These might seem like two unrelated items, but they are not. First, several years ago I got it into my head that I wanted to work internationally but hadn’t found the right opportunity to make it happen. And, second I don’t often get to design urban gardens in my landscape design practice. When the chance came my way to do both I jumped in! British interior designer, Heather Jenkinson, who is also a friend, asked […]
Front and Back Urban Gardens in London
365 posts
I have been thinking a lot about planting plans since I’ve been working on the Colonial Park Perennial Garden project. There are so many choices and points of view and it has forced me to really consider my own. I have always relied on my visual instincts when it comes to design–even with plants. That may seem out of fashion, but I also consider the lessons of the land I’m working with and what a […]
Every now and then I take a project that isn’t private and residential. Enter the Perennial Garden at Colonial Park in Somerset County. Currently it is a large circular garden with an entry aisle of double borders and a central gazebo. Plants that have been able to survive and thrive in less than ideal conditions dominate. Those conditions include the lack of an overall current garden plan, rampant deer, and a predominance of aggressive, deer […]
I recently visited a group of gardens in and around Boston with the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. It’s always a hyper stimulating time for me with a combination of input that merges other designers’ insights and opinions, seminars presenting both science and design, and visits to the locale’s interesting gardens and landscapes. After several days of this past conference I found myself longing for the big idea. I found it on the last day […]
When I first started blogging on a different platform in 2007, my subject was my designer show house garden in Rumson. Hardly anyone saw those posts or again in 2009. Now all these years and many designer show houses later I’ve decided to blog about the same thing. This time, it’s for the Mansion in May. So let’s begin. First a large old house is sought by the event organizers. Once found, every other year architects, […]
I promised I would be back here when I thought I had something new or interesting to say. There is no eye candy today–just words and thoughts. I also don’t feel the need to push my ideas on anyone else–so you don’t have to agree or disagree with what follows. I have never been one to blindly follow a trend or an idea. My thoughts, like most people’s, spring from my own experience and individual point […]
Not to belabor the point but sometimes the stars align. I’m working on an expansive landscape master plan and just presented the concept to my clients. In that plan is a pool with twin covered structures at one end of the enclosure. One will house an open air yet covered outdoor kitchen and the other will be a small poolhouse with a bathroom, shower and dressing room. I would have never thought to suggest this as part […]
None of us work in a void. Sometimes when wrapped up in client projects and deadlines, those of us who have boutique design firms can feel like a vacuum is sucking us in and all that surrounds us is ourselves, our clients, and our own work. For a landscape designer in a four season environment, January is especially devoid of just about everything so when I was invited by Modenus-The Design Directory to join a […]
Often my landscape design clients I ask me to insert some contemporary flavor into an existing landscape. These renovation projects are similar to interior updates in that the new has to dovetail seamlessly with the existing. This family had a very traditional, overgrown and poorly maintained landscape that had no place for three active, young girls to be outside except the driveway, an in need of repair pool, and a too small patio. The house […]
For me, it’s the end of container season. I only plant them for a few clients. Planter design is not a core service of my landscape design practice because I find them to take as much time to prepare for and execute as any other planting design. In reality, that’s what a container is, a planting design executed in a very small, seasonal space. I do have clients who specifically ask me to design their containers and […]
Sometimes my mind connects the dots in unexpected ways. I visited ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) in New York over the weekend. You would think I’d be all mid-mod and forward thinking. But no. I fell for these concrete tiles from Grow House Grow. They are a new product for the company, frost proof and come a a wide variety of colors. My mind immediately went to the Middle Ages and the floor at Sainte-Chapelle […]
As part of my job as a landscape designer, I regularly walk the growers and nurseries to see what is new and what looks good. I learn about plants new to me that I may want to trial and try. Like many other designers, I get on a plant jag and have a love affair with a group of plants for a while and then move on to flirt with something else that catches my […]
My visit last week to one of the great American gardens, Filoli, in northern California, was a revelation in many ways. I have wanted to visit since I first saw pictures of it years ago. The garden was designed in the early 20th century by its original homeowners with a team of architects, artists, and horticulturists. There is no known master plan yet it has survived largely in tact which is a rarity for American […]
Green is a thing. Right now it’s a missing thing. It’s what I miss most during winter and what makes me smile first in the spring–those small green shoots pushing up through frigid earth. I’ve been thinking about making flowerless gardens. Gardens that are mostly green. Gardens that rely on scale and texture and subtlety of hue and maybe some skilled pruning. In New Jersey, where I practice landscape design, this may prove to be more difficult than it […]
Last fall, I entered a garden I designed in New Jersey in 2015 APLD International Landscape Design Awards in the Planting Design category. It was awarded the highest honor, a Gold Award. To be honest, I knew the value of the design, but since it is the antithesis of current planting trends, I was really pleased. Current trends in planting design seem to require ornamental grasses and meadow-like qualities. This garden has neither, but that doesn’t make it […]
I’m not an architecture critic. I am someone who loves great architecture both contemporary and historic. In my work as a landscape designer part of my focus is to create landscapes and gardens that surround the attendant architecture in such a way that the design partnership between them is timeless and seamless. As a designer this may seem counter intuitive, but I believe that the best design has a sense of place and that my […]
Next week I’m travelling again. This time on a search for garden antiques and vintage in the markets in Paris and parts of Belgium. I am continuing on to Rome for a few days of play after that. For the first time in many, many years, I won’t be taking my laptop with me. I’ve traded the bulk and weight for my camera stuff and a tablet, so please follow my Instagram account for what […]
It’s no secret that I’ve been exploring Art Deco forms as inspiration for garden designs. I’ve always been drawn to the geometry and order, even when I started my career as a jewelry designer. Many of the preeminent decorative styles of the early 20th century have this type of order – Bauhaus, DeStijl, Viennese Secessionist (Josef Hoffman’s work is another swoon), Art Moderne and Art Deco and they still draw me in. When the opportunity to […]
I hadn’t visited Skylands for about ten years, and never in the fall. I went hoping to see the last of the fall foliage and instead found stonework that was interesting in its scope and full of ideas. Formerly an estate developed in the 1920s, it is now the New Jersey Botanical Garden and its stone American Tudor mansion is better known than the gardens as a popular site for weddings. The stonework at Skylands is […]
I had some rare time in between landscape design projects and clients last week and as I’ve been meaning to take my new camera lens out for a spin, I stopped by Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morristown to search out some of the details of the season. The focus of this public park is plants…not necessarily design although it has its designer-y moments. I go here when I need a plant fix. I send my landscape […]
When I was in Chicago in August, speaking at IGC about landscape designers and their potential relationships with garden centers I took a day before and a day after to explore the city and meet up with friends. I’ve been to Chicago regularly over the past five years and have seen and written about its wonderful gardens and street plantings, but this time I went in search of something else. Architecture. Chicago reinvented itself after […]
I visited gardens yesterday in Princeton, New Jersey. The tour was arranged by the New Jersey Landscape and Nursery Association (NJNLA) and featured four very different gardens by designer Bill Kucas. What struck me about these outdoor spaces was that their details is what really made them interesting. In each space the features beyond plants were detailed beautifully, but when I asked about what made the spaces personal, that had been left up to the […]
Miss R has been in the backseat all summer. Pretend you are on a roadtrip and listening to a story on the radio…the pictures will come after we reach our destination. In a twist of weather related events and wonder, my landscape design business and my commitment to being the national President of APLD has taken all of my time, leaving little extra for regular blog posts. Although I feel a nagging sense of ‘it’s […]
I’m tired of market umbrellas. Patterned or plain, they all look the same. Outdoor umbrellas used to glamorous. My shady inspiration today came from Coastal Living’s cover story a few years ago and a garden designed by A Blade of Grass near Boston that was a 2013 APLD Landscape Design Award Winner . There are a few companies that are making beautiful retro style umbrellas – the kind you would have found in mid-century Palm […]
I first noticed this emerging trend in Paris at Maison et Objet in January. Rattan furniture is back. As a material, it’s been out of favor for a while, but in the 1940s and 50s it was popular and chic. The new rattan is lyrical and colorful and doesn’t include the large scale banana leaf prints that gave it the feeling that it belonged on a porch in Malaysia somewhere. These pieces will be at […]