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garden design

Starting on Tricky Places : Gardens that Fit Your Lifestyle like a Glove.

December 31, 2016

rice-14-blogWhew. Its taken a summer like 2016 when friends and family had calamities, passed away or got really sick to make me appreciate my garden and health even more… and then the specter of scary local fires burning thousands of acres in our treasured Smoky Mountains which made me appreciate our fragile ecosystem.

This blog is a personal note is to myself to review everything in Dargan Landscape Architects book of work to help my friends, their home environments and interface with nature. Like holding hands with fragile yet resilient gloves that fit perfectly.

Hugh and I have been in practice as landscape architects for over four decades. Our client’s now lovely landscapes were tricky places to make behave: with thin soils, complicated topography, owners large wish list, zoning issues, too much or too little shade, too much or too little water, not enough space, too vast a canvas, weird parking, insufficient walkways…the list goes on!  We are blessed with the honor to coax, bend and collaborate with the owners to get the best designs built, and we thank them for sharing their private worlds.

My goal is to inspire homeowners to get the best out of their precious home environment. Design it to yield healthy wellbeing, inspire you to be your best and to provide nurturing spaces. Once we finish this work together, your garden will function like a well-oiled machine, which in itself is a stress-reducing factor.

Photographer, Sarah Valentine of Highlands NC,  shot beautiful dawn shots and late summer portraits of many of our local gardens.

Stay tuned as the book progresses!

Filed Under: Appearances, Lectures and Shows, Atlanta Garden Landscape Projects, Bloom Where you are Planted, Climate Change, Dovecote, Dovecote Garden Talk Salons, Fairy Gardens, General Landscape Commentary, Horticulture, Instagram, Landscape Architecture Projects, Landscape Design Tips, Mary's Events, Organic Gardening, PlaceMakers, Poppy's Environmental Tips, Poppy's Horticultural Tips, Poppy's Project, Uncategorized, Videos Tagged With: garden design, mary palmer dargan, sarah valentine photographer

Davidson Horticultural Symposium’s A Sense of Place

March 4, 2016

I love collaborating in symposia!  Davidson Horticultural Symposium has taken place for over 30 years bringing fantastic learning experiences to many a budding horticulturist, homeowner or landscape designer.

davidson cover fergus Garrett

Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter’s chief of horticulture and garden friend, presented many beautiful ideas of layering plants. When my time came to speak, it was well after lunch, so I “revved up the engine”!

Enjoy my lectures on how to extract the very best from your property! Divided into 4 parts, each about 15 minutes, you can dip in and out of great take home material to improve your sense of place. I consider this to be my very best lecture…EVER!

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Enjoy,

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Mary Palmer

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: davidson horticultural symposium, garden design, genius loci, landscape design, small garden design

Garden design blab participate in videoconferencing at its best and feature your project!

November 5, 2015

Blab #1 CTAChange is in the air!

No matter what season in the calendar of life, improvements to home environment, body and soul are perennials at the top of my list. Action steps can be large or small… This year at Dovecote saw raised organic gardening beds, a greenhouse and new barn lecture studio.

What is on your wish Garden design calendar to-do list this year?

https://blab.im/gardendesign-w-marypalmer-gardendesign-invitation-share-your-project

If you’ve been following my blogs, books or lectures, you know that I’m very accessible. I want to facilitate your decision-making to transform your ho-hum home environment into the oasis of your dreams.

Have a landscape design question? Ask it!

New technology, called blabbing, makes it possible to videoconference straight from your computer or iPad into my garden design salon. It’s free. You propose the topics and I will call in a stable of consultants to answer your questions! You’ll even have the opportunity to ask them a question virtually face-to-face.

I think this is very cool and will begin with a series of garden talk salon blabs in the near future… Once I master the technology, that is!

What would you like to know about?

In structuring this blab-fest of garden design salon topics, I looked at a survey from the spring and so many of you wanted to know how to design special places on your landscape, and have it all work harmoniously – like holding hands with your garden environment.

When I work with clients, The first thing we do is brainstorm the big picture with a long-range wish list of dreams and goals. This list ultimately merges with an aerial photograph or site plan showing your property so that it becomes site-specific.

I’d love to interview several of you to learn your dreams and goals. Learn how to creatively walk together through the  design process. Think of yourself as a test case. You can share your dilemmas and epiphanies in the garden design blabs.

No doubt it will be improvisational to introduce you, let’s say, four to eight landscape designing homeowners and watch as your projects unfold.

.Do you have a balcony garden or a tiny town home?

.Are you a family needing play space or organic gardens?

.Are you an elder downsizing and want to make the most of your space?

You will have a buddy to design with! Teams of two will be supportive of each other. So you can brainstorm about your individual projects. A Facebook group for our garden design salon blab will share photographs of before and after… and during!

To claim your seat in this unique Garden design panel, please contact me here…

[email protected]

35 years I’ve enjoyed collaborating with clients and have this unique opportunity to share in a virtual fashion with a special group of you.

This is free and requires that you commit to seeing the project through, so you may want to make it a small project! Fit it within your budget and action plan to have completed by March 2016.

What do I need to qualify for this unique garden design blab?

https://blab.im/gardendesign-w-marypalmer-gardendesign-invitation-share-your-project

1) A garden project that is doable in four months to be completed by March 2016

2) a garden video no more then 2 1/2 minutes long that talks about what you want to accomplish and shares the area you will be working in

3) A sketch of what you want to do will be created during our blab sessions, so be able to do simple mapping and I will help you execute this sketch with simple guidelines. You do not need to be an artist! Or a doctor or engineer or horticulturist… Just a homeowner with positive forward motion and a commitment to improvement in their home environment.

4) A computer and a microphone and an Internet connection. We will test your system to ensure you have a stable seat in our blab.

5) A collaborative sense of humor and ability to work with the team.

6) willingness to share your successes and failures and the ability to take pictures of this and upload them to our Facebook page.

7) The ability to use a Facebook page to download documents such as the schedule of blabs and do your homework assignments.

 

boundless headshot blab

Yup, I’m very excited about new technology and the ability to share landscape design from your home environment to the world of our garden designblab.

Your blab garden does not need to be a showplace, just a real place! Once it’s finished, it will touch move and inspire others to take action to create the home environment of their dreams.

For basic garden design instruction that you can really get your teeth into my books: https://dargan.com/garden-design-programs-books/

 

Dargan books and book and books

 

 

 

timeless landscape design

 

lifelong landscape design

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

GardenDesign w/MaryPalmer  blab.im

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: garden design, landscape design

Jaw Dropped. Sculptor Carl Peverall Showcases His Latest Creations at Dovecote

September 14, 2015

Dovecote backyard today…three of Carl Peverall statues from the opening on Friday!

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.

Michaelangelo

It has arrived, and you won’t believe your eyes. Sculptor Carl Peverall has unveiled his latest statues here at Dovecote and we are absolutely blown away. Of course, we snapped some shots to share with you all. Warning: our hands are in the air. Nothing can truly capture the beauty of Carl’s work unless you see it with your own eyes.  

“No longer broken” by Carl Peverall  

 

“Time Machine” by Carl Peverall

“Eyrie” by Carl Peverall

 

The Source by Carl Peverall


Remember, at Dovecote we are one big family and our door is always open. Come on by, tour the grounds, relax on our porch and soak in garden that has been grown with love.

Dovecote is located at 35 Flash Point Drive ( McKinney Way) next to Cornucopia Restaurant off Hwy 107S in Cashiers, NC.

Looking for more? Check out Carl on video:

Happy Monday and looking forward to sharing the rest of the week with you.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

 

Filed Under: Dovecote, Dovecote Garden Talk Salons, Instagram, Uncategorized, Videos Tagged With: Carl Peverall, cashiers, Dovecote, garden design, mary palmer dargan, Mt Mitchell, sculptures, stone

Fit Your Garden to Your Lifestyle Like a Glove

July 28, 2015

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Thank you Dovecote friends. This Friday’s Garden Talk Salon (the last one for July) is already sold out!

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Contact Mary Palmer Dargan to be put on the waiting list at 828-743-0307or [email protected]. Checks for the event will be accepted at Dovecote.

We don’t like turning away enthusiastic gardening fans. That’s why it is really important to sign up as quickly as possible for events.

Welcome August

Our next GTS will take place on Aug. 7th with guest John McCarley. Listen to Mary Palmer Dargan as she gives us the details:

Our theme for August is:

Fit Your Garden to Your Lifestyle Like a Glove

Browse our events by clicking here and make sure to sign up ASAP.

 

 

Filed Under: Dovecote, Dovecote Garden Talk Salons, Uncategorized, Videos Tagged With: cashiers, Dovecote, garden design, garden design lectures, Garden on the Hoof, Garden Talk Salon, mary palmer dargan

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