Showing posts with label Stone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stone. Show all posts

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Gravel Path: Before + After

Garden path, a few minutes old, below.
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Their back yard, thankfully, a quagmire.  In addition to significant man made drainage issues they have an underground spring.
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Thankfully?  They had to hire help, me.  
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#89 Granite gravel, above/below, is best, color/size, for their garden.  I never tire of seeing before/after of cobblestone edging.


The area was not pretty, below, when we began.


Seems like the older women get the more men their projects demand.
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Especially love women demanding a beautiful easy landscape, and needing a commercial dumpster in their driveway because they are doing a 'few' things inside too !
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These women are my tribe.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite last week.
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Women who know their driveway must be jackhammered to oblivion are a particular delight.  If you are a woman, with a man in your life, no worries, Man Coaching is free.   Husband's refer to me as, that woman, up front.  Within days husband's say, 'call Tara'.    
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.
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NOTE to my gardening friends... look for changes to come. 
Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.'   Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.
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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'.  Saved the article for a year before reading it.  Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.
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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0.  A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life.  Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact.  Signed up  for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow
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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method.  Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix.
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What do YOU want?
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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.
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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Just so you know... 

 I  welcome your input.

Monday, August 18, 2014

On Houzz: Stone Steps in Waiting

Recently on Houzz here, below.
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Modern renovation to vintage home.
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Seriously good modern.
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Made me laugh.
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Why?
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Happens all the time with new architectural construction.
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Tunnel vision harking back to the old map makers, "Beyond this point there be dragons."


With long term clients, they learn to finish 'certain' landscape items sooner rather than later.
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How do I know?
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They tell my general contractor, "Don't tell Tara, we will not do XYZ yet but please put in those 3 stone steps so she won't be so upset."
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This beautiful old home with new renovation, above, went international with its 3 gorgeous stones 'not complete'.  In Tara Talk those stones are jewelry-for-the-landscape.  Setting is complete, stones are bought, please let the jeweler do their work.
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Best part of this home/garden?  Nothing has to be 'undone'.

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

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Top Garden Design Feature to Help Sell Your Home


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


Now, flow exists around the entire home.
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Flow.  Is it easy to walk around the entire home?
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90% of my out-of-state Garden Design work has come from past clients hiring me for their new home. They've each said the same thing, "You helped me sell my home, fast."  The ubiquitous beauty, color, lighting, etc. was important but I know the, unexpected, #1 reason they assume their Garden Design helped sell their home.  Flow.
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Flow.  Get you some.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara  
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning:

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

Friday, May 9, 2014

Design: Built In Seating Rarely a Good Idea

Harvest Table for 12, arbor, pendant lights, vines & hedges.  Done.


Copy, it's the 1st rule of Garden Design.
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Fact, if a garden design was beautiful centuries ago.  It WILL be beautiful in your garden.
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Al fresco dining.  Across continents, cultures, eras, humans are hardwired for Al Fresco dining.
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Yesterday's Garden Design I completed includes 3 square teak tables.  They can be used individually or together as a harvest table.
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Fixed seating, as some decks have, remind me of George S. Patton speaking of war, "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man."
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Give yourself choices.
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Another good one from Georgie,  "If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results."                    .
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic lost provenance.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
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Construction by Award Winning:
Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Transitioning Style: Garden Rooms Different than Interior Rooms

Beyond the house, in their garden, is the rose garden with cottage.
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Formal.
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Quite obvious what type of garden room is next.


Rustic, and wild, below.


Truly, one of the best waterfalls, any continent, residential/commercial, I've ever seen.
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Garden rooms are easy to style.  They contrast formal to rustic and back again.  For many centuries now.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in the Paul/Lisa Brown garden.
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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.

Friday, May 2, 2014

Design: How to Decorate a Big Blank Wall

Copy, is a rule of Garden Design I did not agree with for years.
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Now?  How could I have been so ridiculous?
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Facts.  If it's pretty in another garden it will be pretty in yours AND unique.
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That crazy 'terminally unique' illness.  We all have it & life is blessed once that disease is eradicated.

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A lot of houses have the grand blank wall, somewhere.
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Place 3 pair of closed door shutters, with mirrored transoms, add door knobs, hang lanterns, plant a vine, put in a few tons of #89 granite gravel, add furnishings.
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Done.
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Unique.
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Would love this at a flower show.  5 entries, each given the same size wall, copy the inspiration, above.
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Would love to see this in Italian rustic, French provincial, desert southwest.
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Whatever !
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Easy.
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COPY
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken yesterday in a local garden.
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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.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Enlarging Corners

Hired for the Garden Design I could not ignore the pool decking.
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Pool is Olympic in scale yet the decking was Liliputian.


The mortar isn't even dry, above.
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Will go back this spring for full photo shoot with more enlarged corners, rims and furnishings styled.
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Have enlarged corners for driveways too.  Perfecto!
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic in client garden.  Love pics full of narrative or, like this one, a 'see it & do it', no explanation needed.  
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

Monday, January 20, 2014

Simple Manipulations: How Many Do You See?

Do you see the manipulations, below?


Seating to create a gathering spot, figs for summer shade/winter sun over the benches, drystack stone wall cut into a slight slope forcing foot traffic into defined directions, formal boxwood framing pastoral views, tapering stone wall allowing only small machinery into the pasture from this direction, gravel terrace ready for men-trucks-heavy equipment, horses, or a catered soiree for 100.
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And, of course, it must all look a century old, be easy to maintain, and provide interest 24/7.
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When something appears simple, it rarely is.  Same is true of people.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic at a jobsite last week.
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Do you know the maximum pollinator habitat, above?  Seriously, can you verbalize what creates the best pollinator habitat above?  Answer at bottom.
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Being simple requires each of the decades I've been learning about gardens.  Better, being simple in a garden, takes me where Joseph Campbell says our eternity is.  Ironic, in this American life/era, to have found my bliss in work.
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  1. Joseph Campbell - Wikiquote

    en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
    Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own .... And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
  2. More, being simple connects me to the message/life work of Wendell Berry & E.M. Forster.  
  3. Wendell Berry Earns Highest Humanities Award, Lectures on ...

    sojo.net/.../wendell-berry-earns-highest-humanities-award-lectures-econo...
    Apr 24, 2012 - On Monday evening, Wendell Berry delivered the 41st annual ... The title hinges on E.M. Forster's 1910 novel Howards End, which Berry said, ...
  4. .
  5.  If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
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    Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.
                                                                                     .
    Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.
  6. Answer to question, above,  High density/low density, open meadow/dense woodland.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Creating Lush

Vertical lawn, below.


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

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

Friday, October 11, 2013

How to Get More From Less: Outdoor Rooms

How little can you have and it be a garden?


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

Friday, September 13, 2013

How to Tame Trouble

Met a new client last nite with a no-mans-land of trees/ivy/invasives/drainage ditch/weeds.  Its ownership 'looks' like it could be their property or their neighbors.
What to do is quite easy.


An entry & path will instantly take ownership and tame the trouble.
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Clearing invasives, controlling ivy/weeds, planting desirable understory trees & etc... will take a bit more time.  Happily, now there is a road map.
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Garden & Be Well,             XO Tara
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Exciting times, their brown brick home with brown shutters will soon be WHITE !
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Pic Litchfield Hills, lost provenance of photographer.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Stupid Does Have a Price

Beware the landscape contractor, with one of my Garden Designs, "No, can't be done."


Stupid does have a price tag.
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Fieldstone retaining wall, above, in dirt.  No concrete + mortar.  Italy has quite a few olive orchards, older than Christ, still holding proud their fieldstone in dirt terracing.
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Stupid-does-have-a-price-tag, said fieldstone in dirt did not work, he wanted to make more money with concrete, mortar, chipped stone.  I don't use him anymore.  My jobs have grossed millions since then.  Do the math.
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When I mention my Team it's from the heart & head.  They make my designs better.  Why did I fall for SDHAPT?  I met the author of Never Be Lied to Again, when I was the garden expert on NBC-TV morning show.  Zero awareness of those lying to me at that time.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic Old Long Island.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Japanese

Invitation.  




 "...eternals as applicable in the smallest of spaces as in the vast acres of a country house garden." Sir Roy Strong.  Above, vast as a mountain range.


Water Mirror, miroir d'eau, above.




Water breaks the footprint of the Tea House, above.  Small touch, huge impact.


Looking outward, above, from the bamboo window seen coming in the entry, top pic.


Framing the view, above, for centuries this has been done.  Is a brick ca. 1960 ranch less worthy?


Hidden, then meandering, above, then spilling into the pond, below.


Why, above, do we like walking on water?

 At the minimum, 2 stones.  Male & female.  Earth & sky.  Ying & yang.  Even the shadows are benevolent.


Leaving the Japanese garden from its other side, above, into a pecan orchard.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics taken Massee Lane Garden last weekend.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Massee Lane: Millstone Collection in the Garden

Millstones collected for a lifetime & sited in David Strother's garden, now a public garden.





  Many were slave made.


Today, 1 millstone in a garden is special.  Hard to find, expensive, and getting it home & setting it in the garden, for most, requires men & equipment.





Concrete piers support these in the pond.


Doormat.


Only a handful are setting on the ground.  Showing off.


As time passed this pair, above, could have been sited where the evergreens are.  Their value, literally & historically, of incredible value.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken at Massee Lane Gardens, Fort Valley, GA, last weekend.  From their site, "The formal camellia garden at Massee Lane had its beginnings as the private garden of David C. Strother in the 1930's. He surrounded his farmhouse with camellias. Year by year, he moved out the garden borders to accommodate the camellias he wanted to plant. It is said he never included a camellia he didn't like, even if it were given to him! Mr. Strother donated this land to the American Camellia Society for its headquarters in 1966. 

Mr. Dave collected millstones and road markers - the millstones he brought into the garden have become a trademark. The old wire road mile markers, some with the mile number still visible, add another dimension to the garden. 

More than a thousand varieties of camellias are here, plus sasanquas, fragrant tea olives, Lady Banksia roses, and delightfully scented daphnes.

Enjoy a walk down Dave's Ville Walk - lined with his favorite camellia, 'Ville de Nantes', and admire his handiwork and smell the delicate aromas of tea olives. Always feel free to leave the pathways and walk among the camellias to find your own personal favorite."
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The daphnes & tea olives were blooming, and almost overwhelming.