Every garden needs a laughing spot

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Is there a particular tree that has infatuated you? Maybe a Japanese snowball or a contorted filbert? Laughing places can be that simple, just a tree.

Write "purchase tree for laughing place" on your late fall to-do calendar. Trees like to be planted then. Make it something to look forward to, and it's more likely to get done if it's on your calendar.

A bench or lone chair can make a great laughing place. Simple and direct, they beckon you into the garden with a welcome seat and the unspoken clarity to stay and enjoy awhile. Treat yourself to a lone chair in the garden, one that is interesting and old and a fabulous color. You will create a little niche of a laughing place.

You will also be creating a spot to have an impromptu lunch in the garden, but what I like best about well-placed lone chairs in the landscape is the magic that arrives with the landing of a bird. Who knew that a few bushes, some groundcover and a lone chair, with a bird on it, makes you feel more in tune with nature than any TV show about the flora and fauna of the African Serengeti?

Yes, a laughing place. If it still seems silly to you, there are other words - peace, energy, grace, beauty, joy, love, nurturing - that can be substituted for laughing place.

Be audacious in your landscape, in your life. Create many laughing places.

Stone Mountain resident Tara Dillard designs, installs and writes about landscapes. Her most recent books include "Garden Paths and Stepping Stones" and "Perennials for Georgia." E-mail her at TaraDillard@AgardenView.biz or visit www.TaraDillard.com.