Entry Ways: Flow & Focal Point

Studying garden pics on book/magazine covers since the 80's, it's not hard to realize the more entry ways a garden has, the better a garden is.  Enfilades rule.  And, the focal point is primo.
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Studying more deeply, it becomes obvious, entry ways in a garden are focal points, yet the rule for focal points is, One focal point per area.
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Breaking garden design rules, is inherent to historic garden design.  Modern too.
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Instantly, below, I wonder why the screened porch doesn't have a door at its left, and front.
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Adding the doors, a necessity, adds magic circles.  Flow.  As shown I hear Cole Porter, Don't Fence Me In.


Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

A Cure for the Green Meatball

Truly curious.  Did green waves, below, start life as green meatballs?  Hope these green waves sail a thousand ships.
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Fence color.  Perfect, enlarges the space, and the potted tree, again, color enlarges its space too.
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Both artworks sited on axis from the house, with pure museum backdrop.
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Gas grill is pruned into its niche, hiding from view.
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Little maintenance, merely blowing, pruning.  Would like to see same shot with the green waves at their peak of scruffy, before a pruning day.


Pic, above, here.
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Bravo to the pruner, foliage to the gravel.  Amazing perfection.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

How Exterior Color Travels Between Continents

Leaving Merida, Yucatan, below, a few days ago.
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Really?
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Yellow walls & a cantaloupe ceiling.
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Alas, there are a few things to know about exterior colors from one continent to another.
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Color, and how the eyes take it in, is affected by where the color is on the globe.  More, local soil,  vegetation, & humidity heavily affect how exterior colors 'look'.  Yucatan is a lot of limestone, and humidity with dusty white particulates floating in air, tons landing on plants.
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Here's what I know for sure about the cantaloupe ceiling, below.  Getting this exact cantaloupe paint color for my ca. 1900 farmhouse will not produce what I see, below.  Light is refracted differently at my longitude/latitude and Georgia red clay particulates float in air, refract from the ground, and land on plantings.  More, Georgia flora grows much taller than in Merida, another factor affecting how colors look.
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Then there are the clouds.  How clouds filter color must be considered too.
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So. This exact cantaloupe ceiling, below, is as much a trip memory as the lunch we had on the drive to Merida.  Unique.  Can't get this at home.



Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Porch Ceiling Blue

Front porch today.  Still life.  Calm.  Gardenesque.  Faces east.
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Bench hasn't been there long, yet already seen lots of use.  Bench & plant stand moved with me from my previous garden, surviving the great purge of Cottage Garden to historic ca. 1900 farmhouse.
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Ceiling has only been blue since Christmas'ish.  Huge surprise once painted.  It's gorgeous from inside the house, looking into the garden.  A good transition.  No, too small, a happy transition.  I had a narrow consideration ahead of painting, from the street inward, or in photos.  Pea brain.  Adore a good surprise in Garden Design.  This qualifies, big.
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Don't paint a porch ceiling blue for how it looks, paint it blue for how it lives.
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Looks vs. Lives.  A new pair.  Balances a favorite pair, Sacred vs. Profane.



Stain, Cabot, Driftwood Gray, solid cover, has already been bought for the floor.
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Time & money getting to simple is a grown-up dry humor.  Friend texted me pic yesterday of her lovely new gravel path, she shoveled into place with her young daughters, signing off with, hvac $12,000.00 just put in.  
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Who sells those T-shirts?  Owner: New Roof $.......   New Insulation $.......     New Car Tires $.........    New Washer/Dryer $.........  New HVAC $.......  New Windows $......  etc.  And, all of that is the normal good stuff in life.  Yep, quite the dry humor.
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More is the victory of a new gravel garden path, or simple still life.
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Filthy lucre.
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A woman said to our historic garden design tour director, in France, what a bother it was to get xyz done in the garden.  Without pausing he said, "Sex is a bother and we don't mind."  She had no follow up comment.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Annuals: Easily Have Them or Not at All

Great lip service is given to the quote, "I want my garden to be low maintenance."  What follows that request, as a professional listening to a new client, is the full monty destroying their request for low maintenance.
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I want to look out the windows of my home and the garden views, each and every one, are, "Oh wow."  More,  I want to enjoy myself in my garden.  You know, "Come for lunch this Friday, we'll have lunch in the garden."  In a few days it will be Saturday.  Zero thoughts contemplating garden chores, instead, "Should be a good Saturday to sit in the Adirondack overlooking lake, woodland, chickens, and begin reading my new book that arrived last month."
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About garden chores.  The few I do have are not 'chores', instead they are the gift of stewardship in partnership with Nature.  Best metaphor-come-to-life, to me, for washing-of-the-servant's-feet.  'Gift' is too small in scope, an honor.
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Back to low maintenance gardening.  A garden to be enjoyed, below.


Pic, above, here.

Colorful annuals have their place.  Somehow they've become the go-to-must-have landscape design ingredient.  Before epiphany, stewardship-not-chores, I knew if a residential landscape design 'needed' annuals, the design was a failure.  Commercial landscape design is another beast entirely.  Yet, thought thru, even they don't need annuals swapped 2x yearly.

 
Pic, above, here.

If you want annuals in your garden, above/below, fabulous method to make it easier.  Before eco/sustainable, having worked professional propagation for years, I knew how toxic the annual flower industry is to Earth.  Packaged soil, wooden pallets shrink wrapped with goods, plastic plug trays, plastic hoop houses, heating/cooling, fungicides, insecticides, pre-emergents, trucking/transportation, mulching.  Nope, nothing eco/sustainable there.  Instead, self-seeding annuals are my choice, if needed at all.
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Pic, above, here.
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Annuals could go into the garden, below.  But they don't 'have' to.

 
Pic, above, here.
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And the conceit of low maintenance, above, in this garden flows around the entire property, below.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Great use of colorful annuals, below.  You are in charge of adding the color, as needed, not the garden with a swath of dead annuals due to a change in season.

 
Pic, above, here.
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I'm giving a garden talk in April, they requested a certain title, Color in the Garden for Sun/Shade.  Sure I'll do some annuals, don't want to alienate any newbies.  Remember, stewardship.  In addition, I will include plenty of color used historically, green.  My hope is to widen horizons.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Color: Parts Department Overhaul

Today, yesterday also, and rest of the week, our parts department is awaiting paint.  Finally.  Amazingly, I keep finding chairs/tables to tote over to the menagerie.  This phase is metal.  Colors you see, below, robin's egg blue, from my previous 30 year garden, oak leaf green, from a flower show display festival garden I created, and the brown chairs are newbies from Restore, $5 each and the best quality chairs in the pic.  Soon, hodge-podge-lodge will be the same green already used on the shed doors of our ca. 1900 farmhouse.  Historic Garden Design Rule: Choose a Color Trinity, overdose on that theme, green-white-brown is the classic, but go with whatever your heart speaks.
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Major land renovations put this phase low on the list, exciting to finally be here.  The chaos has scrambled my brain.  What is the line from Beetlejuice, "I will go insane, and take you with me."



Choosing our green, below, last year was unexpected.  We were at Lowe's, Beloved turns and says, Get a color for the exterior doors.  Yes, the man thinks I can pull the right color from my quiver within 10 seconds.  Not my first rodeo, I knew he needed 'choices'.  Grabbed a few color chips, went back/forth inside/outside, gave him choices, voila, Ginkgo Tree, below.



Last weekend, below, the cedar & teak furniture was stained Ginkgo Tree.



Where I'm headed, below.  A return to sanity.


Pic, above, Penelope Bianchi's garden, slide show here.

Beloved built this deck last year, it's cured and ready for stain.  When we bought the property almost 2 years ago invasives were so thick the lake was not visible.  Yes, Beloved did all the clearing and burn piles.  Easier to understand why painting is low on The List.



(Laskett at right, above.  He's my CEO, and knows it.  Laura was conceived and born in my previous garden, she's my sprite. )
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We're matching the back deck to our historic front porch.  Flooring, Cabot, Driftwood Gray, solid cover, same as shingles, below.  Rails, Cabot, Thatch, similar, but better, to garage doors, below.  Thatch is new to me.  A client's interior decorator used it for the interiors of an enclosed porch I designed.  (Always a good day getting a new color trinity, especially one working with a 'historic' look.)  Beloved was not sold on Thatch with my descriptions, nor laptop or phone pics.  Took him to the client's site, sold.
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Happy for this chapter to turn.  Do take the Penelope Bianchi link, you'll love it, promise.
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Did you notice the garden furniture is Field Gathered?  No worries, color brings it into focus, aka, stopping the insanity.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Garden Design: Jackie Kennedy

This is my sister's favorite era, below.  It didn't last long.  Sister, same age as tiny Caroline, below, had a terrible surprise about a year later, I showed up in a crib.
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National news and Life magazine were rife with pics and film of the Kennedy's during my earliest years.  Cars.  In those days, they were CARS.  Even my dad worked in iconic design, have you seen the casing of a Saturn V booster, or the capsule of an Apollo rocket ?
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Perhaps the prettiest images remembered though, are the Kennedy worlds.  Vietnam, Marchin' Luther King, the University of Texas tower shooting, dominated our black white console tv with rabbit ears.  At my age, no cognition, merely reaction to visuals.   Though I must admit, even so young, I knew the beehive hairdo was wacko.
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Of course those Kennedy visuals were iconic.  The world's top photographers, and who was the interior decorator, below?  Which international couturier designed the dress, below?  Which maestro cut her hair?  So many layers of design, and professional experts.
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It's a potent Garden Design conceit, below.  Paint it all the same color, overdose on a theme, form/function with exterior furniture, keep it simple.  This is an iconic Garden Design example of your garden as backdrop, merely a proscenium, YOU are the star.  



Pic, above, here.
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Once I began to study Garden Design deeply I realized my schooling truly began during the Kennedy era.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Remember well mom's last salon appointment for her weekly beehive 'do'.  While they were finishing her up, of course she brought me, no baby sitters, I decided to investigate one of the hair dryers.  You know, the sit down, cover your head type.  At the head was an interesting coupling with screw.  More interesting, when unscrewed the entire head assembly pops apart and rolls into various directions, loudly.  Who knew there could be so many components, I hit the jackpot.  A snitty rat faced balding man came toward me leading his parade with a black plastic comb pointing his march.  He was so rude.  He made me stop my investigations, and I wanted to do more.  Odious man.
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Arriving for next week's hair appointment, mom stopped at the door, NO CHILDREN ALLOWED.  That previous week was her last beehive.  Go me !!
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After 3 decades I know the points in a woman's life she's most likely to hire me, when the last child begins school, when the first child is about to graduate high school, when the first child marries, when the first grandchild arrives.  And, within that list, of course, I know which is the most popular.  Have you already guessed?
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With the first grandchild.  More than a first grandchild, closing the chapter of  'doing' for others at great expense to self.  Husband always bought his fun/toys, kids had their due, now, 'my turn', total double dog dare anyone to make a remark other than positive.  That woman is powerful.
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If women took that power sooner in their lives, the world would be a different place.  Thus ends today's feminist lesson.  

Partake the Chiaroscuro in Your Garden

First, who among you already partake of chiaroscuro in your garden?  Dawn, dusk, both, a favorite?   Have you ever burst outside, to partake, after unexpectedly noticing from a window?  Do you have a singular, lifetime moment, chiaroscuro in your garden?
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I've never shot a chiaroscuro in my garden.  How could I?  Those moments too deeply lived.
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Quite good comparison, below, to chiaroscuro experienced recently, in my garden.


Pic, above, here.

Crossing the threshold of chiaroscuro, below.  Mere moments too.


Pic, above, here.

Again, moments away, below, from a complete chiaroscuro.


Pic, above, here.


Pic, above, here.
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Again, moments away from chiaroscuro, above, a life prize, subsidiary to the hunt for chiaroscuro.  Seems odd, we are given chiaroscuro, here, when so much that is not to be had or known, those things requiring philosophies or Belief, momentarily given.
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Late, a few nights ago, I walked in the garden, not seeking chiaroscuro, my mind, sadly, upon the profane, not sacred.  There it was, bathing me, hugging me, lifting me up, first noticed at my feet, pure, liquid mercury.  Quickly glancing up, there it was, moon thru our century old pecan trees, beyond what the top pic conveys.
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Made me smile, looking up, in thanks, and Belief.  What of the profane, bringing me to that moment?  Profane became a color, banished by chiaroscuro.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Garden Design Class in a Single Pic

Hello gorgeous, below.
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You got me with your almost brutally modern architecture, smashed into historic Garden Design.
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Then you dropped those orbs with a glint of art nouveau reverie taking a ride with Tinkerbell.
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Your furniture borders on cliche excepting it's an ode to cubism.
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Well do I appreciate the hands & intent pruning, a cocky marvel, to those who know.
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Finally, ending with how lush can you be with the smallest amount of input.
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You're darn tooting I want to see the rest of the garden.
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Pic, above, here.
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Adore garden pics telling a story, and teaching a Garden Design class.
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What do you see, above?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Saul Zaik: Integrated Indoor & Outdoor Spaces

Zipping with speed thru pics, this deck, below, stopped me.
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A hearty bravo to the brainwave.  Then, overdose-on-a-theme, the roof !
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Another bravo to whoever designed the interior of this home, from my favorite vantage point, the garden.  Landscaping along the windows is a bit odd, glass rectangle edged with ferns, creating a terrarium'ish style.  What to do instead?  (First, replace sofa with a pair of similar styled chairs, that turn 360.  Why the fortification of sofa only looking in?)  Remove ferns & existing path, replace with bluestone rectangles, sized in width from outer edge of deck, fully to the house, scaled in length to each window, spaced the same distance apart as the window frames.


Pic, above, here.
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Color of patio chair, echoed inside with the bowl, and dark gray from chimney top to foundation.
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Next.  Axis looking into the home is marvelous.  What is its opposite axis?  Double axis.  If you have a focal point in one direction you must have another in the opposite.  Has me curious.
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Lawn & large shrub at corner are thriving, sculptural.
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Almost a Garden Design course in a single pic.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT
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Notice the gutters at the roof line?  Great example of darkish color rising up into the roof.  Too often, gutters are painted much lighter than a roof, pulling the height of the roof lower.  Another counterintuitive Garden Design layer.

Garden Design Course in a Single Photo

In many others, and my own, there is a demanding Muse for Garden Photography.
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Every layer, below, Muse's demand, decadently satisfied.
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A Garden Design course can be taught from this pic, below, alone.
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Muse's demand?  Speaking to Jean Cocteau, Sergei Diaghilev said it best, "Astonish me.".


Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Want bonus points?  Label every layer, above.
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Love pairs of words, ASTONISH ME, double lovely !  Had to use this new pair after discovery in an article about Andre Leon Talley in NYTimes yesterday.

Front Door: Choosing Color

Thirty years I lived in this architecture, below.  Looming driveway/garage, wall with large windows, finally, a teeny tiny sliver, and voila, the front door.
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Garden Design's focus, at the front of the home, is the front door.  More than knowing you by your front door, I should know you from the curb.
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Fun opportunities ahead for this home, below.
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A few changes to make in the coming years, below.
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Move the flag holder from the column to a corner of the house.  No need to crowd the front door more, and zero design sense having 2 focal points side/side.  Garden Design rule, one focal point per area.
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Add stone, left/right of the sidewalk at the front door.  Take out the shrub, below, to the right of the front door, place stone, and to the left of the front door, remove the shrub, add stone.  Finally, breathing space.  And the front door 'stoop' opens to the left, and to the front.  Place a classic iron urn on plinth on the stone, to the right of the front door, at the brick wall.  Plant it seasonally, never more put a wreath on the front door.  Nor, have a cluster of pots at the base of the column.  They're crowding the space, shortening the column, and hiding a portion of the zone's best feature, a proper round column.
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Shutters, at right, below, need to be replaced with properly scaled shutters, with an arc at top.  Yes, very nice.
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Let's spend more money.  In addition to the stone already added, stone the front walk, and the front porch step.  Replace the light fixture.  Theirs is nice and more than acceptable.  Light fixtures are jewelry for the house, go for it.  More money?  Replace shutters at left with custom shutters too.
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These pics are from a color consultation by Kylie M. Interiors.  I've done exterior color choices for 30 years with my Garden Designs.  Along with patio/deck furnishings, views into windows with window treatments/furniture arrangement, lighting, urns, all in an effort to get clients OUTSIDE.  Never as an extra profit center, what a quaint world my career began in.
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Black front doors are hard to get right, when they are, wow, shazaaaam.  Mostly, black front doors look like a void, as if the door is open, not there.
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In addition to choosing a front door color to coordinate with house siding, roof, trim it must also, for me, pop from the interior art & textiles.
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Blue, below, is excellent.  However, I would need to go inside this home, see their art, and other color choices, before a final 'blue' choice.
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Choosing color this way is too fun, "Oh I love that color."  Well, I know, you've chosen it in your art.  A zone that makes you HAPPY.


Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design choices for, above, I see 'instantly'.  Having a brain 'fixing everything' is tiresome while driving thru neighborhoods.  How many times has Beloved heard, "Gosh I want this whole neighborhood." ?
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A past client posted a pic on Facebook yesterday, she's bought a new home out of state.  Many comments congratulating her.  Me?  It's obvious my comment to her, "You need me !!!!!"
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Client needing me, above, a lot like me, no kids, doesn't cook.  I designed/maintained her townhome garden for several years, decades ago, every Friday.  Chose that day wickedly.  Her townhome was in the hi-rent zip code of Atlanta, and Fridays were the best estate sales.  And I drive a truck,  A nice match, still living with many of those pickings.  One Friday, she was cleaning out her fridge.  She had left a large tin of lasagna in her fridge so long it had eaten thru the tin.  More stories with her but they cannot be written in this forum.  So, what kind of forum?  A lunch with me in the Conservatory, just a few of us gals, wine, laughter, everyone's stories.  There is my gold, for writing.  Wish I had been taking notes all these decades.  There is a safety in women's sharing.  All share, none will tell or they'll be exposed too.  Yes.  Total safety.  You men should be worried what is shared.
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No worries, I know the reverse is true with men !

Historic Layered With Mid-Century Modern

Divine smash-up of mid-century modern AND historic Garden Design.
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My kind of maintenance too.  Rustic, refined.  Sharp mind, sure hand.  
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Ooooh, that color on the furniture.  I'm in.  Had me at hello.
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How little can you have in your garden, and it's useful, and it's beautiful, and it's easy to maintain ?
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Keep it simple sweetie, check.  Pushing all the right buttons.
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Both masculine, feminine.
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Can you label the parts?


Pic, above, here.
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Canopy trees, understory trees, wall, floor, focal point, flow, axis.  Exterior architecture, a garden room.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Paired Down Richness

Minimal embellishment, below, yet, I want what they are selling !  Whatever it may be.  At the front door, they have me.
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Color, potted plant, and font.
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Oddly, there's a great example too of Garden Design and downspout color.  At right, below, downspout color is the wise choice.  At left, below, must be neighbor's downspout.
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Best proof, ever, white jumps forward, and tries to act like a 'column' with a downspout.


Pic, above, here.
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A richness, above, having nothing to do with filthy lucre, and everything to do with warmth, confidence, come-inside, you won't regret it, for there is joy within.  And, you'll be back.
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My favorite Garden Designs are the ones with the fewest ingredients & richest living.
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Notice how they handled the slope, above?    Becomes a non-issue.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Intuitively I sense, owner/s of Brassica live/breath, quotes, above.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Garden Design: Design in the Silence

Garden Room, below, designed around the Grace of silence, speaking volumes.


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Many compulstions to have in a garden.  The best compulsion?  Simplicity.
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Garden & Be Well,     XOT

Garden Design Course: In a Photo

More a Garden Design course, below, than simply another garden.  What can you label, below, as the Garden Design 'rules' followed?  Decades I've taught at the local college and Atlanta Botanical Garden.  Never, ever, tire of this phase of Garden Design.  Name it to claim it.  If you know what you are looking at, and can name it.  YOU can do it.
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Color, contrast, flow, layers, mystery, expanse, minutia, shapes.
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Color, did you know green gardens are the 'fastest' to look like something?  Green gardens are also calm, less drama, perhaps best said, more of the right drama.  Then, within the green are myriad greens.
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Contrast, big leaves next to small leaves, rounded shapes next to cone shapes, woody plants next to herbaceous.
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Flow, the pathway has me, feet want to travel, finding what's around the curve, mystery.
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Layers, all checked, pocket of open sky, canopy trees, understory trees, walls of tall bushes, wainscoting of medium bushes, low bushes/groundcovers are flooring & carpet.
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Space too large, 100's of acres, a garden room similar, below, nearish your house will warm & own the expanse.  Space to small, neighbors homes jutting into your face, a garden room similar, below, around your home, creates a huge landscape, eyes drawn to the expanse of canopy trees and sky, which is infinite.
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Minutia of hair like foliage, velvet like moss on the trees, chartreus with dark greens and etc.  Drama change for winter, the garden, below, holds together in all seasons.


Pic, above, here.

Understanding the Garden Design 'rules' and principles, above, please tell me this makes you laugh, below, in the 'knowing' what they've done, below.  Well done, dramatic pairing, fun drama with Garden Design 'rules'.

 
Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, I shot yesterday in our garden.
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Yesterday, my harvest table was finally unloaded from the truck.  Temporary location while 'macro' garden construction is completed, you know, drilling a well, graveling drives, renovating sheds, adding a porch, and too much other garden infrastructure keeping me away from my beloved 'micro' gardening.
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Laskett immediately on top of harvest table, owning it.  Behind him, the materials yard awaiting its new barn.  Yes, chaos of materials yard getting on my last nerve.  Alas, at least another full year before it's cleared.
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Harvest table denotes 1st move into my shed, Beloved using my shed until his barn built.  "Where is the Gator going if you put your harvest table there?", Beloved asks.  "No, they both won't fit there.", he responds to my answer.  I smile in return, thinking, "Go away, I've got this."  Poof Beloved's gone, I arrange table, Laskett & I do what we do so well together, bask in each other's adoring presence, Laskett affirms every thought in my head.  Sitting a moment to shoot table/Laskett/setting sun, I glance at the open space for the Gator, with a smile.
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With great pleasure, I walk to the gravel drive where the Gator is parked, crank it up, pull it into it's new space, 2' to spare, turn the Gator off, pull the brake lever up enjoying its sound, surveying the Gator's new domain.  Beloved still working in back at the pond, Laskett & I walk to the house, gardening day done.
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Best irony about my shed, it's a century old, Beloved moved it last year, renovated it, new walls, new window, new door, new floor, added a tin roof to two sides, and it's my shed.  We knew up front he had to use my shed for many of his things, many, until his barn is built.  Has been a great chapter getting here, I'm not in that chapter anymore.    You've already noticed this new chapter title, My Shed.
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Thought you would appreciate a little raw reality gardening.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T

  
    

Fear of Color

My sister, older than me, loves pink.  PINK.  Sadly, she lives in a gated neighborhood.  Not much pink, if any, legal in that controlled universe.
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Saving colors on Pinterest I save a lot of pink, wishing it was hers.
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There's more, she has little pink inside her house.  Don't know why.
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I do know, when time passed, and the day arrived, my starter home finally needed painting, I felt the need to 'conform'.  Painting it a color that made me happy?  Oh no, can't do that.  More time passed, my starter home needed painting again.  Time had finally given strength, to be me.  On went the Monet green paint.  Wow.  Made me so happy.  Who was that person, conforming to the grand void of worrying about what other people think?
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Where does 'color' fear come from?


Pic, above, here.

When the several billion dollar lottery comes my way, I know exactly where some of the money will go.  A country house, above, and a town house, below, bought for my sister.  With plenty of cash for her to do the interiors, maintain a staff & her new pink lifestyle.


Pic, above, here.

Truly, I'm curious to know my sister, as the woman living with her pink.


Pic, above, here.

Yep, I see us, above, lounging by her country pool, drinking tea, dogs wearing their pink collars, and I finally meet my real sister.  Mom looking on, saying, "You 2 are ridiculous.  What are we doing for lunch?"


Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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When it comes to your favorite color, are you afraid to dive in?  Don't be.  Trust it.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Interior Art is your Exterior Color Trinity

I adore this painting, below.  Selfishly, love the entire canvas.  Is it good art?  Don't know.  I do know, this painting would be my starting point for choosing exterior colors.  Shutters, trim, front door, patio cushions, furniture, stone, etc.  Color answers are in this painting.  


Pic, above, here.
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Every garden must have a color trinity chosen, green - brown - white is the classic.  Not mandatory, in the least.  Nor is choosing a color trinity limiting or cliche.  Instead, a Garden Design tool that has worked for centuries.  Within a color trinity are limitless selections of shade.  Making your choice of trinity, uniquely you, and more intensely you.
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Aging is never a bore.  Younger, I could not abide this style of art, above.  Now, love it.
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Not chosen a color trinity for your exterior?  Look inside your home, at your art.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Choose the Classics: Add Your Character

This would be a fun Garden Show template, below.  All entrees must use a day bed, 2 wicker chairs, wicker coffee table, wicker end table, the same amount of space, but after that, no rules.  Color, cushions, accessories, free to choose.
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The classics with infinite variety.


Pic, above, here.
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Next to, above, I would like to see the entry belonging to modern cutting edge techno masculine.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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No budget for , above?  Hunt/gather furniture basics, paint all the same color, you're on your way.

Inspiration for Front Door Color

Yes, your front door matters.  Whether you think so, or not.  Your front door can tell me who you are, or tell me you don't care, or more likely, I care but it's on the to-do list.
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Had to smile at this front door, below.  It's the most often color choice I make for front doors, and I don't mean the blue.  I search interiors for a recurring color in the house, important but not boastful.  Typically, it's found in several pieces of art on the walls.  Clients will say, "I didn't realize I had that color in all my art."  Of course the door color must work with exterior colors already chosen, it's rare not to have it work.
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When clients have a dark foyer, I like to put in the glass door, below.  Literally.  We buy a panel door, and have our carpenter replace the panels with glass.
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Ironically, a year in our ca. 1900 American farmhouse, I've not painted the front door, it remains the seller's blood red color.  Up front, total arrogance, I thought it must be painted quickly, MY color.  It's on the list.  Oddly, the arrogance has disappeared.  The blood red is working for me, until the time arrives and its list number has been reached.


Pic, above, here.

Look around your home, what color is 'popping' from the art?
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Does it scare you a bit, and excite you too, wanting to put it on the front door?  It's probably your color.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara