Twig Fencing: Get the Look For Less

Oddly, most often, adding 'more' to a small space, enlarges it.  Another of those COUNTERINTUITIVITIES about Garden Design.  Off topic, but had to mention it.  More, off topic, deer won't jump a fence they can't see thru/beyond.
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Twig fencing, below, hard to copy throughout most of USA.  Make it yourself?  Sure, in your spare time.  Great, you've sourced it ready-made, now to afford it.



Pic, above, here.

Luckily, big box stores sell rolls of reed fencing, below.

 
Pic, above, here.


 
Pic, above, here.
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Perhaps reed fencing is now input into your Garden Design vision questing.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Are You a Picnic Person?

My mother-in-law introduced me to 'The Picnic'.  Moth to a flame.  My mom let it be known putting peanut butter/jelly on bread for a small child at home was stupid, odious and a ridiculous waste of time.  A picnic?  Not happening.  So.  The concept of spending days hunting/gathering for a picnic, taking place at an exotic location, the more inconvenient the better, and finding the exact right recipe for vichyssoise soup as a picnic 1st course, which china to pack, the best wines to pair with the food, cloth napkins, and so much more.  Yes, yes, yes, I bought the farm, love a picnic.
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My last proper picnic was too long ago.  Went with 2 lady friends to the Kentucky Derby.  We packed an incredible picnic.  Enjoying ourselves immensely the oddest thing kept happening.  Passerby taking our picture, some even asked if it was ok to get our picture.
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Last year we had plans for a holiday lunch that fell through.  Beloved asked me, What do you want to do now?  I said let's go get some things, pack it up, and have a picnic by the pond, at the back of the property.
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Whoa.  That took the air out of him.  He got that look, Is she crazy !  We had no picnic.  In fact, that's all I remember about it, no picnic.  What we did instead, zero memory.
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Saw this pic, below, a few days ago, and all I could think was the picnic I didn't have at the pond vs. the many picnics taken with my mother-in-law through the decades.
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If you've read, To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Wolfe, know that I refuse to let a picnic by my pond become that trip to the lighthouse.  Too much fun to be had, inviting my local core of lady friends for a picnic by the pond this fall.



Pic, above, here.
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Are you a picnic person?
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

A Cure for the Green Meatball

Truly curious.  Did green waves, below, start life as green meatballs?  Hope these green waves sail a thousand ships.
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Fence color.  Perfect, enlarges the space, and the potted tree, again, color enlarges its space too.
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Both artworks sited on axis from the house, with pure museum backdrop.
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Gas grill is pruned into its niche, hiding from view.
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Little maintenance, merely blowing, pruning.  Would like to see same shot with the green waves at their peak of scruffy, before a pruning day.


Pic, above, here.
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Bravo to the pruner, foliage to the gravel.  Amazing perfection.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Mercy: Man & Dog

A lot of reasons to smile, below.
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If this man does/could have a garden, I know it would be wonderful.  He's got the attitude.  Garden Design is over 11,000 years old, and has a lot of  'rules', each one meant to be intelligently broken with love, simplicity, wit.  Proving, afresh, why the ancient Garden Design rules, rule.
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Pic, above, here.
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"Mercy is the conscious choice to be kind when one can be cruel."  Mercy...."seeded in scripture yet almost biologically encoded into human nature."
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There is an ineffable secularized mercy, above, from man to dog.  Yet that mercy travels in both directions, in giving mercy to his dog, it pours back onto him.  And why the pic reeks of love.
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In my garden, without intention or knowledge aforethought  I found this secularized mercy, mercy profane.  Continuing to garden, decades, hallelujah, epiphany finally arrived and I got the memo, sacred mercy.

"Practicing mercy can be redemptive and rebellious."  Mercy can be used as a shield, toward ourselves, above, and others.  For years I labeled this the-good-selfishness, until realizing it as grace.
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"Mercy only exists because of and as a counterpoint to our capacity for cruelty."  In a garden is the harvest, mercy, against life's cruelty.  Ironic the story of man/woman 1st placed on Earth in a garden, sin entered, poof they were sent into the cruel world.  It's no wonder I love a garden.
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Before moving away from my 30 year garden, 2 years ago, I knew it would be hard.  Deeply hard.  There were no words, trying to articulate to Beloved what I was leaving.  Now, 2 years later, I have the words.  Leaving my 30 year garden I left its unconditional love, and mercy.  Beyond reason, beyond doubt, I know unconditional love & mercy need not come from a person.  G*d has given myriad resources for those gifts.  
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"In denying others mercy, we deny ourselves."  Pure Joseph Campbell territory of follow your bliss.  Within it you will find mercy profane, and sacred.  And, of course the Earth wisdom of Wendell Berry.
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All quotes, above, Anne Lamott.  Wendell Berry & Joseph Campbell, below.
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The old and honorable idea of 'vocation' is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber596505.html
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There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber596494.html
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Urban conservationists may feel entitled to be unconcerned about food production because they are not farmers. But they can't be let off so easily, for they are all farming by proxy. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber461112.html
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The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking. Wendell Berry
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/wendellber461100.html
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Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/josephcamp390717.html
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"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."    Joseph Campbell

Love is a friendship set to music."  Joseph Campbell.

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Love is a friendship set to music.  "  Joseph Campbell.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Decadence at Garden Entry

The first time I arrived to Penny's drive, below, my car stopped as the hydrangeas lay heavy either side my hood.  Had to stop.  To take in what was happening.  More than greeting my arrival, I was being caressed.
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Garden Design's decadent greeting.
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Creating entryways in a garden, perhaps the most overlooked necessity.  Early into serious Garden Design study it was obvious, the more entry ways a garden has the better a garden is.
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Penny took it to new layers.


Pic, above, here.


 

If you've read my missives for a length of time, you know exactly what to do next.  Copy.
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Entry into my backyard, above, entry into my frontyard, below.  Hello.



Garden & Be Well,    XO T
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Pics of my garden, above, taken in my previous 30 year cottage garden.  Penny founded the American Hydrangea Society, and the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival in Douglasville, GA is a huge annual success.

What's Missing from this Front Porch?

Sitting on the front porch swing, below, yesterday before dinner.
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Furnishings are functional, still not 'permanent' after moving here 2 years ago.  Awaiting back deck staining & building a conservatory, both may pull furniture from front porch.  Until then, no worries, I like using the front porch.    Floor, below, still needs staining.
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Chair, at front door, below, leverages me coming/going from my car for work and grocery, always something to set down.  Better, that chair has the best packages delivered upon it.  Moving in, a friend told me, because I was now in middle of nowhere, You've got to get amazon prime.  Never considered that a need.  Now rural, it's a need.
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3 ceiling fans are a need.  Rural insects dine upon livestock patties, growing to impressive sizes, while having a higher IQ than their city counterparts.  They're born knowing my name, where I live, and adoring my hide.  Worse, they love going for car rides.  
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Notice what is missing below?
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Huge.
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Ironic for a Garden Designer, yet a point of particular pride.



Posted this pic, above, on my facebook yesterday.  Asking same question, What's Missing?  Got a quick answer from hilarious source.
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Surprisingly got answers that I wasn't looking for, but were true answers.  People are rarely a component of my Garden Design photos.  During my formative era, Garden Design photos rarely had people in them.  But there was a stronger reason for having no people.  Money.  With a roll of slide film, I could only afford usable pics that would last decades.  People & cars date a garden pic.
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Still life pulls me greatly.  Interior/exterior.  An invitation to enter.  Someone noticed that too.  A+ to him, he left me a bit stunned, as if he'd found a 'secret' !
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That friend knowing immediately what's missing, above, was the daughter-in-law of my former boss.  Her father-in-law owned the nursery/florist I worked for doing propagation work for 2.5 years.  Learned much from her father-in-law, and always enjoyed seeing him at industry events for decades.  A good man, gone many years.  Now, she & her husband own that nursery.  It's obvious what's missing right?  Plants.
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Not to that layer yet, excitedly anticipating growing small topiaries in terra cotta pots, a Bunny Mellon layer, and in a funny twist, interesting begonias.  A particular begonia from a friend's grandmother's plant, and here's the twist, that nursery I worked at as a propagator has an outstanding variety of old fashioned begonias.
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Until the plant layer arrives, I'm enjoying the anticipation.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Gabion Walls

Gabion wall, below, taming a slope.



Pic, above, here.


 

Gabion wall, above/below, total environment creation.  Outside the wall, intersection of 2 dusty roads & industrial views.



Isn't it wonderful seeing 'smart' !  More, the arbor, above, probably the variation Beloved & I will use at the back of our home.
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We ate at this restaurant just outside Progresso, Yucatan, above, after visiting the Mayan ruins at Dzibilchaltun last week.  Aside from known Mexican beers, they made, on site, 9 IPA's.  I had their Belgian Blonde Ale.  The food?  Terrible having such a good meal, and IPA, knowing nothing like it back home.
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The restroom zone had a wall of windows, with views into more gabion walls.  Wildly effective, using what's at hand, limestone.  As if the restaurant merely arose from the ground.  A mentor, Mary Kistner, said it best, It's what we do with what we have.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

How Exterior Color Travels Between Continents

Leaving Merida, Yucatan, below, a few days ago.
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Really?
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Yellow walls & a cantaloupe ceiling.
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Alas, there are a few things to know about exterior colors from one continent to another.
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Color, and how the eyes take it in, is affected by where the color is on the globe.  More, local soil,  vegetation, & humidity heavily affect how exterior colors 'look'.  Yucatan is a lot of limestone, and humidity with dusty white particulates floating in air, tons landing on plants.
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Here's what I know for sure about the cantaloupe ceiling, below.  Getting this exact cantaloupe paint color for my ca. 1900 farmhouse will not produce what I see, below.  Light is refracted differently at my longitude/latitude and Georgia red clay particulates float in air, refract from the ground, and land on plantings.  More, Georgia flora grows much taller than in Merida, another factor affecting how colors look.
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Then there are the clouds.  How clouds filter color must be considered too.
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So. This exact cantaloupe ceiling, below, is as much a trip memory as the lunch we had on the drive to Merida.  Unique.  Can't get this at home.



Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Porch Ceiling Blue

Front porch today.  Still life.  Calm.  Gardenesque.  Faces east.
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Bench hasn't been there long, yet already seen lots of use.  Bench & plant stand moved with me from my previous garden, surviving the great purge of Cottage Garden to historic ca. 1900 farmhouse.
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Ceiling has only been blue since Christmas'ish.  Huge surprise once painted.  It's gorgeous from inside the house, looking into the garden.  A good transition.  No, too small, a happy transition.  I had a narrow consideration ahead of painting, from the street inward, or in photos.  Pea brain.  Adore a good surprise in Garden Design.  This qualifies, big.
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Don't paint a porch ceiling blue for how it looks, paint it blue for how it lives.
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Looks vs. Lives.  A new pair.  Balances a favorite pair, Sacred vs. Profane.



Stain, Cabot, Driftwood Gray, solid cover, has already been bought for the floor.
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Time & money getting to simple is a grown-up dry humor.  Friend texted me pic yesterday of her lovely new gravel path, she shoveled into place with her young daughters, signing off with, hvac $12,000.00 just put in.  
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Who sells those T-shirts?  Owner: New Roof $.......   New Insulation $.......     New Car Tires $.........    New Washer/Dryer $.........  New HVAC $.......  New Windows $......  etc.  And, all of that is the normal good stuff in life.  Yep, quite the dry humor.
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More is the victory of a new gravel garden path, or simple still life.
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Filthy lucre.
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A woman said to our historic garden design tour director, in France, what a bother it was to get xyz done in the garden.  Without pausing he said, "Sex is a bother and we don't mind."  She had no follow up comment.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Two Client Stories

Last Friday I walked to our little post office, picked up mail, and waited in line to send a package.  Waiting not an inconvenience in our small rural town.  We know our postwoman, and most in line ahead of us, if that ever happens.  A time to catch up on 'news' or better, gossip.
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I noticed a personal envelope in my hand from a couple I've worked for almost 20 years.  It had to be an invitation, some sort of garden party.  They've always included me that way.
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Instead, I read the typed/copied note, and had to pause, read it again.  Mr. Smith died unexpectedly, his memorial service is....
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Note to self, Wait till you get home to read any future personal notes.



Pic, above, here.
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A few hours later Beloved received a phone call.  Mr. Jones, a longtime friend of his, he had done a lot of work for Mr. Jones over the span of 3 decades, I met Mr. Jones 4 years ago, designing their new backyard/swimming pool, was murdered.  Worse, Mr. Jones's 31 year old son is in jail and charged in the murder.
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Two widows in 2 beautiful homes, surrounded by beautiful gardens.  Children, grandchildren losing their father, grandfather.  Both men, bigger than life, literally pillars of their community, and so much more.
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Beloved had a surprise blow-out birthday party Saturday.  He knew something was up, said he wanted everything called off.  No party.  For several hours early Saturday, Beloved was on the phone with various men friends, Beloved crying, and I heard everyone one of those men crying.  Too late for the party, that show was going to happen.  Several at the party were grieving their mutual friend.  Magic happened.  Their spirits lifted.  The party Beloved dreaded, became a salvation, for those grieving.  The large downtown church was standing room only yesterday.  Later, after the graveside service, we spoke with friends about how the Saturday party truly helped the grieving.
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At the church service something said about Beloved's friend, was a beacon of lite about a seemingly insignificant fact.  Mr. Jones had 130 employees.  Every 2 weeks when their checks were cut, Mr. Jones always signed each check, never accepted the suggestion for rubber stamping them.  Mr. Jones was signing those checks in gratitude, and in prayer for each name on the checks.  Stewardship.
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I could not go to my other client's memorial service, it was the day of Beloved's party.  Have sent his widow a note snail mail.  Will call her soon.  Tough call, but I wouldn't not call for anything.  Selfishly, wanting to know that beacon of lite about her incredible husband.
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Have the same memory of both men, while working for them.  When they asked me questions, walking in their garden, their eyes would be piercing, and the left ear cocked, not wanting to miss a word.  More, they each did everything I designed.  They got that memo too.  Know the memo?  When you're outside your scope of talent, hire an expert, then, most importantly, do what they say.  I was in my 30's getting that memo.  Better late than never.
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Oddly, got the memo about stewardship 5 years ago, really late in life, from the oddest source, my 8 heirloom chickens.  They had finally grown large enough in their garage pin with heat lamp, to put into their big girl Chinoiserie style coop in the garden.  Everything was fun-fun-isn't-life-grand until I closed the coop door and walked away the 1st time.  What had I done?  What if something happens to them?  I'm responsible for them.  This is awful.  A few hours later it sunk in, caring for my chics, and garden are a privilege, washing-of-the-servants-feet.  
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

A Fine Prospect

Last of the Piedmont, below, heading into the Coastal Plain.  Earlier this month Beloved helped me place my 6' teak bench.  She had been a garden focal point for years, later, placed in my Conservatory for a couple of years, then I moved.  Now, she's subtle, purposefully insignificant, a perch for this fine prospect, below.



Look close, below, and you'll see her.



Invasives were impenetrable when we bought the property.  Getting to the pond not an option.  Beloved hacked a trail immediately upon closing on the property.  For months we thought the far side of the pond was the end of our land.  We discussed offering to buy more land from that owner.  Then we got a survey.  Great news, we already owned a nice amount of land behind the pond.  A bottle of champagne had been in the fridge far too long.  We toasted our good news.
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Last weekend was full, by early Sunday evening I was craving solitude, wildly.  My DNA spoke, Get yourself back to the pond bench.  Six feet long, I sat in a corner of my bench, cradled by an arm & back.  Old friend, you came to me as a Christmas gift from a pair I loved, now gone, how was I to know it would be just you & me, and you would give an embrace of solace?
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Pic, above, here.
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Beloved found me on the bench, he had ridden in on the Gator.  Sat next to me for a few very short minutes, said a few things about clearing the growing underbrush.  He finally became aware of my face, above, and drove away.
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Not an introvert, he will never understand my need for solitude, but he did understand my eyes, leaving me to harvest my riches.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

Annuals: Easily Have Them or Not at All

Great lip service is given to the quote, "I want my garden to be low maintenance."  What follows that request, as a professional listening to a new client, is the full monty destroying their request for low maintenance.
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I want to look out the windows of my home and the garden views, each and every one, are, "Oh wow."  More,  I want to enjoy myself in my garden.  You know, "Come for lunch this Friday, we'll have lunch in the garden."  In a few days it will be Saturday.  Zero thoughts contemplating garden chores, instead, "Should be a good Saturday to sit in the Adirondack overlooking lake, woodland, chickens, and begin reading my new book that arrived last month."
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About garden chores.  The few I do have are not 'chores', instead they are the gift of stewardship in partnership with Nature.  Best metaphor-come-to-life, to me, for washing-of-the-servant's-feet.  'Gift' is too small in scope, an honor.
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Back to low maintenance gardening.  A garden to be enjoyed, below.


Pic, above, here.

Colorful annuals have their place.  Somehow they've become the go-to-must-have landscape design ingredient.  Before epiphany, stewardship-not-chores, I knew if a residential landscape design 'needed' annuals, the design was a failure.  Commercial landscape design is another beast entirely.  Yet, thought thru, even they don't need annuals swapped 2x yearly.

 
Pic, above, here.

If you want annuals in your garden, above/below, fabulous method to make it easier.  Before eco/sustainable, having worked professional propagation for years, I knew how toxic the annual flower industry is to Earth.  Packaged soil, wooden pallets shrink wrapped with goods, plastic plug trays, plastic hoop houses, heating/cooling, fungicides, insecticides, pre-emergents, trucking/transportation, mulching.  Nope, nothing eco/sustainable there.  Instead, self-seeding annuals are my choice, if needed at all.
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Pic, above, here.
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Annuals could go into the garden, below.  But they don't 'have' to.

 
Pic, above, here.
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And the conceit of low maintenance, above, in this garden flows around the entire property, below.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Great use of colorful annuals, below.  You are in charge of adding the color, as needed, not the garden with a swath of dead annuals due to a change in season.

 
Pic, above, here.
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I'm giving a garden talk in April, they requested a certain title, Color in the Garden for Sun/Shade.  Sure I'll do some annuals, don't want to alienate any newbies.  Remember, stewardship.  In addition, I will include plenty of color used historically, green.  My hope is to widen horizons.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT