Monday, March 12, 2018

What Georgia O'Keefe Can Teach Us About Happiness

"I do not like the idea of happyness------it is too momentary-----I would say that I was always busy & interested in something-----interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happyness."  Georgia O'Keeffe.
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Seeking happiness, to me, "It is the shrewdness of the fox after the chicken.  A low order of mentality often goes with it."  Sherwood Anderson.
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Within my core tribe none seek happiness, yet they are the happiest souls I know.  This is hindsight.
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Cracking The Ben Pentreath Paint Colors Mystery | laurel home - beautiful vignette in Ben's living room.
Pic, above, here.
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Plants in the house, flowers in vases, an awakened joy.  Perhaps it's leaving my 30 year garden, and 3 years later our ca. 1900 home is still under basic construction: pond, dams, roads, drainage, well, irrigation, house renovations, gravel, shade trees, sheds, etc.
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A tipping point was reached, happily, last month when he asked, "Are we living in a greenhouse?".
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Something I know, for sure, about the vase, above, if it is narrow, in addition to wide, it's a magic vase.  Needs fewer flowers, and the shape helps put the arrangement together.  Zero clue to that fact, until this phase of life.
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IMG_8863.jpg
Pic, above, here.
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An old conceit, above, new to me, from The Land Gardeners.   Dig a clump of bulbs, plop into container, poof, flowers for the house.  White planter, above at back, easily found junking.  How many times have you passed them by, and at 75 cents probably.  Once done, bulbs go back in the ground whence they came, no guilt. 

Pic, above, here.
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Recognizing the 'line', above, in the floral arrangement.  Great satisfaction in 'knowing' about the 'line'.  Line?  Bottom left daisy, to the top right daisy, thicker in the middle.
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Works in reverse, below.  Line top left into thick middle ending bottom right.  Creates a natural look, gardenesque.
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how to make a beautiful floral arrangement with grocery store flowers
Pic, above, here.
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 Why Dark Walls Work in Small Spaces | Design*Sponge
Pic, above, here.
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Another 'line', above.  Didn't discover this line, found it in a book, bought almost 2 decades ago, not read until this year.   
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 spring branches
Pic, above, here.
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Quite saucy, wit, above, using the 'line'.  In a layer of prescience, I've bought pretty vases at estate sales since the 80's.  Crazy, zero time, zero talent, until this year's epiphany.  Why add this to my life?  A hunger for the 'doing' and greater hunger for the flowers in the house, life.

On the floor, below, pure joy.  Signs of life lived.  A mess to be swept?  Therein lies the privilege, and thanks.  Stewardship & joy. 
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 4.jpg
Pic, above, here.
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Our ca. 1900 home came with 2 kitchens.  The back kitchen we've turned into laundry, cat-ery, and most recently, floral arranging room.  Happy chaos.  Magic room with door to living room, back deck, and Jack/Jill bathroom.  Beside the fridge, an old majolica umbrella holder with a variety of brooms & mops.  Well used. 
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Happy.
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A local farmer's market is nearby, must get my Ivy Topiaries into more homes.  Not every market Saturday, but several.  For fun. 
Gretel Adams of Sunny Meadows in Columbus, Ohio. Creating wedding designs with farm fresh flowers. My partner in crime- @flowerfarmer.
Pic, above, here.
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"...the object drawn doesn't matter so much.  It's what you feel about it, what it means to you."  Sherwood Anderson.
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Happy.
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"Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant---there is no such thing.  Making your unknown known is the important thing---and keeping the unknown always beyond you..."  Georgia O'Keeffe.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

Friday, March 9, 2018

How to Leverage a Table into Your Best Employee

What do you 'see', below?  For myself, I see a leveraged table.  I place well leveraged tables/chairs throughout my garden.  Each at a tipping point.  Bottom of the steps leading into the garden from the house?  A chair.  Why? 

cecil beaton conservatory - Google Search
Pic, above, here.
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The chair at the bottom of those steps, one of my best employees.  Always ready to take away some of what I'm carrying, or to hand me something I must carry up the stairs. 

 915/ French Provincial Carved Oak Table
Pic, above, here.
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Quite a knowing smile, seeing Bunny Mellon's leveraged table, above/below.
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 Sotheby's - an enchanted world
Pic, above, here.
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More than function.  Form.  Not in use?  Ridiculous question, a leveraged table is always in use.  Merely supporting a beautiful topiary, use enough in my realm.

 Mrs. Mellon working in her greenhouse in Virginia.
Pic, above, here.
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Interesting, above, looking through various doors of Bunny Mellon's painted garden house.  A conservatory, above, other doors leading into an allee.....
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Looking at the first pic, above, what do you see now?  Hopefully a leveraged table, and if you don't have one/several, they're now on your list.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Design Like Charles Faudree: In Your Garden

Garden Design inspiration is all around you, inside your home.  I must see inside your home, to design your garden.  More than views on axis into the garden, interior design layers too.
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A Charles Faudree room, below.
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One Garden Design conceit shouts at first glance.  On the buffet.  Pure Garden Design.
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Tall hedge or espalier shrubs, pair of understory trees, low hedge.  Total copy of the painting, lamps, flotsom/jetsom.  Have known to copy interior design, into Garden Design, for decades.  No one told me, never saw it in a book, pure Garden Design Whisperer.
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You're probably the same, yet never verbalized this, or took action steps.

Charles Faudree – Everyday Living
Pic, above, here.
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Bedside table, below, would be a delight to copy into Garden Design.  Backdrop hedge, tree, flowering shrubs, urn on plinth.
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Pic, above, here.
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Image result for quotes charles faudree
Pic, above, here.
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Fireplace mantels, dining room tables, chests, each good resources, inside, to copy into Garden Design.
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Look around you.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

The Minimalist Guide to Garden Design: Quincunx & Hedge

A new garden book arrived to doorstep yesterday.  Quick fanning of pages, pure gold found.
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"...a quincunx of trees on the lawn...."
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Moth to a flame, love this 'quincunx', but what is it?  More than perfect, I knew what a quincunx of trees was, didn't know it had a name.  Locally, middle rural Georgia, myriad pecan orchards, all planted in a quincunx. 
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quin·cunx
ˈkwinˌkəNGks/
noun
  1. 1.
    an arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its center, used for the five on dice or playing cards, and in planting trees.
    "  Google.
  2. .
First draft of the layout for the gardens of the Petit Trianon. Approved and signed by Marie Antoinette on July 10th, 1774.
Pic, above, here.
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Always wondered, at full speed 70mph, how pecan orchards would be lines vertical, lines horizontal, finally, lines diagonal.  Now I know, quincunx.
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 Quincunx planting
Pic, above, here.
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Discovering 'quincunx' realized it's a complete package with hedging.  Pure historic, pure modern, pure sustainable.  A changeling too, without moving.
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What kind of Garden Design do you prefer?  Quincunx & Hedge.  Done. 
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Excepting, who knows what that is?  I'm 30 years into Garden Design professionally, yet just learned 'quincunx'.  Moments later, received the epiphany about its use in Garden Design, Quincunx & Hedge.  Who doesn't like a no-brainer?  More, unique each time created.  Better, perfect at all price points.  Minimalist personally, yet for eco, macro in myriad layers. 
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Quincunx & Hedge is now my Landscape Invention, a few others, here.   

 
Pic, above, here.
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Small garden?  Quincunx can be created with a single tree, above.   Pruned with 4 branching quadrants, trunk is central, this fruit tree will produce more fruit because of its pruning.
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Notice the low hedge, above, too?  With a mid-century USA ranch home in a subdivision, a quincunx of trees/large shrubs, with a hedge toward the front curb, pruned tall to block views of cars, but leaving sky and neighboring trees part of YOUR vision creates form/function far superior to what the builder planted merely to receive a certificate of occupancy.
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Of course Quincunx & Hedge is best designed with little/zero pruning in mind.  Heavy on the zero.
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Quincunx & Hedge, definitely an arrow in my quiver.  Already.
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Take it for your own.
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mayjunegarden04
Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT 
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A bit of garden history with Quincunx, here.

Monday, March 5, 2018

What Lucinda Chambers Can Teach Us About Garden Design

A few weeks ago, this, below.  What a garden !  Knew at once, great skill involved, more, the gardener put their entire being into it.  Oddly, at the front end of gardening professionally, horrendous USA degree in hand, I would have known the opposite.  Garden, below, no good, too bohemian, too wild, nothing 'done', certainly not a contender for entry in a Garden Show for spring in a large city.. 
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Twenty plus years later, traveling historic gardens across Europe, then a decade staying put, designing/installing historic gardens.  I knew I had to follow the paper trail for this garden, below.  Further, I knew the woman in the garden, was its owner/designer, from 1st glance.  Odd, yes?  She could easily be a model for shoes or pants or maybe fabrics.

Lucinda Chambers, Fashion Director of Vogue UK, photographed at her home in Shepherd's Bush
Pic, above, here.
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Didn't take a full minute of sleuthing to learn this is Lucinda Chambers, for 3 decades the stylist for Vogue UK.
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Style crush – Lucinda Chambers | designer fabrics australia
Pic, above, here.
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No wonder Lucinda has an incredible garden, art is art.  Styling a photo shoot, styling an entire clothing outfit, zero difference styling a garden.
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 Похожее изображение
Pic, above, here.
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I came late to thrift store shopping, had just joined a church, and needed a few outfits.  In my late 20's, never looked back.  Thrift stores entirely too much fun.  Clothes, patio furniture, dishes, sunglasses, etc.
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Женщина хочет выглядеть неотразимо вне зависимости от погоды и возраста. В зрелости гардероб женщины должен быть более сдержанным и классическим, сохраняя при этом индивидуальность и экстравагантность. В 40 лет женский гардероб слегка отличается от гардероба женщины за 50. Появляются нюансы, о которых не стоит забывать. Тепло и комфорт в одном флаконе Для дамы, которая и …
Pic, above, here.
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Seeing dozens of Lucinda Willams clothing choices, I knew.  Permission.
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SILVERTIME all, grown up.
Pic, above, here.

In my closet, what I had considered divine thrift store purchases, yet incoherent for combining/wearing, were suddenly Lucinda Chambers approved.  Lucinda gave me approval, for combining disparate clothing into pure joy to combine, and more importantly, to wear. 

Lucinda Chambers.
Pic, above, here.
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Historic Garden Design is permission.  Crazed, divine, permission.  Sure, there are historic Garden Design Rules.  Each one, knowingly, making your world better, more you, and the honor of stewardship with epiphany of permission.
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Fashion Styling and Image Making with Lucinda Chambers - a new Business of Fashion course
Watch Video.  WATCH video.  Watch Now, 1 min 54 seconds, WATCH.
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Lucinda Williams, above, in her own voice, about styling.  Zero separation in styling clothes, gardens, architecture, etc. 
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From Lucinda:
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"Educate your eye."
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"It's a craft."
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"Everything is information."
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"Nothing is off limits."
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"It's not beyond your reach."
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"Passionate about doing it."
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"It's only for you."
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"It's completely doable."

Lucinda Chambers, Fashion Director of Vogue UK, photographed at her home in Shepherd's Bush
Pic, above, here.
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"For 36 years, Lucinda Chambers has been at the forefront of magazine publishing as fashion director of British Elle and British Vogue, where she held the position for 25 years and established long-lasting relationships with some of the world’s leading photographers, including Patrick Demarchelier, Nick Knight and Paolo Roversi. Throughout her career, she has also worked closely with fashion houses such as Marni, Prada, Jil Sander and Chanel, consulting on collections and advertising. Most recently, she styled Pharrell Williams and Imaan Hammam for the December 2017 cover of US Vogue."  Business of Fashion.
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Moving from my 30 year home/garden 3 years ago, toted 18 loads furniture-clothes-books-etc in my tiny beloved van, to the thrift store.  Wish I had discovered Lucinda before all those loads.  Happily, I didn't give away all my crazed, divine clothing purchases.  Better, gave me permission to buy more.
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In all my searching for more of Lucinda Williams garden, found nothing.
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Lucinda's garden, photos above, has the classic color trinity, green-brown-white, with subsidiary color, pink.  Did her home photo shoot in the garden, need a bit of styling, hence the pink sheet?
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Lamp, lampshade, old chairs, old table, macrame plant hanger, each mimic Lucinda's clothing and professional styling.  First rule of Garden Design, copy.  Garden Design rule, written by me long ago, "Does this garden make me want to go inside?" 
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Vine at the window, above?  Curtains for garden views.
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Photo shoot in Lucinda's garden a classic of enfilade styling. 
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Saturday, March 3, 2018

The Biggest Landscape Mistake You Don't Know You're Making

Garden Design thought, as incentive, "I want an outdoor dining & living room."
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Pic, above, here.
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Garden Design thought, as punishment, "I need to do something with my backyard."
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Image result for ugly backyard
Pic, above, here.
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Change your thoughts, change your garden, and life.
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 Hamptons patio dining & entertaining - via Tom Samet
Pic, above, here.
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Awaiting Garden funds?  Looking at, above, put it into a different price point.  Concrete squares from hardware store & field gathered patio furniture all painted the same color.  Martha Washington used long wood planks atop saw-horses, with a plain cotton tablecloth, to host their many guests.
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Do you need to do something with your backyard?  Do you want a backyard dining & living room?
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Beware the questions and statements you make for your Garden.  Those questions will make, or degrade, your garden.  More, your life.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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The Power of Incentives: Inside The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior

“Never, ever, think about something else when you 
  should be thinking about the power of incentives.”
— Charlie Munger
According to Charlie Munger, there are only a few forces more powerful than incentives. In his speech “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment,” he reflects on how the power of incentives never disappoints him:
"Well, I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther."  Charlie Munger

Entire article, here.  

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Does Your Neighborhood Make This Landscaping Mistake & Why It's Costing You Money

Creating a Garden Design for an entire starter home subdivision is quite simple.  Last week, I was in a neighborhood similar to, below.
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Built ca. late 1990's, the neighborhood ran into 2008.  Little to nothing done with homes/neighborhood landscaping into 2018.   
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Penny wise, dollar foolish.
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Why?
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With minimal thought, proper Garden Design thought, property values can be increased with each homeowner, fewer even, maybe 50% of homeowners, no, lower, 30% of homeowners, increasing property value for all the homes in the neighborhood.  People believe what they see.
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How?
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Ask homeowners to plant 3 bushes.  Away from the home preferably for little to no pruning, ever.  For our zone, tall holly, tall juniper, magnolia.
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Image result for starter home subdivision
Pic, above, here.
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As those plants grow, they create beauty, natural habitat, and, most importantly, breaking of site lines between homes.  Instead of a panorama of garages/drives, airconditioners, back patios/decks, etc.  Now, the neighborhood is a Norman Rockwell painting in its setting.  Properly matted & framed.
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But wait, there is more money, $$$, on the table, than mere property value.
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Already know where that money is?
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Real money.  Monthly, into homeowner pockets.  More, this money-into-pockets increases Earthly sustainability.  Eco.

Image result for homes with big conifers
Pic, above, here.
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Siting those minimum 3 evergreen tall plants properly to block summer's sun, and winter's winds, decreases HVAC expense.  10% and higher.  Do the math.
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Baking sun on a side of your home from 10am to sunset?  You're saving real money.
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Take my Garden Design proposal a step further, and closer to your home, if you have sun issues, choose a deciduous tree to block summer sun, and let winter sun stream in.
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What's on the other side of those conifers, above?  Perhaps the neighbor's deck with a John boat underneath.
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What is privacy worth to you?  More, while creating the privacy, gaining beauty.
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Basic.  Basic Garden Design.
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Greater, stewardship.  No matter where you start, your own Garden Design or helping your neighborhood Garden Design, stewardship arrives in macro.  What does that mean?  Living amongst a proper Garden Design is about far more than money.  Grace.  Living a life in grace.  Rich in resources.  Resources as E.M. Forster spoke of resources in, Where Angels Fear to Tread.  Joseph Campbell said, If you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere.  Pity anyone would accept that.
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Garden & Be Well,    XOT

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

How to Be an Effective Journal Writer

Mood Book, Inspiration Board, Journal, Diary, Notes, Saving Words: which do you do?  Perhaps more accurately, Which do you wish you did?
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“We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.”  Joan Didion


     "The point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess."  Joan Didion
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The DeWiersse garden and manor. Photograph by James McGrath for The Garden Edit.
Pic, above, here.
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"The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily — perhaps not possibly — chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation."  Eudora Welty
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"The frame through which I viewed the world changed too, with time. Greater than scene, I came to see, is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame."  Eudora Welty
 
Pic, above, here.
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Each Garden Design, above/below, centuries old in concept, yet newly created.  Where are you upon their path?  Don't like?  Want?

 Miranda Brooks Portfolio
Pic, above, here.
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Which garden/s, above, have a guild?
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If life, at its most abundant, happens at the margins, what are the margins in all of these gardens, above?
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All of the gardens, above, have complete layers, well known dozens of centuries before Christ's era.  Can you name them?
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Somewhere along the way, we lost these things.  Layers of our own survival.  Accepting roadmaps of those layers instead of reading their territory.  Each of these gardens, above, pure signal, no noise.  When did we settle for noise?  Why?  Pics/words today carefully curated, 30+ years curated, with experience deep/broad/hard/fun/frustrating/joyful/sublime.  Don't like any of the gardens, above?  That's fine, you're not ready.
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A friend, now in her 70's, from earliest friendship, always jotted in a notebook.  Seeing her do this I knew I wanted that for my life too.  Several notebook purchases later, and a decade plus, still nothing "jotted in a notebook."
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Much time passed.  Then epiphany, I had begun filling those journals/notebooks.  Organically.  How often a day's reality entered?  Perhaps....never.  Sublime truths from days of life?  Unlimited.  Strangest of all?  From the collage of realities in those journals, with specificity, exact replicas appeared in my life.  Without effort, or seeming forethought.  No mission statements.
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“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains?”   Walt Whitman
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"Walt Whitman asked in his diary as he contemplated what makes life worth living after a paralytic stroke, then answered: “Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.”  Maria Popova, Brain Pickings."
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How to be an Effective Journal Writer?  Buy notebooks, journals, want to be an effective journal writer.  WANT to be.  Breath.  It will arrive.
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At the front end, all I wanted was to design beautiful gardens.  Little realizing I was asking for, life.

Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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Eudora Welty, below.
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Pic, above, here.

Friday, February 23, 2018

One Hat Secret Every Gardener Should Know

Since the start of my competitive tennis days, ages 11-17, I've worn hats.  Back then it was the canvas tennis hat or terry.  Along with cotton footies swinging their colored balls at the back ankle, always wearing a white tennis dress flashing a bit of ruffled panty, with a mere hint of color. Colored tennis dresses had just come into style, of course I wore only white.
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Moving forward to the start of my Garden Design career, again hats.  Wide or extra wide broad brim straw hats, along with a few quite dashing wide brim fabric hats for winter. 
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If you look in my little work van, you'll find measuring wheel, drawing board, Wellies, measuring tape, flags, florescent string, pencils/erasers, paper, and a straw farmers hat, hanging by a vintage wide silk ribbon.  That farmers hat is the emergency hat.  Perfect for sun,  strong wind, or a few wet sprinkles, and I've forgotten to bring a well chosen hat.


Pic, above, here.
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Decades pass, rather an expert on hat styles, use. 
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 The Rancher by Stetson is a classic straw cowboy hat. It has the tallest crown of all the Stetson straw cowboy hats at 5 inches. Available up to size 8. This 10X Straw hat has a 4 inch brim.   	 		 			 				 					Famous Words of Inspiration...""A book of quotations, can never be...
Pic, above, here.
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"The Rancher by Stetson is a classic straw cowboy hat. It has the tallest crown of all the Stetson straw cowboy hats at 5 inches. Available up to size 8. This 10X Straw hat has a 4 inch brim. Famous Words of Inspiration...""A book of quotations, can never be..."
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Leaving town after my father's funeral, heading to the back door with my luggage, mom asks, "Do you want your daddy's hat?"
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Dad's straw, stained gardening Stetson still resting where he last placed it.  Where he always placed it, for decades.  On the patio table, at the back porch, by the windows where we have eaten breakfast-lunch-dinner since 1966.  Of course I wanted it.  Rolling my suitcase, I grabbed dad's Stetson, plopped it on my head.
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Reaching the Delta gate, about 10pm, there was a delay with the flight.  Still wearing that Stetson, standing in front of the gate agent, asking about my flight, the tears flowed, I couldn't take one more thing.  Just had to get home.  Through the tears, "My dad just died, and I've got to get home."
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The gate agent walked around her desk, and full body hugged me, and began crying with me.  Telling me she has lost her father too.  Both of us, tears drenching our faces, dripping onto our clothes. 
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Good news, the flight delay wasn't long.  Once on the plane, obvious the gate agent had upgraded my seat.  Bless her for that, and her crying hug.
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Don't remember how many days I was home before I went into a garden, client's or my own, can't remember, and grabbed dad's Stetson.
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More than wearing dad's Stetson, I got an education about hats.  I had been wearing the wrong hats for my entire Garden Design career.  Wide brim straw hat keeping sun off was my hunt.  Dad's Stetson took it to a new level.  Wide brim of the Stetson is curved up slightly.  Providing shade, with clear eyesight lines through out a garden.  Literally, upon discovery, I heard Jed Clampett, "Well, doggies."
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Stetson, above, is the style I inherited.  Have since bought another, love them.  Both, on the hall tree at the front door.
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Get you one !!
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T

Thursday, February 22, 2018

How to Move Your Foundation Plantings While You Gain Your Life

During a time of life turbulence a quote appeared, without seeking, reading a magazine, It's Safe to Let Go.
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Wow, what a concept !  I'm not in charge.  Instead of clinging to that fantasy, Let it go.  Afraid to let go?  Don't be, it's quite a flight.  The ride of your life.
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Realizing it was said, too, in a movie, Out of Africa, "Let it go, this water belongs in Mombasa anyway."
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Moving away from that particular personal era of life, and into the land of green meatball foundation plantings.  You must realize, they are connected.  Literally connected.  Have been hired by several women thru the years, not many, merely several wanting to get their landscapes to match their hearts.
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Amazingly, all of those women had a hedge at the front of their property.  Hedges that I designed to open, Welcome, come in.  More amazing, during those years, being hired by hedge women, never realized I was part of their tribe.
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First epiphany, for me, pull foundation plantings away from the house.  Rather obvious, having studied historic gardens across Europe.  Years, I had my hedge, without a gate, similar to, below.
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Happy, content, thriving, adored having that hedge moved, opened my home, gave breathing space, birds/butterflies more numerous.  Finally, enough of filling the spiritual well, notice I created that fertile ground for myself, my well overflowed, epiphany arrived, put a gate into my hedge.  Just as I had done for clients. 
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Heads-up, none of this stuff works unless the epiphanies are your own, and you'll know.  Not exactly burning-bush moments but you will have the knowledge downloaded into your heart/DNA, and understand.  Still doubting, still unsure?  No worries, it's safe to let go.

923 Likes, 6 Comments - Tom Samet (@tomsamet) on Instagram: “Good Morning "East Hampton!" repost @skaufman4050 Full Bloom!”
Pic, above, here.
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My front yard hedge, below, after putting the gate in.

 TARA DILLARD: GARDEN DESIGNERS BLOGLINK: TARA'S TRINITY OF THE SOUTHERN GARDEN
Pic, above, shot in my front garden.
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My front yard today.  Lawn?
Pic, above, shot just inside my front hedge.
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Not snow, above.  Better, Chinese snowball blossom petals.  Caressing my plants, gravel, furniture, home, LIFE.

Playing with my front hedge at the street/curb, below.  Adoring rustic, pastoral, my garden drips abundance, upon many layers.
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Tara Dillard's front gate!
Pic, above, shot in my front garden.
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Looking at my front hedge, below, from inside.
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TARA DILLARD: Garden Design Begins Inside Your Home
Pic, above, shot in my front bay window.
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Standing in my front yard, below, inside the gated hedge, looking into the same bay window from, above.
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TARA DILLARD: Looking into my living room from the garden, chinese snow ball, lamps on, blue + white
Pic, above, shot looking into my front bay window.
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It does take a lot to get here.  Where?  Vanishing Threshold.  What exactly does that entail?  Knowing it's safe to let go.  Your garden is not in your head.  Your garden is in your heart.  Waiting for you.
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About being safe to let go.  You'll have the privilege of relearning it many times.  Each time, more riches.
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It was good fortune, knowing to turn to my garden, letting go.  Deeper than good fortune, an action going back centuries with many, each learning themselves, taking their own action steps of facing the fear, letting go, discovering the abundance of Providence.
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"In building this horticultural paradise, Tradescant presented nature as a book that man might read like the Bible.  He understood the world in the same way as Johannes Kepler, the brilliant German mathematician and astronomer, who had described it as 'the very Book of Nature in which G*d as Creator has revealed and depicted His being and His Will with Man in a wordless tract'."  Andrea Wulf & Emma Gieben-Gamal.
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Imagine my surprise, reading those words, above, last week.  Letting go, too many times to count, tumbling into the best rabbit hole, ever.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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"Christopher Wren believed harmonious proportions came from mathematical laws underpinning Nature."  Wulf & Gieben-Gamal.
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Until reading, This Other Eden, by Wulf & Gieben-Gamal, didn't realize Christopher Wren, architect, was Garden Designer also.
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Foundation plantings are a holy grail of USA landscaping.  It's safe to let go.  Do you realize what I found, moving my foundation plantings?  What words would you use?  What does your intuition tell you from reading this post?   I know what I found.  My life.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

How to Take Charge of Color in Your Garden

A future client sent me a note recently.  Her car needs struts, the garden will have to wait.  No, her garden will not have to wait !
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Garden Design begins in your head.  Much to resolve ahead of choosing the first plant, type of stone, etc.
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Choosing your color trinity, below, for starters.  For centuries, all the great gardens, now including yours, have an exterior color trinity.  Green-Brown-White is the most used color trinity, a never fail color combination.  More, it's never a repeat.  You get to choose your Green-Brown-White, while your soil, humidity, land shapes, predominant trees and more dictate how color is 'seen'. 
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If you're new to gardening this may seem the start of someone mentioning trite rules you must follow.  Headstrong about recreating the wheel?  Head on out, rawhide, snap that whip, you'll be on-the-road-again, over/over, until you come in from the cold.  Been there, done that. 
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Found this fabric, below, recently.  Made me smile.  A client, at first visit, already had chosen, without awareness, this color trinity, Green-Brown-White with subsidiary color, ochre.  Years later, we are still overdosing on her theme.  Plants, stone, house, barns, furniture, fencing, even her custom stationary.
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Another aspect I adore about choosing a color trinity, once done, color is, mostly, a no-brainer. 

Image result for brown floral fabric
Pic, above, here.
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Green and white have been chosen with specificity for my garden, brown remains to be chosen.  Adoring brown transfer ironstone, I must bring several of my favorite pieces into the garden, siting them different places for sun/shade, north/south/east/west, and pull the trigger for my perfect brown.
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One of many Garden Design layers, the color trinity, requiring zero funds.  Be aware, full brain amperage, with extra kicking in, required .  Once chosen, your colors, must be backed with full confidence. 
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Another Peek into My Pantry | Content in a Cottage
Pic, above, here.

 pure joy 327 ...I'll have to find an excuse to use this somewhere :-P
Pic, above, here.
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Earlier this month our dining room finally painted.  Beloved is a yellow man, several yellows already in various rooms, but he is not a front-end chooser of specific colors.  Gave him 7-8 yellow choices, with chips, for the dining room.  Dining room is large, north facing.
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Walked him through the house, with the chips, holding them to the various existing yellows.
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Of course I had my favorite, but said zip.
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At each room with yellow, he easily axed some of the chips.
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Last room, dining room, and 2 yellow chips remained.
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He easily chose the yellow he liked for our dining room.
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A delicious funnel, shaped exactly like an armadillo trap.  Beloved choosing 'his' yellow.
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Ahead of me choosing color chips for him, I researched Mount Vernon, Monet, and Monticello.  Have been to all three homes, and knew they all had a good yellow, almost matching each others.  Nancy Lancaster was swirling in the mix too.
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 Monet's dining room "For a safer bet, try Benjamin Moore’s historic colors. They’re elegant but not splashy, and will match a variety of furnishings and fabrics. Time tested, they won’t steer you wrong. I’ve used Castelton Mist HC-1 and Beacon Hill Damask HC-2, but look at any of the first six HC colors."
Pic, above, here.
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Yes, Beloved chose, Pure Joy by Benjamin Moore.  My first choice.  I would have been happy with any of the chips he chose from.
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 The yellow interior beautifully complimented the surrounding Monet Japanese Prints
Pic, above, here.
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Almost 20 years ago I bought a vintage book with ikebana floral plates, done in color blocks.  Dozens of pages of  plates.  Choosing their frames, a no-brainer,  below.  More synchronicity, our dining room table is a large drop-leaf gate leg, and against a wall another drop-leaf gate leg table, folded down.  I bought them separately at antique shops long ago, realizing once in our dining room, they can be put together for larger gatherings, exactly as Monet did. 
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 Claude Monet house, France
Pic, above, here.
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A portion of this story was skipped.  Several coats of kilz and primer were needed ahead of painting our dining room, once Pure Joy yellow was a first coat, and Beloved saw it, he freaked.
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Ever seen a feral cat brought inside, and they literally bounce off the walls?
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Have handled that situation. 
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This color 'freak' wasn't my first rodeo.
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In addition to choosing our 'brown', a subsidiary color must be chosen.  It will be one of our yellows.  Great joy in anticipation of choosing.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT