Saturday, January 1, 2011

Tiny, wonderful Va-Hi garden with pink pigs

Every arrival here should produce a smile.

I never paid attention until they lit the pigs for Christmas. The teen-aged infill townhouses are background buildings compared to their eclectic neighbors. I never paid much attention to them.

Then I met I met Halo and Wings, dressed for Christmas.


They are living between the townhouses...
P1050955-2010-12-31-St-Charles-Pigs

in a tiny oasis ignored by passersby. Wall, gravel, bench, spillover ground-cover.
P1050949-2010-12-30-St-Charles-Pink-Christmas-Pigs

A delicate arched gate, terracotta pavers, urns, pansies, wall climbing vines that encroach on the stairs. Pots up and down, a sunny place to sit, a shaded chair on the stoop, textures galore.
P1050949-2010-12-30-St-Charles-Pink-Christmas-Pigs-Detail-Detail

This doesn't require acres or million$. I wish landscape designers featured attainable little patches like this.

Even a tiny city lot can have a 172. GARDEN GROWING WILD. From A Pattern Language:
"The gardener is in the position of a good doctor, watching nature take its course, occasionally taking action, pruning, pulling out some species, only to give the garden more room to grow and become itself. By contrast, the gardens that have to be tended obsessively, enslave a person to them; you cannot learn from them in quite the same way."
Did I mention this eclectic street?
P1281828-The-Saint-Charles-Column

P1211755-Fleemans-Chairs-And-Dog

4 comments:

  1. Happy New Year, Terry.

    Love the pigs. But, couldn't nature take its course much better without the security signs included in the tableau?

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  2. I'm sure the art director would move the sign before the shoot. But we live with trashcans trucks.

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  3. You always pick the perfect quote from A Pattern Language.

    Would love to get different colors on those townhomes.

    White garage doors? Gag, horrible, depreciate property value by making the buildings jump-forward on their tiny lots. A darker color will recede increasing the depth & height of the townhomes. Would stain the driveways too.

    Then to the windows, siding, shutters, views into windows. What fun to make the townhomes a happier place to live AND increase property value too.

    Happy New Year, Terry.

    Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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  4. Terry love those precious pigs, a total surprise!

    Happy New Years!

    Xoxo
    Karena
    Art by Karena

    ReplyDelete

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