Showing posts with label Overdose theme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Overdose theme. Show all posts

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Landscape Design Patterns Inside Your Home

Art, furniture, architecture, lamps, even rugs inspire landscape design patterns. Particularly scrumptious, below.The curves she had led me in a NEW direction; pattern in a mass planting of evergreen groundcover, below.
Wine Bottle pattern, above, pure subtlety with green bottles, I'm thinking yellow/gold wine bottles instead. I want the pattern to be seen.
How the Wine Bottle patterns look in concept, above.
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Her frontyard meadow is ripe for the central pattern in the carpet, top pic. Expanse of meadow with pathways radiating.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Yes, Poppets, Landscape Design is this easy.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Chinoiserie

Screen door, below, had a horrendous 'colonial' motif. Hired a carpenter to put in the Chinoiserie.Plant foxglove, above, they ALWAYS make you look like you know how to garden !
My front door, above, is Chinoiserie too. The painted pattern copied from artwork in a calendar I had moons ago.
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OVERDOSE YOUR THEME. French, Italian, Chinoiserie & etc. doesn't matter Poppets, overdose it.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from my garden. Love the blog, Chinoiserie Chic.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Protecting Lemons

In Italy, centuries ago, when a late freeze threatened the lemon crop,
smudge pots were lit.


saving the lemons.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken last week in Athens, GA, same garden as the previous post. The gardener purchased these smudge pots in Italy.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Overdose Your Theme

Contemporary home? Contemporary rails.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Atlanta numbers few contemporary style homes, yet can claim to be the capital of contemporary homes with colonial rails. PUPPET BARBUDA wonders, is that disgusting, embarrassing, or both?

Friday, May 7, 2010

Outside & Inside A Hedge

Standing in the street, below, at my front gate this morning. Inside the hedge, below, is my Bay Terrace.
Oakleaf Hydrangea blossoms unfurling, below, in the Bay Terrace.

The subtlety of my rule "Just Let It Touch", blossoms caressing, below, the adirondack chair.

Oakleaf Hydrangeas espaliered, below, at the bay window. Learned this trick in Italy at Lake Maggiori.

Did my garden make you curious about seeing, below, inside?


My go-to spot, above, for working on projects, lunch, dinner with a girlfriend.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Bottom pic taken weeks ago, rest of the pics taken less than 15 minutes ago.
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Love English hedgerows and copied. Mine: dwarf abelia, climbing rose 'Dortmund', hydrangeas, boxwood, palm, rosemary, lavender, liriope, clematis, hollyhocks.
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Breakfast yesterday morning, in my gown, sitting in the adirondack chair caressed with oakleaf hydrangea blossoms. Neighbors in my tiny subdivision, surrounding my tiny property, well hidden behind my hedge.
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The antique gateleg table had been in my office for a decade until last January. I hired Susanne Hudson to choose paint colors, somehow, ALL my furniture moved !

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

PLATES ON THE WALL

Thru ice, snow, wind my Spode, for over a decade, has survived nicely. Ha. I adore discovering others who like plates on the wall.
Gourmet magazine, almost 2 decades ago, profiled a French chef in her tiny hotel. Plates filled the wall behind her. Finally, last month, below, plates, almost 2 centuries old & stapled with lead found a wall in my house.


Plates on my walls outside, and inside. Vanishing Threshold.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Valorie Hart is Visual Vamp. Adored her blog before I saw her pic with the plates! She's been on my blog roll, at right, since my blog began.





Wednesday, February 3, 2010

VANISHING THRESHOLD: Lighting

When it moves outside it's a trend. Fabulous lanterns. First Rules of Landscape Design: copy, simplicity, repetition.
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SENSUOUS, above. Crunch of gravel, trilling water, warmth of candle light, hearing refreshments poured from a pretty pitcher, feel of foliage upon your arm, repetition of color house-furniture-shutters-arbor-fountain-gravel, scale, flow, texture, vanishing threshold.
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Beauty w/Low Maintenance in the garden is sensuous & feng shui.
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Design, above, for yourself. Grace IS a destination.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, Michael Partino via Brabourne Farms

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

DIVA BRAIN vs. LIZARD BRAIN

POVERTY IS A GREAT PRESERVER. Unaffordable harvest tables led my conniving lizard brain to a table I already own. Hideous: oak, mahogany stain, carved clawfoot pedestal, terrible measurements.
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DIVA BRAIN took over from LIZARD BRAIN.
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Dahlings, I hired a man with a power tool, muscle & skill.
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Now, harvest table is an exact 30" wide.
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Soon, faded green stain, same as the teak in my garden, will fabulously display the triumph of DIVA over LIZARD..
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That hired man? He hung a pair of antique gilt/chrystal chandeliers over my harvest table. They've changed my life.
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Only 2 weeks & the chandeliers are a morning ritual. Arising before the sun, walking into the kitchen, along with cat entourage, I fire up those beautiful girls.
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To be continued....
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via City Sage via Isa's Little World
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To be continued? House in chaos. Painters into week 4. Clawfoot tub, now in my bathroom, still filled with vinegar/water soaking away stains from its former use in the garden. My kitchen is no longer the kitchen. Cut off a counter, moved ceiling lites, added chandeliers + 24" ceiling fan, harvest table added. Though painting debris litters the room it is potent enough, unfinished, to be called THE GARDEN ROOM.

Friday, January 15, 2010

MAKING IT LESS MAINTENANCE

Know how to create less maintenance, below? Replace turf with groundcover.
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Notice what is not in this landscape? NO FOUNDATION PLANTING !!!!
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Notice what is in this landscape? A French theme. OVERDOSE YOUR THEME.
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Notice how simple this landscape is? KEEP IT SIMPLE SWEETIE.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic via Things That Inspire. A favorite blog, named to perfection.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

SO OBVIOUS

Can you name this? SLEIGH PORT !!!!!
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Carport, heliport, airport............
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Yes, another pic from Susanne Hudson's last week. She named her Sleigh Port. The antique sleigh? Americans are larger now. A pair of young teens would fit. Two adults? Barely.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

BROKEN HEADS

Working in the shed behind the greenhouse I had to be careful of spiders, snakes, rats & stacks of collapsing merchandise. I loved it!! The oddest rat scurried at my feet. I screamed. Thoughts in chaos. Why? The small black rat was in reality the BROKEN HEAD OF ST. FRANCIS, about 3" & black, rolling quickly by.
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Brain thought, RAT. Eyes saw a face.
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That began my BROKEN HEADS collection.
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Girlie, above, is about 4". She cost a $1 at some nursery. Another joy of my BROKEN HEAD collection? Cheap. One nursery tried to charge me $12 for a BROKEN HEAD, ha, I walked.
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Only the observant will discover my BROKEN HEADS collection in the garden.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Monday, November 16, 2009

COLOR: BEFORE & AFTER

After creating garden rooms, color is my #2 choice for what's important in a landscape. Came across this pic, below, yesterday.
OMG, so glad I stained the teak and painted the iron.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Saturday, October 31, 2009

HALLOWEEN IN THE LANDSCAPE

I spent the night with Susanne Hudson this week. Her house & garden are Halloween. Below, her tin roofed potting shed.
Susanne, photographer Joe Descoise, and I are working on a book project.

It's about Susanne's interior/exterior design. Wednesday was a full day of shooting & discussions.


Thursday morning Susanne & I were in the library drinking coffee when I 'found' the book's title.

It was in an old stack of 3x5 note cards Susanne has used for eons with lectures.


It's obvious these are my pics. Aaaaah, you should have seen Joe's.
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We began shooting this summer, and of course we need a full year of shots. It's amazing, this is work? Each time, leaving Susanne, I feel energized, full of peace, and creative.
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Exactly why I've taken on this project.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

LIGHT BULB MOMENT

Her entire house, guest bath below, is filled with beautiful, and interesting, things. Decades in the house, the landscape was well maintained, functional, good. Not beautiful and interesting. After I lectured at her garden club she hired me. A small phase was installed. Her light bulb went on! With confidence she's been buying terra cotta and iron pieces, significant pieces, beautiful & interesting. Sending me pics from her phone while shopping.
A place she's found incredible things for her garden, above, Englishman's. Their website, unfortunately, doesn't have pics of all their landscape merchandise. They also sell lots of interior items.
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Now her house & garden are a Vanishing Threshold.
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Always fun to see the birth of a GARDENISTA!!!
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic, above, from the Englishman's site.
And of course her garden is more than about buying 'stuff', the plantings are gorgeous. Will post her again this spring.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

GREENHOUSE OF OLD DOORS

Rescued doors (aka free) + cacti bought on sale at big box stores, below, in Hogansville, GA. No, the doors don't match. Why should they?
Cobbled together with more rescued bits this greenhouse is instantly charming.

Testament to a woman's growing love, fascination, passion for cacti.

Inside, above, refrigerator shelving + old windows creating a roof.


Attached to the house the greenhouse only needs 3 sides. Above, one side.


Above, the other side. A free greenhouse !! Not your style? Paint it.

Inside. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah. Something about greenhouses does it for me. Neat, messy, empty, full, being in a greenhouse has always melted my heart. Each one, no matter its condition, a life force. Telling me stories. And the smell. Oh my, the smell of a greenhouse. I would buy the perfumes.
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Shopping at Born Again Antiques, spottedsheep@hotmail.com, 304 East Main Street, Hogansville, GA 30230, 404-422-8504, last week for my garden, Allan Boyer, co-owner, said his wife, BJ Boyer, filled the front window with her cacti during winter. A come-on line if I ever heard one. Within 15 minutes I was walking with BJ, & her newest dog, into her garden. BJ makes new antiques by cobbling together broken antiques. The woman has got an eye. (This is not an ad for them, I am simply passing along a very interesting, fun place. Maybe you can go?)
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

LANDSCAPE DESIGN: CONTRAST

Levens Hall, England, is where I learned to contrast formal with informal in landscape design. It's one of the most potent tools you'll use.
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Formality, below, whimsical, not cute, overdosing on its theme.
Not far away, below, Susanne Hudson kept her dead tree, called a snag, romanticising it with a rescued ladder. Monet did something similar at Giverny.
Melted candles, below, and wishing I had been there for whatever the event was.

Nearby, below, the Wild Wood. OMG. Candles in a formal garden room overlooking fireflies in a Wild Wood. Really wishing I had been there.

Inches, below, separate formal from informal. Outside the garden cottage, stone. Inside the garden cottage, cinder block. So practical.

Who says steps in a garden are expensive?
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Cinder blocks were rescued from a neighbor's garbage last Monday. They'll be used near my potting table, with a board, to hold new cuttings. The board was rescued too. Will stain it my famous faded Monet green.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

FRONT PORCH IN A SUBDIVISION, FAST

Rare people implement landscape design quickly. What is quick? One year is a blink of the eye in the landscape realm. Jeri Farmer, retired marketing guru, moved in a year ago. In retirement? She owns, Le Jardin Blanc, with Susanne Hudson.
Jeri is hooked on white. With some blue. Susanne designed Jeri's garden overdosing Jeri's theme.

Jeri did something shocking. She implemented the plan, without wavering. And in a year has a garden life.


Landscapes, like people, are more defined by what they say no to.

"Men come to build sooner than to garden finely as if gardening were the greater art." Alexander Pope 17th century
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara