VANESSA TARR

Born and raised running through the gardens, her passion for flowers was inevitable. Always tagging along behind her father, she soon was old enough to take on duties of her own on the farm. In her teens she traveled widely working on farms in Spain, Panama, Maine, New Hampshire, and Washington state as well as studying floral design and flower farming with some of the top designers and growers in the country. After nearly a decade of working in the industry, she returned home to make her dream a reality with her father on the family farm. Her floral designs reflect the lush bounty from the garden, creating whimsical, dreamy, and romantic statements. You will find her in the barn putting together bouquets for the farm’s CSA, in the studio creating wedding designs, or out in the garden side by side with her father harvesting flowers or planting the next seasonal crop.

REGGIE TARR

Originally a veggie grower, Reggie maintains a self-taught approach to growing flowers. His neatly cultivated gardens and beautifully grown product say everything about the form and function on the farm. He has studied horticulture at Florida’s Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, New York Botanical Garden, and Harvard University. For nearly 30 years Reggie ran a prestigious landscape design business in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, his eye for color and attention to detail gave him high praise in his line of work. After retiring from his design business in 2011, Reggie focused his attention on Tarrnation Farm, expanding the flower gardens, and cutting the vegetable beds down to just enough for his personal consumption. The farm is his form of art, and he finds solace in getting his hands dirty planting seeds or weeding the gardens. You can find Reggie from dusk until dawn somewhere on the property. He may be rototilling a new bed for a trial patch of flowers, or hanging his garlic to dry in the barn loft.

A NOTE ABOUT OUR LOGO

The flower illustration used in our logo was created by H. Boylston Dummer (1878–1945), grandfather and great grandfather to Reggie and Vanessa. A painter, teacher, and illustrator Dummer was born in Rowley, Massachusetts and studied at the Eric Pape School of Art and the Art Students League in New York. He was an active and prolific illustrator for The Youth's Companion, The Boston Post, and the Christian Science Monitor where his weekly adventure series "Animal Town Aviators" was later published as a two book set. Dummer illustrated for many other magazines and children’s books as well. He worked as an artist, specializing in nature illustrations for such publishing companies as Ginn & Company, World Book Company, and American Book Company.