Tracy Porter: Well happy Friday we are so excited.
Sarah: Hi guys.
Tracy Porter: Guys.
Sarah: Again another one of our favorite topics and its time for another inspiration—
Tracy Porter: Fascination, this is an all time favorite I know, okay I’ve fully realized we say it about everyday.
Sarah: But this really is our favorite topic you guys, gardening.
Tracy Porter: Gardening, it’s so good. We haven’t been gardeners for so long.
Sarah: Not long enough.
Tracy Porter: No not long enough but were going to be the kind of gardeners that are down in our hands and knees.
Sarah: It’s the truth, you know, I come into the studio some days and I look at my hands and I go “Oh, my gosh I know showered today but I can’t get the mulch and dirt out”. It’s just part of me now, I’m just dirty.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, dirty under every little nail bed.
Sarah: Everything.
Tracy Porter: You guys, this is so great because gardening is a passion of us. Both our parents are really into gardening so I think we come by it.
Sarah: We come by it naturally, we’re in Tracy’s herb garden and while it looks like it’s just waking up it is—
Tracy Porter: It’s a sleepy garden right now.
Sarah: It is.
Tracy Porter: It is still early spring here.
Sarah: Perfect time for us to get in here and talk with you about our favorite things with Tracy’s herb garden and things yet to come.
Tracy Porter: The bones, the architecture of a garden are so important and this is the perfect time of the year to talk about it because while you can still see the bones of a garden when it’s all lush and wonderful and wild which is when we love it the most. It is as elegant, all the other seasons of the year when it’s quiet and sleeping, you can see all the little elements, and it’s a perfect time to think through.
Sarah: Yes.
Tracy Porter: What you need in your garden.
Sarah: Indeed it is.
Tracy Porter: Your layers.
Sarah: Yes and not only the layers that you place there but think we’ve both grown in just some wisdom which is don’t feel obligated in the fall to cut everything back.
Tracy Porter: No in fact—
Sarah: Part of the bones, part of bones are that there has been life there.
Tracy Porter: Yes.
Sarah: You know, don’t get too neat and tidy.
Tracy Porter: No.
Sarah: And also is kind of a relief, kind of like don’t dust in the house, well don’t tidy too much out here.
Tracy Porter: I try think of the garden a lot like the forest too because no one is cleaning up the forest and so I always—
Sarah: And it’s beautiful there.
Tracy Porter: It’s beautiful and all that junk I always think it creates more compost goodness.
Sarah: It’s the truth.
Tracy Porter: You know, so right now this garden has been cut back a little I just did that actually recently but it was all you know, wonderful grown over but you know it’s so cool because there are layers in everything related to the garden. One of the things Sarah and I was just talking about is the fact that in a garden there is the lower layer. It’s very rainforest of us.
Sarah: It is.
Tracy Porter: There’s the lower layer—
Sarah: The topography.
Tracy Porter: And the canopy.
Sarah: That’s right, that’s true.
Tracy Porter: But you know it’s fun just think of a garden like because I think it helps you identify what you need. You know Sarah and I are sort of gosh I hate to say this but were kind of mulch horse.
Sarah: Gosh.
Tracy Porter: Sorry. But we love mulch so much.
Sarah: See it makes us always equated to vacuuming, if I good a thick layer of mulch shoat it’s like I’ve just taken the vacuum and it’s all tidy.
Tracy Porter: Amounts, amounts of mulch are so good to us. Yeah, we love it.
Sarah: We don’t need diamonds just a big six yards pile of fresh powdery mulch.
Tracy Porter: Just bag that chunk up and dump it on in.
Sarah: So along with the mulch Tracy I have to say I think you’ve done a beautiful job in a beautifully cottagey European way of introducing some hard scape.
Tracy Porter: Yes.
Sarah: You got some little pieces of flagstone .
Tracy Porter: Very imperfectly laid I love cottage gardens, French gardens I’m not a—I know your shocked by this not all about the perfect the manicure.
Sarah: It’s true she’s not the horticulturists.
Tracy Porter: Oh, no it’s just it’s too much stress and worry and bother to be perfect.
Sarah: At this point into your life.
Tracy Porter: Yes, yes.
Sarah: With the garden and this is perfect for you right now.
Tracy Porter: Oh, I loved it this way, yes.
Sarah: So the flagstone allows beautiful little surprises to come up your hollyhocks.
Tracy Porter: It does my hollyhocks.
Sarah: You know in July you guys if you pull into Tracy and John’s drive way.
Tracy Porter: It’s madness.
Sarah: It is a chorus. It’s a riot of color. You know, there are hollyhocks ten feet tall and every color of the rainbow and you know. I’ll find her out here pulling them out them.
Tracy Porter: Just yank them and throwing them.
Sarah: Like they’re weeds.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, we have too many out here they’re all antique hollyhocks and they grow like mad, it’s like they’re this crazy string that grows everywhere but it is wonderful because they end up scattered all through the garden and that is what I love about having this area. You guys can’t see it perfectly I’m sure but it’s sort of a circle and them it kind of the stones pull off.
Sarah: And a little drifts of herbs follows the stones.
Tracy Porter: And that was a nice layer and then you add the mulch on top of it and it is so pretty. Some of other pieces of architecture I think that mulch create.
Sarah: Yes, yes.
Tracy Porter: And one of the things that Sarah and I love at both of our homes is we love creating gardens rooms if you will.
Sarah: I love it, you know, there is something about feeling tucked in, having a little structure to help you create your moment. You know, we talked about it in vinnieting and decorating and it’s the same in the garden. If you know that you’re working within a little space all of a sudden it’s not quite to over whelming, there is a lot of freedom in here.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, and you know, I just wanted to—I hate to say and hear them out, one of the things that I want to point out to you guys too, is you know, if you’re not a gardener if you don’t have a space to create a garden room. Think of your front porch or your back porch or your balcony—
Sarah: Your walkway, your front stairs.
Tracy Porter: That too can be considered a little spot for you to create a little bit of gardening and even if gardening is not your thing, get some big pots, put some box wood in it.
Sarah: Get some hanging baskets over your entrance way.
Tracy Porter: Yeah.
Sarah: Just little things to keep you in.
Tracy Porter: Uh-huh, I think so.
Sarah: And then you know you’ve even done a nice job with that in this garden room, you know, we keep talking about this lovely standards or topiary trees that you guys have added here. This is a hydrangea and it’s doing very well for its age and I think part of the reason is Tracy gets nice south sun here and there’s no northerly winds to get it, it’s nice and protected.
Tracy Porter: It really is.
Sarah: But it’s a beautiful height.
Tracy Porter: Yes it is.
Sarah: For this space.
Tracy Porter: Yes I love it in here and I think we needed it because we’ve got this very tall wall in our house.
Sarah: Right.
Tracy Porter: Behind it we’ve added these wonderful trellises, seeder trellises on the wall and we kind of did, you know, double sets and just let’s them naturally age.
Sarah: Yes.
Tracy Porter: And then you know we have roses in the summer that grow up not quite high enough yet but—
Sarah: They’ll get there.
Tracy Porter: You know they’re getting there and then the standards back here are so pretty this on this willow.
Sarah: The Japanese willows.
Tracy Porter: The Japanese willows.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tracy Porter: And Sarah and I both love this, they’re just so pretty you have to trim the half out of them but they are really beautiful.
Sarah: And they get on a beautiful blush of pink usually in about May.
Tracy Porter: They’re really neat, very oriental looking and then I want to point out behind here another little bit of architecture that we added our—these garden gates on both sides. So these are vintage gates and this is another great way to get a little bit of interest in your garden.
Sarah: We love it because you know sometimes again you want to pick up things on the fly, you don’t have to have a big perfect plant with them and I see that you guys have just simply lean them against the house.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, we did but there’s no nothing—
Sarah: So there’s still portable which is good for you, because I know your all about change.
Tracy Porter: Yeah.
Sarah: Right, girls, changes we love to swap it out.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, yeah.
Sarah: And they allow you to have visual interest without being a big commitment.
Tracy Porter: They really do and so that’s you know another thing to think about it if your, if your going you know flea marketing with that kind of stuff that you kind find interesting element put in your garden. You know a fountain is wonderful I love a water element I know that Sarah has it—I cannot wait to take it to Sarah’s yard because it’s crazy charming but water elements is so important.
Sarah: It’s so relaxing and soothing you know you’re just, I think as humans as women were just drawn into it.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, true it is relaxing.
Sarah: It just let’s you just kind of be in the moment and I know that you said your ducks.
Tracy Porter: The ducks come out here every morning and every afternoon and they—you know fritter around in the water and they climb in it and drink it. So everyday I kind to have to muck it out a little bit because you know the ducks are messy but I love them so much when they come. I can look down our bedroom window and I see them down here quacking—
Sarah: How wonderful.
Tracy Porter: They’re so cute. Yeah, I love that little critters come in here.
Sarah: It’s fun and I see that you got another little water source here, I love bird bath.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, it’s a little birth bath and the winter we pile it with bird seed or I’ll make a big, big junky pile a soon it out of peanut butter and you know just kind of nut good talking.
Sarah: Just some goodness.
Tracy Porter: And it gives the birds something and them we have this darling little bird feeder that is really—you know, it doesn’t hold a lot of bird seed but it’s so pretty and it gives that other little layer of—
Sarah: It’s charming, it’s charming and then Tracy we have to talk about it. you do such a nice job with architectural elements that feel a little bit salvaged or discovered and you tucked them in, you know, you’ve got this darling vintage sundial. Well it is.
Tracy Porter: This is from Sarah.
Sarah: Long time ago, but you’ve got him just nestled into the mulch.
Tracy Porter: Yes, yes I love those kinds of pieces and it’s not too obvious you know it could get a little too much too if you added but really amazingly, once things start to grow up, they kind of disappear in you know, in all of the wonderful greens and the flowers and everything.
Sarah: Yes, yes it becomes a little bit more of you know, a hidden treasure and that’s what I love about your herb garden you’ve got this wonderful urn over here.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, this has been, this little urn is actually made out of plaster. What I love about this, you can ever find this—
Sarah: I can touch it.
Tracy Porter: They have them at garden centers and stuff and they’re using kind of in a funky interesting shapes. But what’s great about them is the weather eats away at them so beautifully and they get all mossy and stuff.
Sarah: It almost looks like it’s an old.
Tracy Porter: Like a ruin.
Sarah: Piece of salt.
Tracy Porter: Isn’t it, I know it’s so cool.
Sarah: It’s so wonderful.
Tracy Porter: One thing has got to be a good 10 years old now and it gets better and they sort of melt away and I love that about those.
Sarah: Right.
Tracy Porter: So they’re just plasters so keep your eyes up into that I have a cool one over in my other garden.
Sarah: Of the woman.
Tracy Porter: Of the woman, yeah, I love having cloches in the garden it’s so pretty I really don’t use this cloche in a—
Sarah: A literal way.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, I don’t but I like how French they are and then I love the idea in a gardener of a place to sit.
Sarah: To sit.
Tracy Porter: Whether or not you use it, it draws it in and again creates that idea of space.
Sarah: Create that room that room and you use this darling lead planter.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, my mother and I gave me that and I love it so usually you know point something interesting in that that can kind of comes out.
Sarah: Something colorful likes an annual or something.
Tracy Porter: Up top of color.
Sarah: Yes.
Tracy Porter: Right exactly it’s kind of you know that’s what’s interesting and then I love the architecture of a stone wall.
Sarah: It hits you again, it’s our European fantasy.
Tracy Porter: It’s our European fantasy and when I was pregnant with Max and Fin, John built the stone wall around our garden, that’s always been my fantasy. So you know you can add little elements like that whether it’s this kind of stone.
Sarah: Which is very casual?
Tracy Porter: Which is super casual or something like that I love the high wall.
Sarah: And a little bit more formal.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, you know that’s an interesting about garden too.
Sarah: It is.
Tracy Porter: As if you have bits of symmetry are cool and then that piece that kind of throws it all up is really interesting to both of us I think we like that.
Sarah: It’s just like dressing or decorating our cooking, it’s the same thing. And we progress as we go you know again we always tell you guys, don’t feel great obligation to build a garden room all in one season. How exhausting we don’t have time to do that.
Tracy Porter: Yeah, I mean—
Sarah: It’s a progression.
Tracy Porter: If you have endless amounts, of money, you could probably do it but you know.
Sarah: It’s a progression and that’s what so exiting about it. You know, we were talking with our parents this week and I said “You know Annett are you guys done?” and she said “Oh, never” and that’s the answer I love because all of the sudden it’s gives you the freedom to know “That, yes, it’s okay to keep adding, fiddling around.”
Tracy Porter: Like your house, like your wardrobe about anything and you know.
Sarah: Yes.
Tracy Porter: You and I are constantly realizing, you know, at certain points in our life we had, you know, we didn’t have kids so we spent all our free time gardening and so we create this huge garden—
Sarah: 12 hours a day.
Tracy Porter: Now we’re constantly saying to each other, “We need to add more shrubs and more boxes with things that are a little bit lower maintenance than all the perennials.” So you know, it’s a learning thing and a little garden room like this is a learning thing too. It’s just adding your little layers and more than anything just enjoying the process of it and standing back, isn’t that your favorite thing.
Sarah: Love it.
Tracy Porter: Baking up and kind of going “Yeah, I like that” or “Oh, we need to do this.”
Sarah: Yes.
Tracy Porter: So now, you find the picture when you and I see something.
Sarah: Or through the progression of the season, it might look great at one point and then you get a month down the road and you go “Wow!”
Tracy Porter: What a mess I don’t like it now.
Sarah: So you know it’s always an evolution and that’s what we love about it. And we have to talked about quickly this is going to undergo a great change.
Tracy Porter: Were going to have a little face lift in my garden, yes, John and I are going to move the herbs to a raised bed vegetable garden and we’ll do a different video and show you guys about that.
Sarah: Show you.
Tracy Porter: But I want this to become a boxwood garden because you know that is our favorite thing.
Sarah: That is here favorite thing her T-Shirt should just say boxwood.
Tracy Porter: Boxwood. So whether or not you have a garden or you yearn to have elements of a garden there’s a way to fit this into your life because that little bit of nature and green and that architecture.
Sarah: It’s soul food.
Tracy Porter: It is soul food, food for all of us. Get out side an enjoy it.
Sarah: Thanks for joining us guys.
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