and round, very nice.
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To enlarge the space further, add step across entire front & side.  More flow/movement.  Cole Porter's, Don't Fence Me In.
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Wonder how the shutter color is being used inside, curious about the color on the ceiling.
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Ironically, everything is done with a sure hand except the pots.  They seem like mere filler (or magazine staging at its pinnacle of pots/pillows) until the correct pots are chosen/planted.
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Historically designed, low maintenance.  Unskilled labor could easily keep this in shape.
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Maria Killam had this pic recently & nailed it on the color.  Made me laugh, all I could see was the 'entire' excellent garden design, color included.  Of course I'm always happy seeing a front porch rail liberation. Would like an architect to do a post on this pic next !
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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.

.

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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Learn to Love Garden Design Styles You Dislike

Didn't like these types of gardens, when I began.

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Didn't understand them.

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Decades, and continents, of study later.

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I understand.

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Love these types of gardens.

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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic lost provenance.
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Historic Garden Design, not ignoring answers for you.  Use your own brain.  That is the gift in this method of learning.  Do you already 'get' these gardens?  What do you 'get' ?  I had the joy of learning this way.  Why take that joy from you?
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Garden Design overlaps much with interior design.  And goes beyond.  As it must, Providence is on the team.
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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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Garden Design: Hydrangeas in Pots

Ripe. 

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 Notice, below, the color echo?  Wonder where the axis leads from the paired entry?  Garden design tenants are rife: spikes with rounds, all layers accounted for sky-canopy-walls-floor, contrasting textures, mystery, repetition, copied, color theme, change thru the seasons, low maintenance, maximum pollinator habitat, no chemicals needed, a historical template.

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Does your garden tell me who you are?  This one does, as all good gardens must.

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Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes, her sister asked, "Have you seen her house."  Frances knew, she's asking, "Who is she, what is she like?"

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Hydrangeas do great in pots.  Choose mopheads, PeeGee, Tardiva, Limelight, etc.
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Worried about hydrangea's brown sticks in winter?  Move on from that chapter, it's too shallow for you.  Good Garden Design backdrops normal changes thru the seasons in beauty.
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Focal points change by the day.

Tara Turf, above/below.  Garden Design is fierce in this garden.
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Fierce?   Simplicity is hard, keeping elements of the poverty cycle is hard, good Garden Design is hard.
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 Getting to this iteration of his garden, I know the gardener grew through, and blew through, many life chapters.  Many.
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 Self -will ended.  Gardenese is spoken here.  A life language.  More, the language of Providence.

Garden Design's status symbols, above, are now gravel drives, no edging.  Tara Turf.

At the front end of studying the best historic Garden Design across Europe I 'got' that.

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If you want this type of Garden Design, I can do that for you.

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If you want a Garden Design to meet HOA requirements, and no more, I will not do that, anymore.

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If you wish to push your HOA rules to the max, and have to ask for approval, I will be happy to do your Garden Design.

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Understand, I've blown thru chapters and books, and continents, to get here with Garden Design.

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Ripe.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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Pics taken this month.  Top pic best shows the humidity in the air.  Was with Susanne Hudson, Liz Tedder, and poor Martha Tate (we missed yo) had to zip in/out ahead of us.

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Think you can do Hydrangeas in Pots like this?

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Takes the full arsenal of Garden Design.

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Which is either simple or will take you a life time.

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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.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.