Gravel & Green

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Garden Design Template: Gravel & Green

A trade article I read earlier this year, European sourced, blamed the lack of young'ish people gardening upon 'older' people being poor examples of gardeners.  More than missing the boat, greater than missing it by a galaxy, they shot past our universe, to be wrong.
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Whatever !  Not going there now.
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Isolating Garden Design templates, you know, the ones that keep cropping up.  (Sorry, too amusing, that horrible pun, it wasn't intended.")
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Garden Design templates, all are centuries old, most are BCE.
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What, oh what, to name them?
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Continually, I'm doing Garden Design work, with no name.  Tara Turf, for example.
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I came to Garden Design, same as most of the herd.  It's a pack animal belief system, especially in USA.  "What do I want to do?  I want this & this & that & etc.  Oh, I love that, it will be wonderful in the front yard."  Wilderness years.  Money & effort, no results, aside from visual proof, arrogance, with zero use of intellect.  Most, alas, never set foot into the wilderness years.  No desire, I get that.  Those getting into the wilderness, never quite pull themselves out.
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A tiny few, decide to leave the wilderness and hire a Garden Designer.  When I decided to leave the wilderness, zero funding.  Off to college for a 2nd degree, this time, horticulture.  Total bamboooozzzzzle was that USA horticulture degree.  Next, off to study historic gardens across Europe for decades.  Finally.  True beginning, learning Garden Design.
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Back to those Garden Design templates.
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You're looking at one, below.  Every element of a garden room is here, sky, ceiling, walls, chair rail, flooring, focal point, flow, function.
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Gravel & Green.


Pic, above, here.
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Wonder lies in each template.  Intuitively, you know, "I can do this."  Better, your mind/heart, understands and morphs the Gravel & Green into shapes, plantings, focal point, perfect, and original to you and your site's needs.
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Now, this moment, whether you like the Gravel & Green template or not, mentally eradicate your existing Garden Design, replace it with Gravel & Green.
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Fun, yes?
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Garden & Be Well,     XO T
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BCE?   Never saw, BCE, until I went to Israel and did the Foot Steps of Jesus tour.  Two weeks of wonder & joy.  Love Israel.  Shock of seeing Jerusalem, from Mount of Olives, and realizing the West Bank is merely a Landscape Architecture construct.  Going to a new settlement and realizing it is literally, Guns and Roses.  Building new homes upon rock, bringing everything it takes to grow plants.  Building settlements is Horticulture.  Landscape Architecture & Horticulture in this humbling biblical place, from its earliest settling.  Ironic, exactly where G*d first placed people, in a garden.  Earth.  BCE, Before Christ's Era.

Florist Shop Technique in Your Garden

Florist Shop Technique in Your Garden

I remember well going into the old tiny white clapboard house, engulfed with oleander, gardenias, and sago palms, on the way to League City, TX, with its front half turned into a florist shop, they lived at the back, with mom when she needed to send sympathy flowers.  In the 60's this was not a phone call or internet purchase.  The large glass front refrigerator stuffed with flowers awaiting, scents, vases, ribbons, cut stems in a pile, no, I was not waiting in the car.  Life was electric in that tiny shop & home.
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Saw that house, long abandoned, during my last trip home in December.
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No matter its current state it has sailed a thousand ships in my work.  I have a Pinterest board for Florist Shops.  Clients with acreage, and little time, I send to that board to inspire when they have an open garden or private function.  Temporary beauty easily arranged.
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Claus Dalby, below, from Denmark uses the Florist Shop Technique.  No matter your continent, style, budget, the Florist Shop technique is for you too.  



Pic, above, Claus Dalby.
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Florist Shop Technique.  My favorite type of gardening, see it do it.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Thank you Janelle McCulloch for another great find.

Blank Wall: Innovation in Design

Blank Wall: Innovation in Design

Pinteraddicting, a few weeks ago & discovered this, below.  Image/idea will not leave mind/heart.

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Such a stunner, it's a stunnah.

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Still life, gallery wall, assemblage, collage, Matisse, Picasso, Kadinsky, Berlin Dadaists, Merz, Schwitters.

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Mary Kistner, mentor/client/friend, refined my knowledge of all the, above, and she's been gone forever-and-a-day-too-long.

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Without her to spend hours talking about this pic, below, I have you.

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Choose a wall, choose your scale, choose the axis it is seen from,interiors/exteriors, choose your 'merz'.  High, low, no matter.

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Voila, Blank Wall Landscape Design.

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Tara Dillard's, newest, Landscape Design Invention, BLANK WALL, more inventions, here.

Blank Wall Landscape Design, above, should become a standard at Home/Garden Shows, Botanical Gardens, Big Box garden displays, your home.

Time to rethink your walls, above.  Much love swathed upon the walls here.

 Vignettes easy to maintain, fun to create, zero drudgery.

Well loved Blank Wall Landscape Design, above.  Would love to see their choices during a big event garden soiree, above.

What is common to each?  Simplicity.  And the thought, "I can do that."

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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All pics, Pinterest.

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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.

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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.

POVERTY CYCLE

Touring the old gardens of Charleston, SC over 2 decades ago I realized why they were fabulously incredible. They had endured the POVERTY CYCLE. More than endure. The POVERTY CYCLE is the largest element of their success. Monet's famous landscape was due to the POVERTY CYCLE. Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West & Harold Nicolson's garden, again, the POVERTY CYCLE. Using gravel instead of stone? The POVERTY CYCLE. Beauty & function with the sound of 'crunch'.

Old stone terraces with pretty perennials between the cracks? The POVERTY CYCLE. During WWI the estate gardens of Europe lacked labor. No one to repoint the mortar of once pristine stone terraces. We've not gone back. The POVERTY CYCLE led to a prettier, easier, cheaper beauty.

Field gathering furniture & focal points for the landscape the French, centuries ago, painted them all a single color, to unify. Again, the POVERTY CYCLE.

Above, free stones, free chair, plants on sale. The POVERTY CYCLE proving, thru difficulty, you can landscape beautifully.

Wanting a gate & settling for an old fence section wired to galvanized nails. The gate doesn't move. It's a faux gate. The POVERTY CYCLE.

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The best landscape design ideas have come from the POVERTY CYCLE.

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A combination of : intellect, intuitiveness, creativity, art, heart, eccentricity, boldness, integrity and the realization, It is a privilege to garden during our short time on this planet.

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Too often landscapes on make-over TV shows, and big landscapes at large flower shows lack POVERTY CYCLE elements. And that is why TV garden shows and large flower shows are losing numbers.

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Those landscapes dazzle while they condescend & patronize.

How? The creators see an opportunity to do marketing not create a relevant landscape for their audience.

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Yes, with some of my landscape design projects, not many, I've had to 'down' sell clients to stone in dirt, vs. mortar, or gravel instead of stone, injecting the richness of the POVERTY CYCLE.

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XO Tara

TARA TURF

TARA TURF IS UNIQUE TO EACH REGION.
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TARA TURF, in GA, is a mix of grass-moss-clover-mondo-ajuga-dandelion--mazus-and what the wind blows in. Add crocus, dwarf daffodil, thyme if desired.
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TARA TURF is mowed at 1-2-3 heights, below. Beneficial to wildlife, organic, sustainable, fragrant, low maintenance, eco and only uses rainwater.>



TARA TURF, mixed heights, above, in England.
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Studying landscapes in Europe I noticed, NO LAWNS. TARA TURF is used commercially and residentially.
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New neighborhoods lack smell and mixed insects. Did you know there are more good bugs than bad bugs?
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Old neighborhoods smell like my childhood. Clover, grass, bugs, dirt, all the good things.
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Most new neighborhoods have deed restrictions outlawing TARA TURF.
TARA TURF in England, above.
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The outlaw label, against TARA TURF, should be amusing but the stakes are too high.
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The cost of mow-blow-go is too high. Lawn mowers are not regulated. One hour of lawn mowing is equal to 11 hours of driving a car.
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Fertilizer, insecticide & fungicide kill machorizal fungi, and are toxic to groundwater.
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  TARA TURF in Italy, above.
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And drain into groundwater. Atrazine in our drinking water was on the front page of NY Times 8-23-09. TARA TURF uses no chemicals.
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Yes, I design lawns. Preferring TARA TURF but using what deed restrictions require.
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Paul Tukey, Safelawns, is a resource for organic lawns.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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I took the top pic at Sissinghurst, England several years ago. Sissinghurst uses TARA TURF!

WOODLAND WATTLE: FORMAL & INFORMAL

Used by tribes in Africa I observed what my late mentor & friend, Mary Kistner did with her woodland leaves-branches-rocks-etc.
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CREATE A WATTLE: PULL WOODLAND DEBRIS INTO A SERPENTINE LINE. 3.5' AT THE BASE & TAPERING TOWARD THE TOP, NO MORE THAN 4' TALL. Wattles prevent leaves, in a woodland setting, from blowing back onto paths and into desirable bushes.

They don't photograph well. Clients & students cringe at my wattle words & pictures.

Every client & student visiting my wattles has gone home, excited, & created their own wattles.

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No more hauling the stuff off, or worse, paying to have it hauled off.

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Instead you're creating a butterfly habitat.

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You're composting without effort.

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My wattles are over a decade old. What I've never seen in my wattle: rats, snakes, coons.

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I've designed wattles into landscapes for over 15 years.

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For more drama, you knew it was coming, break a wattle open for a pathway. Break it open about 3.5'-4' wide. Place rocks from your property at each end of the wattle opening.

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Mary Kistner died at age 83 about 5 years ago. She grew up on an apple orchard in upstate New York.

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Formal Wattle: Use one type of debris.

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Informal Wattle: Uses multiple types of debris.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

IS THIS PIECE SO WONDERFUL IT WILL BE FOUGHT OVER AT MY ESTATE SALE?

No matter what you are bringing home for your landscape: tables, chairs, pots, rocks, bricks, birdhouses, birdfeeders, birdbaths, plinths, fencing, pruners, potting table and etc..
Ask yourself, IS THIS SO WONDERFUL IT WILL BE FOUGHT OVER AT MY ESTATE SALE? It's cheaper to ask the question.

Don't buy something because you're tired, it's late, it's cheap and merely OK.

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You'll get rid of it later...............I promise. And what a waste.

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Wait for the right thing. And the 'right things' are mostly found junking and at garage sales. Of course there are exceptions. Life is short. Open your checkbook. I've never regretted a dime spent in my landscape.

I am a very good estate sale. You would really like my metal window boxes and......

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara