The calming influence of P. Allen Smith

P. Allen, I just love saying his name. If you have every watched P. Allen on PBS you know what I mean when I say, just watching him relaxes me. His calm voice and demeanor along with his amazing gift for floral, garden and home design are a prefect blend. For today, I am going to share 2 P. Allen things. First his home and second his virtual makeovers. I'll start with the house. 

P. Allen's Garden Home is located in Arkansas and is not only a beautiful home but also has extensive gardens, an orchard, a one acre vegetable garden, a conference center and they also raise sheep and heritage poultry. The home is available for tours and twice a year they do a garden to table dinner with chefs from around the country. I must make the trek over. Luckily for me it isn't terribly far! Rather than show picture after picture, here is video that gives an overview of the home. Pardon the commercial that will probably pop up at the beginning.
It is worth a look for the sleeping porch alone! 

Now, the next thing. I have the ugliest back yard known to man. In many old neighborhoods neighbors share driveways. I happen to be one of those neighbors. So, two factors make for the ugliest back yard known to man. First, the shared driveway forces you to park in the back. Second, I have a very small lot so the back yard is basically just for parking. To make matters worse, somewhere along the way, one of the home's past owners tore down the original and probably charming garage, put up what can only be described as what you park boats under at the lake and paved the majority of the yard. They actually fill all the unpaved spots with white landscape rock but I have spend the better park if 5 years getting those out little by little and sodding. I won't even post a pic today, it is just way too ugly after viewing P. Allen's gorgeous home. How does this tie in to P. Allen? Well, on one of his shows he has a segment where people get virtual makeovers for their homes/yards/landscape. Mine is so bad, that I am sending a picture in. If I get chosen I will be brave enough to share my pics. I need yard advice and P. Allen is the guy to do it!

If you don't know P. Allen here is the run down from his Web site:

P. Allen Smith is an award-winning designer, gardening and lifestyle expert. He is the host of two public television programs, P. Allen Smith's Garden Home, P. Allen Smith's Garden to Table and the syndicated 30-minute show P. Allen Smith Gardens.

Smith is one of America's most recognized and respected garden and design experts, providing ideas and inspiration through multiple media venues. He is the author of the best-selling Garden Home series of books published by Clarkson Potter/Random House, including Bringing the Garden Indoors: Container, Crafts and Bouquets for Every Room and the recently published cookbook, Seasonal Recipes from the Garden inspired by the abundance of food from his farm and a family of great cooks.

 (Ya'll know I like to cut and paste that kind of info rather than re-writing it for no reason.)

Here is is site so you can get you P. Allen fix any time.

Update: Apparently the virtual makeover is for front yards and not back yards. Mine isn't too shabby but I might still send it in. Here is THE bungalow.