Showing posts with label Mary Kistner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mary Kistner. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

More Than You Want to Know About Starting Your Garden Design

What type Garden Design survives, centuries, in gardens?
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Easy trinity, with limitless permutations; Wild Wood, Meadow, Stone Focal Point.
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Meadow, Urn, Hedge, below.  Classical trivium of Garden Design.  A structure for adding more layers, if desired.
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Used at the front end of Garden Design it is a manner of thought toward your personal lifestyle, preferably, one you've chosen to make you a better person, at a minimum, a happier person.  Within the larger context of stewardship toward Nature. 
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Your choice. 
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"Between stimulus and response, there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and freedom."  Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust survivor.


Pic, above, here.
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Once I discovered what type of gardens survive for centuries, after studying historic gardens across Europe, it became obvious how to start a garden.  Start a garden with how it will end.  'It matters how we arrive at our ideas.'
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The classical trivium turned thought & writing into logic, grammar, rhetoric.  This isn't too small, for garden design, you can add more later.  With the classical trivium you are 'imparted the 7 liberal arts of classical antiquity.'
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Pic, above, here.
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Going beyond the classical trivium, above.  Easy to see, removing flowers, the garden becomes its end state quickly, meadow, hedge/wildwood, stone focal point.  (Labeling the garden in design terms, above, canopy, understory, walls, floors, focal point.)
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It's important to have the language for a garden, to create one.  It's important to have the history for a garden, to create one.  It's important to have the logic for a garden, to create one.  You realize this isn't about your garden.  It's choices about your life.  God almighty first created a garden.  We all ate that apple.  No choice in the matter, I want back in the garden.
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Having the vocabulary to design a garden lets your mind "...collect and analyze information and to draw conclusions based on that information; it demands self-discipline and instills virtue (the ability to do what is right despite one's baser inclinations); it produces.........think, understand, solve problems and follow through on a wide range of interests.  It requires a student to examine moral and ethical issues.  A classical education is multi-cultural in the best sense of the word.  Because it takes history as its organizing principle, students learn the place of their lives, families, and communities in the broad landscape of human existence and achievement.  It imparts skills and passion for thinking and learning that allow a person to teach herself for the rest of her life.  Classical education is systematic and rigorous; it has purpose, goals, and a method to reach those goals."  Noval Classical, from here
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This is more than you wanted, but have included it, aside from living it, because it is how George Washington gardened, and garden designed.  More than agricultural, more than elegance, he gardened to show his political, educational, and religious beliefs.  Born into a slave holding family, what was the impetus George Washington had, to free all his slaves? 
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Slaves in America are part of historic garden study.  In Europe, for too many eras they had subsistence workers.  Ignorant, I had to ask a head-gardener what that meant, "They worked for food.  No pay, no housing, no clothing given.  At the end of the day they return into the woods."  Serfs were another layer of garden labor, not technically slaves, they worked for the manor house, were given a plot of land for their own to work, and could take those earnings, yet were not free to move about, they had to be granted permission to leave a manor's employ, which was not a given. 
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End of serfdom coincided with the bubonic plague.  So many were killed, there were few left to work the fields.  Finally, after the plague, workers were paid for their labor.  And, allowed freedom to move about.
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Historic gardens, which truly flourished after the plague, ca. 1400,  took another turn after WWI, so many were killed the grand estates did not have enough laborers to keep their properties up to prior WWI standards.  This is when 'my' trinity of historic gardens appeared.  WWII was the macro end of agrarian gardens, and beginning of industrialized landscapes we have today. 
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Industrialized landscaping parallels, unfortunately, global factory farming of livestock.  Won't go further into that realm here beyond noting George Washington's gardening choices, and life choices. 
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In the garden, beyond making design choices based upon a trivium, choosing to engage the brain in addition to body, spirit & community, there is the garden itself, with some life forces equal to ours.  At times, appearing sentient, perhaps behaving with sentience.     
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Does the neo-sentience of a garden affect our thought processes when in our garden, or woodland, or fields & streams?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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How do you like History, thru my Garden prism? 
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From the Mount Vernon website, below.
In his will, written several months before his death in December 1799, George Washington left directions for the emancipation of all the slaves that he owned, after the death of Martha Washington.
Washington's slave census in this 1799 will and testament
Washington was not the only Virginian to make provisions to free his slaves during this period. In 1782, toward the end of the American Revolution, the Virginia legislature made it legal for slave holders to manumit their slaves, without a special action of the governor and council.
Of the 317 slaves at Mount Vernon in 1799, 123 individuals were owned by George Washington and were stipulated in Washington's will to be freed upon his wife's death. However, these conditions did not apply to all slaves at Mount Vernon. When Martha Washington's first husband Daniel Parke Custis died without a will, she received a life interest in one-third of his estate, including his slaves. The other two-thirds of the estate went to their children.
Neither George nor Martha Washington could free these dower slaves by law. Upon her death the slaves would revert to the Custis estate and be divided among her grandchildren. By 1799, 153 slaves at Mount Vernon were part of this dower property. Forty more slaves were rented from a neighbor, while another man, Peter Hardiman, was rented from the widow of Martha Washington's son. All these people would eventually return to their owners.
 In accordance with state law, George Washington stipulated in his will that elderly slaves or those who were too sick to work were to be supported throughout their lives by his estate. Children without parents, or those whose families were unable to see to their education were to be bound out to masters and mistresses who would teach them reading, writing, and a useful trade, until they were ultimately freed at the age of twenty-five. Washington’s will stated that he took these charges to his executors very seriously: "And I do moreover most pointedly, and most solemnly enjoin it upon my Executors...to see that this clause respecting Slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the Epoch at which it is directed to take place; without evasion, neglect or delay, after the Crops which may then be on the ground are harvested, particularly as it respects the aged and infirm."
In December 1800, Martha Washington signed a deed of manumission for her deceased husband's slaves, a transaction that is recorded in the abstracts of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Court Records. They would finally become free on January 1, 1801.    

Monday, August 7, 2017

Table Tableau: In the Garden

When friend-client-mentor Mary Kistner invited me to lunch, most often it was the 2 of us.  Her table, whether inside or on her porch, always had a fresh tableau created along the span reaching our places.  Lovingly, a fresh arrangement from her garden, she had 50 acres, a perfectly chosen textile, a book, opened to exactly the right photo/s, color as important as form, other magic.
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Mary was the 1st female leading Rich's department store interior decorating department,  she created all the store windows & department vignettes during WWII.  Times were dire, there were no men for the job.
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Blessedly, I knew at the time how special every moment of our time together was.

Alors vous aimez ?
Pic, above, here.
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I would send this pic to Mary today, if she were still alive.  Instead, it is sent to you.
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"It's what we do with what we have.", Mary Kistner.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Vanishing Threshold: Bunny Mellon

From the garden, below, a view of the terrace.  Exactly the photographic style of the 80's.  Each piece, every layer, in alignment to the Narrative.  This story a trinity between owner, beauty, happiness.
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Vanishing Threshold, inside/outside have no boundary.
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How do I know this?  Before her, below, and a tiny contingent of other 'hers', I was writing the same story at my home/garden.
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Seeing this pic, below, the 1st time, I knew who it belonged to.  Linking backwards, discovering I was not wrong, Bunny Mellon.  Originating in the pages of Architectural Digest, its caption, "Antigua Residence: A terrace features an Henri Rousseau landscape."
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A great laugh, the painting.  My 1st urge, wanting to call my client/friend/mentor Mary Kistner, we needed one of our trademark meandering lunches for me to divulge this rich tidbit.  Mary was creating her Vanishing Threshold trinity decades before I was born.  This, merely another delight we will share once we are in the same place again.  Mary died over a decade ago.

Tour the Exquisite Homes and Gardens of Late Design Legend Bunny Mellon Photos | Architectural Digest:
Pic, above, here.
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Oil paintings I've put on terraces & porches, for decades, for myself/clients have all been from thrift/junk shops.
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Of course Bunny put a Rousseau painting on her terrace.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Mary Kistner was a collage artist in the style of Kurt Schwitters, she installed art shows for other artists at several museums across USA, her memorial service was in a museum, standing room only.  Perhaps you can see those layers in the pic, above.  A few weeks after Mary died I received a call from her estate attorney, Mary left me something & an appointment needed to be made for pick-up.
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In my office, just above my laptop, is her bequest, an already framed piece of her collage art.  Titled, "Feuillage IX", MKistner 2000.  Receiving her bequest, and a few times since, has brought happy & grieving tears.  Mary had, I know, a wicked glint in her eyes & trademark smile, putting "Feuillage IX" into her will to me.  At one of our lunches, it had to be in fall, I shared with her my epiphany about falling leaves, while I was driving along Hugh Howell Road in Tucker, GA.  Decades of seeing falling leaves, I finally got the biblical narrative.  Trees drop their leaves, and are fed by them, every year of their life.          
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More, trees drop their leaves ahead of the brutal season, winter.  Vigorously showing off their lacy branching beauty against the sky, richly taking in strength from what they let go of.  The bible, inspired word of G*d written by man.  Nature, inspired writing of G*d.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Leather Hinges


Have your eyes locked on the Leather Hinges?


Mary Kistner, a mentor, said, "It's what we do with what we have."  No, I wouldn't have thought, EVER, of leather hinges.
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Of course I contacted Penelope Bianchi, this is her garden, about her leather hinges.
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Her man, adore that phrase & adore women gardeners who say it, has done many years of volunteer work in other countries.  He learned from them to use everything.
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Thank you 'Her Man' & Penelope for widening my horizon, to see Leather Hinges.  Of course I can't wait to see these with more age on them.  
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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There should be a special sainthood for that class labeled 'Her Man'.  By the time 'SHE' calls he KNOWS whatever it is is impossible but he will do it, because he's 'Her Man'.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Pots, Easy Landscape Edging

Pots, original, as landscape edging? Hardly. A centuries old idea. At my garden, with Susanne Hudson, for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival, below. (PMHF is this weekend, June 4-5.)"It's what we do with what we have.", my mentor Mary Kistner said. I first saw pots as edging decades ago in Ryan Gainey's Decatur, GA garden.
Susanne & I have broken pots & fallen limbs.
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Perfect landscape edging. Easy & free.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken a few days ago.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Following Matriarchal Advice

Blessedly I've followed the matriarchs.
I did get caught up, alas, yet happily, in the work of Ryan Gainey/Brooks Garcia/David Bennett McMullin . A trinity of FABULOUS, their work inspired, and I needed to 'go there'.
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Preparing for an open garden (High Museum), the MATRIARCHAL EPIPHANY arrived, "Why copy the gardens of 'those guys' ?"
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Thus arrived LEAF LITTER MULCH.
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By the end of the day, exhausted-bruised-bloody (you know....gardening), I perused my garden & inexplicably began to cry. Big tears. Deep sobs.
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I was seeing the gardens of my MATRIARCHS; they used leaf litter mulch. My grandmothers, long dead, yet in that moment of epiphany, both held me.
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The missing component, LEAF LITTER MULCH, was so simple.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took the pic in Ireland at Helen Dillon's garden. In addition to leaf litter mulch matriarchal gardening is: tough plants, proper soil prep, no chemicals, no irrigation system, little expense, little time, little to no turf..........living incredibly busy lives. Mentor, Mary Kistner, began gardening in earnest after her beloved husband died. He didn't believe in ornamental gardening. Amazing, yes? A man would stop a woman from ornamental gardening. Hers is not the only story in this vein. Most are from earlier eras but some aren't. Also learned about proper soil preparation from my matriarchs..........the 'guys' at the Extension Service were wrong. More about that tomorrow.
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Loving the movie, To Sir With Love, Puppet Barbuda honors her trinity of FABULOUS guys. They gave her the MATRIARCHAL EPIPHANY. Hope you have time to visit their links.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

She Created A Still Life, With Lunch, As A Gift

Every lunch invitation was coveted. Her long table staged with stems cut that morning from the garden, a beautiful book opened to exactly the right page for color/content, a textile she had woven set as collage upon the gorgeous wood, dishes & food arranged as jewels, silver-linen napkins-art more collage styling, menu seasonal & delicious, hiring an assistant to serve-clear-facilitate-disappear, music, conversation. Life affirming.
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Afterward, a walk in the woods, into the open pastures, silences, more conversation, laughter. I hear her laughter now. See her sparkling eyes, white hair glinting greater than a crown. I feel the strength of our conversations, our silences.
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She's gone, several years. Seeing this kitchen, above, brought her close again.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic from Roman & Williams, they have a blog too.
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Mary Kistner hired me to design the garden zone between formal at the home transitioning to the wild meadows, the wild woods. David Stevens, my contractor, installed our plan. He became part of our luncheons. Only 50 he died not long after Mary. They are both sprinkled upon Mary's property, known now as Kistner Center, which was donated, in its entirety, to the Georgia Piedmont Land Trust .

Sunday, November 1, 2009

A MADELEINE


Where does it go? Client, Friend & Mentor Mary Kistner would have me to lunch. A cloth on her table. Cloth she wove. Flowers she had cut that morning. A book, too, would be near the flowers, opened to a page completing a still life with the vase, dishes, cloth. Dishes she orchestrated. Mary cooked, carefully chosen recipes, always hiring a neighbor to serve/clean, facilitating our conversation.
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Sparking. That's what I called our conversation. Interesting, full of energy.

David Stevens, my contractor, entered our realm. A kindred spirit. Many lunches & Sparking. Enjoying our trinity. After 15 minutes of lunch realizing it was 2 hours. Ending, always, with a walk of Mary's acreage. Snow, rain, spring's shocking greens, fall's crown of colors, summer's green humidity.

Did I think, ever, to take a picture of the table, food, cloth, book, dishes, Mary, David? Though not long ago, it was another era.

Mary died, home & acreage bequeathed to a land trust. David died. Their ashes enrich Mary's land. Their memory enriches me.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tare
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pic from Apartment Therapy.