Details of Design

Home for shelter, pastures for livestock, hedgerows/ornamentals for pollinators, walled gardens for fruit/vegetables, aesthetics for spirit.

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A living, given from the land.  

Touring a similar garden in France many years ago I had to ask the head gardener what he meant, "At times there were only subsistence gardeners here."

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Portions of history, so dire, laborers were paid in food.  Living the best they could in the woods.

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Approaching this type of garden, above, from a 'fat' country, and time, in the T.E. Lawrence sense of the word, I did not see its lessons.

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Walled gardens produce earlier & later than Nature allows, keeps wildlife/livestock out, and thieves.

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Box hedging outside the garden walls keeps chickens out.

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Pretty flowers?  Sure, planted to be pretty, yet this reason is from a 'fat' intellect.  Which was mine, until epiphany.  

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Those pretty flowers increase crop/fruit yields by 80%.  

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Suddenly, what had been merely, 'pretty', is seen as truth, 'survival'.

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And, imagine all the lovely compost, produced on site, returning into the land.

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Providence, creator of the 1st organic machine.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pic via 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.

Garden Design: Aging in Place

Keep- it- Simple- Sweetie works, every time.

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Perhaps my Garden Design rule breaker, Overdose- on- a- Theme, is how you want to garden design, in spots, instead.

If this were the only garden space, above, I had until age 89 it would be my life's goal/mission to be the sole soul maintaining this sweet garden.
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Why?  Means I would be climbing a ladder to clip the espalier fruit tree or gather fruit, in season.  Oh my, the joy of clipping the low hedge and spiral.  Puttering about with the pots, bulbs, mentally deciding thru the years how to out-perform the previous year/s in fabulosity.
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If this little garden design did need a hired helper it merely needs unskilled labor twice a year.
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 Beautiful, low maintenance, mentally stimulating through the years, no chemicals or watering needed, fruit to eat, turn into jam or give away.
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These little doorway gardens are quite common in historic gardens across Europe.  History is the best teacher.
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Lawn with foundation plantings, fertilizer, insecticides, pre-emergents, and a plop of colorful annuals twice each year?  Mr. Mow-Blow-Go-Commodify-All-I-Touch on contract to arrive weekly?
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Not for me.  Mentally & spiritually soul crushing along with being bad for my physical well being.
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Aging in Place.  Make the choice in your garden for type of garden design, the beauty, mental paths and joy in the maintenance whether you do it, or a helper.  Take the joy.  Joy, it's always there, whether you think so or not.  Take joy, Tasha Tudor's favorite saying.
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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.

How to Layer Your Garden, Save Money & Create Less Work

Espalier apples, below, layered with flowering plants increase yields to 80%.

 Flowering trees, bushes, ground covers, above/below.  Chosen for sequence of blooms, toughness against drought/disease/insects, position for layers, and, attractiveness to beneficial insects & song birds.

Once mature, garden layers eliminate need for mulch & fertilizers, less or no mowing, prevent weeds, and enrich soil.        

                                         What garden center wants you to have this type of garden?  They cannot sell you annuals, weed killers, fertilizers, mulch.  Yearly.  For decades.
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When is the last time Suze Orman saved homeowners this much money, and costly effort/time, while benefiting Earth?  And put healthy, tax free, inexpensive fruit/vegetables on the table, with garden layers increasing property value while reducing HVAC expenses.  Suze, who?  Go me.  And you.

Did you know nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium fertilizers kill soil mycorrhizal fungi & earthworms, & are toxic to the water supply?

Unexpected 'majesty', aka stateliness-dignity-beauty, in my little garden's layers, above.

Through the apple orchard, above, Laura. 

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken yesterday at the Bay Terrace, aka front yard.  Today, working at the table Laura sitting on, above.  Stopped for apples last month at the grocery store.  Asked the clerk if she had the product correct, each apple was over a $1.  Hello fruit trees, and veggies in my 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

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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.

Nurture Your Creativity

Ca. 1950 ranch.  Front yard, house on the golf course.

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Drawn on site.  Folding table/chair moved a dozen times.

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Don't mess with how I work.

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How the potter molds clay, similar to how I design.

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Feet in the garden, eyes/mind/Spirit/hand, in symphony.

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Performing.

More regions of the brain activated, than sitting in the office on a computer.

Designing on the computer would be like playing the violin by hooking it up to wires and tapping on the computer keyboard to get the sweetest sounds played.  Not !

Whence my creativity, I know.  And, nurture.

Within that zone of creativity, is, I imagine, what others gain from cocaine.  Don't know, never tried it.  Don't need to, got better.  

 "Some get a kick from cocaine**
I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrific'ly too
Yet I get a kick out of you."   Cole Porter

Each time a plan completed the awe in time.  Felt like seconds, yet hours passed.  Little in life allows me to forget time, or hunger.
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" My general formula for my students is "Follow your bliss." Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it. 

Joseph Campbell
The Power of Myth
pp. 120, 149 "
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Great fear, indeed.  Campbell should have added some in your life add to that fear, not trusting the path you've chosen.  
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My father was horrified at my career choice, and embarrassed.  And vocal.  My engineering degree unused, the horticulture degree supporting me.
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What I do for a living, and how I do it, are the best life choices, for me.  Bucking my dad literally made me ill at times.  
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Best choice I've ever made, and the hardest.
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Garden  & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics from jobsite this spring.
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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.

Copy from those at the Peak of their Game

You do a thing in the garden with your full IQ, passion, energy, wallet, time.  Influenced by era.

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At my front door, above, if you know the 80's, you're seeing Horticulture magazine, covers of Smith & Hawken catalog, and articles, pages long, from House & Garden magazine.

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So, where do you think I'm going with this?

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History.

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That trinity of resources, above, was from the best brains at the peak of their game.

  Drenched in the poverty cycle of the Great Depression & rusticities of turn-of-the-century Lutyens/Jekyll with generous splashes remaining of the Belle Epoque.

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So, when asked what plant should go in a certain spot or what is wrong with their lawn.  I pause, long.

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Themistocles comes to mind, " "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city."

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So, when I'm told, "I want a garden but I don't have a lot of money."

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Winston Churchill comes to mind, "....when he was asked to cut arts funding in favor of the war effort, he simply replied, "Then what are we fighting for?"

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The best thing I've ever done in my life was to say, Yes, when my soul told me to have a garden. 

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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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.

Want Elegance? Espalier

No room for 'lawn'?  Little space to landscape?

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Go vertical.

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Woody shrubs with medium or slow growth are best.  No wires or trellis needed.

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Merely espalier.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Please add ESPALIER to your quiver of garden tools.

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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.

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pic via Tumblr

Fruit at the Front Gate

At my front gate

my apple orchard with H. 'Tardiva', above, and R. triloba, below.

In person the visible is a working class neighborhood of closely set homes each with green meatball foundation plantings and lawn.
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Amongst this setting my apple orchard & flowers are outrageous.  A negative to neighbors.  And some who love me.
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Go figure.  Gardening is subversive?
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Merely following my heart towards the beauty it desires.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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pics taken last week in my garden.

Specialty Fence

 Rabbit fence for the potager.

 Perfect for a chicken run  too.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Pic via Content in a Cottage.