Front Porch: Color, Shutters, Narrative

In a subdivision, below, without the trees you would see neighbor's houses from the front porch.

Whenever you see the gardener, dressed up/down, she's arrayed in black/white.  With a bit of bling too, but you knew that from her front porch.

The shutters are bi-fold doors from a closet.  Ick to fab !

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Color, seating, flow, layers, texture, invitation, relaxation, all ages, conversation, dining, narrative.

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Which shouts loudest?

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I adore the narrative, above.

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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.

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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.

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.

5 Important Covered Porch Design Elements

Hope the luxury of designing a porch is yours, not a previous owner.

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1.  Plenty of electrical outlets.  Every wall should have 1 or more electrical outlets.  Enough electrical outlets to disturb your electrician.  Never, in my experience, does an electrician understand this.  (Nor spouse.)

2.  Place can lights, below, away from fan blades.  Who wants haunted house strobe lights?

3.  Do not use off-the-shelf lattice.  Lattice, below, is special order, a bit thicker wood, looks custom, costs minimally more.

4.  Detail the walls & ceiling.

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5.  Choose colors that flow from your interiors inside the covered porch & colors that flow from your home's exterior to the outside of your covered porch.

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At jobsite yesterday we 'vision quested' furniture to source/buy/reuse/place, art to hang, tv, etc.

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Yes, it was fun.

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This porch has done something quite special.  It has given her a new house.  It began as a deck 1/2 the size of the new covered porch.  A never used deck.

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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

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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.

Screened Porch: Furniture Texture

Furniture textures are important.  In addition to color.

A new covered screened porch, above/below, with warmth & welcome.

Patio/deck/porch/garden furniture is too often in 'sets' with matchy-watchy pieces too.

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What is this hold garden furniture ads have over popular imagination?

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Of course they want you to buy sets.

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Most often, why would you do that?

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However, there are lovely exceptions.  

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Be sure you are one before embarking upon sets of matchy-watchy garden furniture.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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pics this week in a client 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.

Using Color Restraint with Intensity

Intense restraint and another example of the color trinity green-brown-white.

Restraint so intense the terrace has become a proscenium for guests.
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Subtlety so rich the bluestone & granite become focal points.
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Humbling execution.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic Wendy Posard and Associates.  Definite teamwork between architect & owners.
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2 Tara Dillard questions a patio must answer, 'Is this patio so fabulous I must see inside the house?', 'Is this patio so incredible I must see the garden?'.  Yes & yes.

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.

Wendy Posard: Kitchen + Garden

When the garden is a feature of the kitchen I know the architect has gone beyond their education.  And delved into the realm of intuitive.

Flooring flows inside/outside and the scale is charming vs. large.  Other comparisons: happy vs. large, nurturing vs. large.......
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Necessity vs. luxury.
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"I can live without the necessities but I must have the luxuries.", a quote I first heard age 8, repeated by Miss Katherine Scott, a grand influence.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic is a Wendy Posard project.

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.

Empty is Fine. Why be perfect?

Garden Design is not about having a perfect garden.

It's about having a beautiful garden without stress.  From every window a beautiful view.  

Doesn't matter if the terra cotta pot is planted.

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There is a realm the perfect garden matters, pollinator habitat.

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Oddly, my Garden Design formula based on historic gardens across Europe does, indeed, create maximum pollinator habitat.  And I thought I was going after beautiful + low maintenance.  Classic story of following your heart, while others belittle what you are doing, and gaining far more than anticipated.

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Why does pollinator habitat matter?  Increasing pollinators increases crop yields up to 80%.

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Have a seat, hold on, YOU are a pollinator too.  

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics at jobsite this week.  Have you ever really thought about the types of sex plants have?  Hilarious when compared to the snit about humans.  

Desk & End Table on the Porch

Perfect place to get a few things done on the laptop, a quick lunch, perhaps a grandchild coloring?

Maybe it's only an extra chair.

A magic table:  end table AND desk.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken yesterday at jobsite.  Did you notice the garden view in the top pic?  Decades of experience, studies in historic gardens across Europe, college, seminars, knowing  simplicity is the 'skill'. .