Showing posts with label Susanne Hudson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Susanne Hudson. Show all posts

Monday, June 27, 2016

Need Somewhere to Think?

Gardening is truly like putting this room together, below, by Miles Redd.  Intentions for this room, and a garden are the same.  Beauty, calm, introspection, learning, amusement, stewardship of our interior thoughts, connection to larger realms, focus, and oh my the anticipation of being at this table and knowing that whether 15 minutes or 2 hours, each will pass as the same, it would be easy to forget lunch hasn't been eaten, yes, a room like this is a proscenium, just as a garden is.
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"Every garden needs a desk.", said Susanne Hudson.
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Quick assignment.  Say Susanne's 5 words, above, aloud.  Next, do the Johnny Cash thing, 'Meditate on it. Then you'll understand.'

miles redd.:

Pic, above, here.

Reading an education article almost 2 years ago, one of the experts said reading/learning from a source backlit by light from a computer screen/cell phone goes to a different brain region than reading/learning from a paper page lit by natural light.  Fascinating.

 walls Benjamin Moore Healing Aloe trim Benjamin Moore Bavarian Cream.  As I go along here, pinning, I realize another reason I've always liked Benjamin Moore paint.:

Pic, above, here.
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Epiphanies.  Moments of intuitive enlightenment.  Are the hunt in my garden, and they arrive, unbidden.  Do you partake?  Have you already been this intuitive about your garden?  Perhaps it's better to ask, "Have you been this intuitive about a garden?"
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Oh dear the nattering palaver about a garden's sun/shade, how to dig a hole, mowing properly, and worse, chemicals & etc.
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Nope, a garden is not about any of those things in the previous sentence.  None.
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Focus.  Mental focus.  From playful realms to partaking its energy, & love, to assuaging even the deepest loss.  Need to make a major life choice?  Major.  How will you go about it?  I know to go into my garden, phrase the question mentally, set it aside, in faith to G*d, trust the freedom of letting go-letting G*d for at least an hour, then poof voila, seemingly without thinking, an answer.  Heads-up on the life choices that have fear as a component, I've learned to beat fear by asking, "What would I do tomorrow if I were not afraid?"
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A friend, we were in a circle of like minds in a group Lois put together, casually said, "I do my best thinking while sweating."  Wow, a floodgate opened, 'Me too, me too, so harness it girlfriend', I said to myself.
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Gardens aren't what garden centers sell.  Look at the top pic again, and know it is exactly what gardens are.  Yet more.
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Redemptive beauty.  Abiding.  Places of joy, grace, not a place to work digging holes, shearing lawn, though if those things are done they are the gift of washing-the-servants-feet.  Stewardship.  Focus, mindset, choices.  A garden is long threads of time.  Opposite to tv, internet, cell phone, cacophonies.
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Focus, comes to you in a garden, you don't have to go to it.  More, you get the trinity of focus,
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"Focus matters enormously for success in life and yet we seem to give it little attention.
Daniel Goleman‘s book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, explores the power of attention. “Attention works much like a muscle,” he writes, “use it poorly and it can wither; work it well and it grows.”
To get the results we want in life, Goleman argues we need three kinds of focus: inner, other, and outer.
Inner focus attunes us to our intuitions, guiding values, and better decisions. Other focus smooths our connections to the people in our lives. And outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world. A (person) tuned out of his internal world will be rudderless; one blind to the world of others will be clueless; those indifferent to the larger systems within which they operate will be blindsided.
How we deploy attention shapes what we see. Or as Yoda says, “Your focus is your reality.” , from Farnum Street, here.
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I'm fortunate my gardening began before cell phone/internet.  I know what a garden harnesses.  I know how diminished my garden is with my cell phone/internet.  About 2 years ago, I had a more fabulous than normal afternoon, beyond 4 hrs, they felt like a vacation, in my garden.  Coming inside, discovery why.  Cell phone on the kitchen counter.  Whoa, or woe, that epiphany.  Disclosure, I do carry cell phone into garden.  Self-employed is a great excuse, perhaps Beloved needs me, or my ankle goes, or nefarious mr. timber rattler or, or, or.
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Way back in the 1950s the philosopher Martin Heidegger warned against a looming “tide of technological revolution” that might “so captivate, bewitch, dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking may someday come to be … the only way of thinking.” That would come at the loss of “meditative thinking,” a mode of reflection he saw as the essence of our humanity.
I hear Heidegger’s warning in terms of the erosion of an ability at the core of reflection, the capacity to sustain attention to an ongoing narrative. Deep thinking demands sustaining a focused mind. The more distracted we are, the more shallow our reflections; likewise, the shorter our reflections, the more trivial they are likely to be. Heidegger, were he alive today, would be horrified if asked to tweet. ", wrote Goleman.

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Pic, above, here.
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Farnum Street selections, above, from, The Impoverishment of Attention, here.
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I'm impatient to take notes, put upon paper with hand/pen, on the new desk in my garden, from yesterday's Sunday edition of Farnum Street.  Ironically, my new garden desk is currently in Susanne Hudson's garden.  Bought for a harvest table, custom made by a craftsman in Susanne's town, too long for my small van, Susanne will bring it next time she has a client near me.  I know she's smiling each time she sees 'my' desk, knowing how excited I am to get it.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Friday, June 5, 2015

French Toile: Anna Belle Hydrangeas, Tool Bouquets, Garden Shed

A good French toile, below, come to life.
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Shot this week, I'm greedy and would like daily access.
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Shoot when the rose is cascading blossoms.



Shoot on a snowy day in the dead of winter.


 Shoot on a bleached out hot humid Southern afternoon.


Shoot from inside the kitchen, two big windows view this French toile.
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Fall shots, with rain, a refined camera allowing you to smell the petrichor from foliage, and rusty tools, or corrugated metal.  Divining the distinctions of each.
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A great year for Anna Belle hydrangeas.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Pics from Susanne Hudson's garden this week.  Come see her garden, it's on tour this Sat/Sun, Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Historic Combination

Boxwoods in the ground, in little pots, in big pots, edging a bed, lining a path, sentinel at the gate, backbone of a classic color trinity, below.


Boxwoods in big pots, little pots, pot clusters, wrapping a patio, on multiple axis views from the house, backbone of a classic color trinity, below. 


Recently, a client was adamant an evergreen hedge at her potager be removed.  Elsewhere, terra cotta pots were empty, awaiting funding.  Of course I said, "Let's put the boxwood hedge in your empty pots."
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She loved it, has already done it, and told me I was, 'wonderful'.  Amusing, but I know where 'wonderful' truly resides, boxwoods in pots.
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When an idea has worked fabulously for centuries in other gardens, it will work in yours.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Top pic I shot in Susanne Hudson's garden earlier this year, bottom pic, Bunny Williams garden via Pinterest.  Client dug up the large boxwoods herself & potted them, Tawaaaaaaanda !  Never tire of seeing Susanne's boxwoods in pots, nor seeing her in a state- of- zen watering them.  
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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, September 22, 2014

Chris Evert + Ralph Lauren: Copy the best in your Landscape

Before & during teen years, I copied everything Chris Evert.  This dress, below, hangs in my guest closet. today.  Amazingly, its metaphor, now, 180 to the winning reasons for saving it.  
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Copy.
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It's that simple.
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 Graduating college with engineering & horticulture I could not design a beautiful landscape to save my soul.  Off to Europe, 2+ decades, studying the best historic beautiful landscapes the world has experienced.  


 # 1 Beautiful Landscape design idea, COPY.  Copy the best landscapes.  You will not recreate the wheel.  Better, it's already created for you.  Trust this concept.
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Why did I forget copying Chris Evert?  Never a talented tennis player I retired a 2 time district 4-A singles champion amongst other titles won.  Seriously, I was not a gifted tennis player.


Habitually Chic posted Ralph Lauren's new coffee shop recently, and it had me laughing at all he COPIED so well.
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Fern in a terra cotta pot, above, is the same concept I add to client's homes.  Bring life to a room with something ALIVE.  Look at all the best interior decorators of the past century.  Plants brought inside, as if, just from the conservatory.  COPY.
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Don't just copy, Copy the Best.
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Green-Brown-White is the best and most used beautiful landscape design color trinity of the past few centuries.  Which green is for you?  Personally, I'm using Ralph's coffee shop green.

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Harvest table with a pair of urns?  This pic had me laughing AND dialing Susanne Hudson, the interior decorator on my team.  She taught me this idea decades ago, and have copied the concept since.
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Huge secret about copying the best ideas and talents.  
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When you copy the best, for yourself, it will be unique to YOU.
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Be brave, 'copy', is guaranteed to work for you.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Notice Chris Evert's lace panties & ribbon in her hair?  Totally what I did too.
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Ralph Lauren's pics by Habitually Chic.

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.



Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Pinterest: Furniture in the Garden

Still glowing & fragrant, Southern for sweaty-from-the-day, 48 hr whirlwind with Susanne Hudson in good gardens.
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Had to share at least 1 pic from our jaunts, below.
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Acreage, antebellum, private home of _____________.
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How have I not known/met this man, or heard his name?
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Unavailable, he gave us access to his gardens & barns.
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A garden design class is in this pic, above, but for now it is merely enough to know Furniture in the Garden.
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Pinterest, at present, is a joy to eye & intellect.  Adore intuitive learning from good pics.  Since childhood I've been attracted to British shows on PBS and furniture-in-the-garden.  OF COURSE I titled one of my Pinterest boards, Furniture in the Garden.  Click, here, to see it.
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Local interest, Martha Tate owner of HGTV's Gardener's Diary, and Liz Tedder, 19 times (so far) in Southern Living magazine were with Susanne/me.  Met Martha in my early 20's professionally and sadly only recently met Liz Tedder, she came to the Conservatory Susanne & I built for a Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival display 3 years ago, which is now fronting editor's letter of Better Home's Gardens magazine this month.  1st time in Tedder's garden.  How does that possibly happen, should have been 76th time.  Best news?  Liz is writing a book.  And, I was demanding of what it should have.  Don't you do that?  Why not ask for what you want to see pics of and know about?  This doesn't begin to cover spending the nite in Susanne's world famous garden, again.  Luff, luff Susanne's mom.  Asked her if I could call her, MiMi, today, she's 80's & I'm 50's.  Hugs & kisses in both directions.
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Drawing a garden for a Federal style home tomorrow.  Life is rushed, and good.
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Notice Tara Turf, above?  How could I not adore this 'new' friend?  Will post more pics, and his name/link once I meet him and get permission.
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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
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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.

Monday, August 4, 2014

The Minimalist Guide to Building Your own Conservatory

Better Homes & Gardens magazine recently put a Conservatory I built with Susanne Hudson for the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival in their magazine again.  Haven't read it yet but am curious.
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My garden is 8500sf total, including house.  This is for tiny gardens too.
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Conservatory in my garden, below,  best investment in 'me' ever.
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Salient facts: 12' x 18' is the minimum size, doors must be on 2 walls minimum, electrical outlets on every wall, chandelier, ceiling fans, wood stove.  Site parallel or perpendicular to your home.  
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 A 'moveable' structure meets most zoning laws allowing you to site properly.
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90% rescued materials, below.  Most, a century old.
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A decade of search/rescue + filling the piggy bank to pay for labor/materials/electrical.  Voila.


Choose a good carpenter, let their talent shine on your team.


Never tire of these French doors, they began life a century ago, 1 each side of a fireplace, in my grandmother's Federal style house.


Ground was not level.  Stone steps were rescued, and gravel chosen for the floor.  No worries getting finished interior grade level.


Conservatory, above, Susanne & I built, in the new BHG magazine.  Styling, above, is ours, the magazine has theirs.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Top 3 pics in my backyard.  Wanted a larger Conservatory but space did not allow.  Squeaked by with the minimum, 12' x 18'.  The day my Conservatory was completed and the men helped bring in all the antiques from the garage, then left, I sat in the finished Conservatory for the 1st time alone, IT BEGAN.  Life's tipping point.  Who knew?  Beware of getting what you ask for.  It WILL change your life.  What was seen thru a glass darkly will shine clear.  In that moment you will let go of every thing holding you back.  Fear that crippled will fall away as if you knew nothing of its existence.
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Lunch Ministry is often held in my Conservatory.  Amazing the amount of laughter, and tears, this blessed Conservatory has already harbored with friends.  Beloved, when he realizes I'm in the Conservatory, most often, will leave me alone until 'I' decide to come in.  Grace pulsating.
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Minimalist?  Mentored, as a little girl, by Miss Katherine Scott, "I can live without the necessities but must have the luxuries."  From age 7, wisdom understood.  An understanding never appreciated by my dad, a little more by Beloved.  Kindred spirits totally 'get it'.
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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.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Front Porch: Formal + Informal


Design Rule: Contrast.
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A touch of the Queen + Ellie Mae Clampett.
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Urn on Plinth + Galvanized Buckets hanging with ropes.

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Your garden must tell me who you are before stepping inside your home.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic taken this month.  Jeri Farmer's lovely home/garden was on the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival Garden Tour.  Jeri & Susanne refreshed the garden this year and time/money were both running short yet pots were still needed for the ferns.  Of course Susanne said, "Put them in galvanized buckets."
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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.

Friday, June 20, 2014

Design Rule: Hint of Invitation

In the bright morning light, below.
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Hint of something, saying, come-this-way.
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Gravel path, boxwood, bench & hydrangeas.
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Paths should engage: foot, eye, mind, heart.

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The language of invitation.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken this month in Susanne Hudson's garden.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

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


Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Window Valences: In the Garden

Since the early 80's I've collected vintage garden books.  From those the memory bank retained this window arbor, below.


A delight seeing them at Susanne Hudson's historic home.


Susanne's were just moved from back to front on her carriage house receiving a new coat of paint and light renovation.
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Yes, gardens do need exterior valences.
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Gotta love a color theme, of course the garden valences are white.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pics taken last week.
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

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

Monday, June 16, 2014

Tool Bouquet

Tool Bouquets, below, used as sconces.
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Begun with rot, aka beloved use, these tools are prophets with honor in Susanne Hudson's garden.
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For centuries mankind honored the connection of tool to Earth as life sustainer.
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Betty Friedan  wrote about the 1st generation of women disconnected from hand-to-tool-to-soil.
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Their children would not learn the names of farm tools, their use, how to raise livestock, plant crops, cook, care take others, much less know how to feed their own spirit.  Bugs & weeds, instead of pollinators increasing crop yield, became poisoned inconveniences.
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Their children played in clouds of malathion as evening trucks fogged mosquitoes.
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(No time to rewrite, for this era, Friedan's work, back to tools.....)


Study Susanne's art of tool arrangement.  She's the best.


An exquisite wedding planner, Susanne treats Tool Bouquet's exactly like flower arranging.

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It's easier to find designer clothes at a thrift store than old tools.
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I'm always on the hunt for old tools.  And, seeing walls, inside or out, needing a Tool Bouquet.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.
.
Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.
                                                                                 .
Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon
.
Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.
.
Construction by Award Winning:

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

Friday, June 13, 2014

Lamps in the Garden

The old altar table, below, has a new life.


In Susanne Hudson's garden.


 Doesn't every garden need lamps, books, gravel, art, a copper wash tub, large mirror, and


hydrangeas too?
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pics taken last week in Susanne's garden, it was on the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival tour.
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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.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Garden Design Course: Free in a Single Pic

Under a pecan tree not much grows.
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Tara Turf is best.
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Why?
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Increased pollinator habitat increases crop yield up to 80%.
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 Susanne Hudson found herself with 4 benches needing a home.  Exquisitely, they found a home.
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Please put this on one of your Pinterest boards.  It's a free Garden Design course !
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Garden Design: backdrop, canopy-understory-groundcover aka ceiling-walls-floor, color, texture, scale, flow, garden rooms, mystery, serene, poverty cycle, curb appeal, focal point, subsidiary focal point, vintage theme, simplicity, low maintenance, pollinator habitat, urban gardening, structure all year.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic snapped with my phone last week.
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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.