When Sarah Pajwani and her family moved into their house near Maidenhead (an hour from London) in 2011, it was surrounded by an “overgrown field.” Having created a design rationale with the help of professional landscapers, Sarah set about filling her garden with plants of her choice, border by border. Despite her best efforts, in winter she would gaze out of the windows and still feel that there was nothing to look at.
Now, every garden-facing room in the house frames a different aspect of the winter scene, and the house has a lot of windows. Dare we suggest that winter is the garden’s best season? We can report that Saint Timothee, as it is called, was the first garden of the year to be open for the National Garden Scheme and Sarah gave us a tour.
Read on for 11 clever design ideas from Sarah to make the garden glow in the winter:
Above: A row of glowing red Cornus sanginea ‘Midwinter Fire’ brings out the best in Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii. Famously vivid in spring, the euphorbia holds on to its structure and excellent leaf color in winter.
Saint Timothee is a picture of 1930s gentility, with an Enid Blyton kind of name. Yet the garden is not in a time warp. Sarah uses colorful stems, scented shrubs (such as Lonicera fragrantissima,Viburnum x bodnantese ‘Dawn’, Sarcococca confusa), sparsely flowering trees (Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’) as well as grasses mixed with evergreens to brighten the winter scene. Several paths and borders lead the eye from one of the inside windows, across the garden.
2. Mixed Grasses
Above: Smoldering dogwood stems draw attention to the drama of super-sized pampas grass, flanking a pond.
File this under Seemingly Antithetical but True: The tinier the outdoor space, the more verdant it should be. “We find that minimalist garden strategies work well on large, vast spaces, while smaller gardens are more conducive to wild, exuberant approaches,” says David Godshall of LA- and San Francisco-based landscape architecture firm Terremoto. “Therefore, in this small space, we got wild.”
The garden in question belongs to architect Fredrik Nilsson of Studio Nilsson, a neighbor and friend of David’s, and was, when the pair began, “mostly just dust,” David remembers. Construction had just wrapped on the compact, architecturally forward LA house Fredrik designed for his young family, and the remaining space on the lot was tight—some of it set at an incline. Still, the family “wanted to make the most of it. They have a young daughter and wanted to spend family time together outside as well,” David says.
Creating the feeling of an oasis, even in a busy urban environment, was key. “Through conversation and walking onsite together, we realized we want to create privacy from the street, and thus we planted jasmine to intertwine with the steel fence and make the garden smell wonderful,” says David. A mix of native California flora, low-water plantings, places to lounge, and artfully hardscaped paths complete the pocket-sized escape.
Join us for a look at this garden that’s every bit as lush as it is compact.
Photography by Caitlin Atkinson, courtesy of Terremoto.
Above: The house, designed by Fredrik, is set on a petite lot. When Terremoto took on the project, David remembers, “Fredrik had designed the concrete aspects of the hardscape, and those were in place.” Fredrik had also designed the powder-coated wire-mesh fence: “It’s designed to allow vines to grab hold and take over with time while still preserving a visual connection to the street and into the property,” he explains. “The fence facing the two neighboring properties is cedar planks. It has the same materiality as the house but untreated, allowing it to weather over time.” Above: Tiered gravel steps lead to a small sitting area. “The planting plan is really a mix of native Southern California species and low-water regional species as well,” says David. “The garden is as much for local insects and wildlife as it is for the family.”
This week, we’re revisiting some of our all-time favorite stories about gardening in New York City. Cultivating plants in the Big Apple comes with challenges—yards tend to be small and shady, and privacy is rare—but if you have the patience, these urban gardens can produce some big-time magic. Behold…
Courtyard gardens, enclosed on all sides by walls or fences, can transform a cramped space into an oasis. They preserve privacy while welcoming sunlight. And they can make even the smallest townhouse feel larger. We’ve collected 10 of our favorites from New York City, the unofficial epicenter for courtyard gardens.
Above: When garden designer Brook Klausing first saw his clients’ townhouse backyard in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, it looked bleak: a chain-link fence, an old concrete patio, and a patch of hard-packed dirt. No more. Photograph courtesy of Brook Landscape, from Garden Designer Visit: Brook Klausing Elevates a Brooklyn Backyard.
Above: An airy hedge of bamboo provides screening at the garden’s perimeter while a pared-down palette of green and white focuses the eye on the center of the space. “The white limestone is like a canvas. When the sun is directly overhead, you can see the shadows of the bamboo and other plants starkly against it,” says designer Julie Farris. Photograph by Matthew Williams, from Before & After: From ‘Fishbowl’ Townhouse Garden to Private Oasis.
Oftentimes landscape designers are called in to execute a one-time overhaul or to create an instant landscape for a site that’s been ravaged by construction. Every once in a while, though, they’re enlisted for more nuanced work, such as when a mature garden needs a new steward and editor. The “before and after” results may not be as dramatic, but the process of refinement can take a garden from good to great. Such was the case when landscape designer and ISA-certified arborist Ashley Lloyd, of Lloyd Landwright, was brought in to usher a garden in lower Westchester into its next chapter.
The garden had been lovingly designed and tended by a fine gardener for many years, but after his departure, weeds had overtaken the property and much of the perennial layer had been lost during construction projects, including a new retaining wall. “The goal was to create layered texture, seasonal contrast, and movement—and to design with the garden’s future evolution in mind,” Lloyd says.
Arriving as the homeowners were in the midst of rethinking the garden, ended up being a gift. “I had time to observe the land—its microclimates, light shifts, drainage patterns—and respond accordingly,” Lloyd says. Building on the existing palette of shrubs and evergreens, she brought in more native and pollinator plants and created moments that would consistently surprise and delight the clients. She also designed dozens of seasonal planters and new outdoor lighting.
Through her years of working on this garden, Lloyd learned that “the best design happens in relationship and collaboration with the land and not from a fixed plan,” she says. Lloyd recently relocated to the West Coast, handing this garden off to its next steward in much better shape than she found it.
Take a tour of the resulting garden, a layered landscape that evolves through the seasons.
Above: “This wasn’t a ‘look but don’t touch’ garden,” says Lloyd. Rather, it was designed to invite interaction, with the client choosing to leave the front garden unfenced, so neighbors could enjoy it too. However, no fencing meant intense deer pressure, so Lloyd focussed her plant palette on those that were unpalatable to deer, including floss flower and allium. “Grasses, including sesleria, really knit everything together there,” she says. Above: Lloyd says she tries to place plants that deer don’t like around plants they prefer; for example, lamb’s ear and allium are positioned to protect asters. As part of a local Pollinator Pathway, the garden is pesticide-free and designed to support bees, birds, and butterflies.
Is there any greater luxury than bathing outdoors? You don’t need much more than a shower head and a modest enclosure (ideally one that offers a glimpse of the sea). We combed through the many outdoor showers we’ve come across over the years and selected the most memorable. Here’s our top 20: Martha’s Vineyard Charm […]
Welcome to Meanwhile, on Remodelista, in which we take a look at the goings-on over on our sibling site. We’ve been noticing recently, both there and on our own site, a new love for the unpolished and uncultivated in landscape design. We know it’s not a look for everyone (hello, HOA!), but when the rewilded […]
For their historic home in the enclave of Clifton in Bristol, UK, an energetic couple wanted an informal, biodiverse, and sustainable landscape where their grandchildren and dogs could romp. They called on landscape architecture firm Artisan Landscapes to come up with their dream garden, but the firm recognized that the grand Georgian-style home imposed a degree of formality on its landscape that couldn’t be ignored. As a compromise, they kept the classic formal courtyard layout and overlaid “soft, naturalistic meadow planting” to fulfill the clients’ desires for an environmentally friendly garden.
Above: “The homeowners are lucky enough to have both a front and a back garden,” say the architects, “so we could devote the entire back garden to ‘garden,’ while the front garden has a large lawn for the dogs and grandkids, a greenhouse, and informal borders of vegetables intermingled with perennials.” The back garden, they say, is a more intimate space, “although the grandchildren love whirling about the paths.” Above: The sunken octagon is a focal point of the garden but was also one of the more challenging features to install. “There was a one-meter-thick piece of limestone bedrock located under it that had to be removed to install drainage,” say the architects.
Before
Above: The courtyard had a generous footprint, but the neglected landscape was uninspiring.
After
Above: An antique urn is a focal point in the garden. For more inspiration, see Landscaping: 8 Ideas to Add Antiques Artfully to Any Garden. Above: A long, slim reflecting pool is one of two major water features in the project. “They have a combined volume of five thousand cubic liters,” say the architects, and both are controlled by pumps on remote-control switches. Above: Salvia surrounds the pool. For everything you need to know about growing it, see Salvia: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design.
Beth Chatto’s “right plant, right place” motto? Turns out it can be applied to home design, too.
Los Angeles architect Patrick Bernatz Ward is guided by the same location-first ethos, taking pains to create homes that feel of a piece with their environments. In fact, he is so conscious of a project’s surroundings, that he often adds landscape design to his offerings (which also include interior and furniture design). And a visit to his website reveals nearly as many images of natural landscapes as images of interiors.
His interest in both the outside and inside is unusual for an architect, he concedes: “In California you really can’t separate the two fields, though, given the climate. Both should feel interwoven together.” Below, he shares the out-of-print landscape design book he calls “almost revolutionary,” the must-visit children’s garden in Southern California, and photos of his own garden and patio, which he overhauled himself.
Above: Patrick in his recently renovated home in East L.A. He’s seated in a chair of his own design. Be sure to check out the house tour on Remodelista. Photograph by Justin Chung.
Your first garden memory:
My grandfather’s house was a Cliff May-designed ranch house in Orange County. The yard was filled with olive, pepper, and euclayptus trees. Behind the garden were the remnants of an old orange grove. There was a nice mixture of formal gardens (low hedges, patio/courtyard walls) and wilder landscaping. We spent many long days and afternoons barefoot running through the back acre and yard. It was a magical place!
Lawrence Halprin’s Process from 1981 is a wonderful book that explains Halprin’s intimate and almost revolutionary approach to landscaping. TheBold Dry Garden featuring Ruth Bancroft’s garden is also always influential.
Above: Patrick terraced his garden into smaller patios, with walls lined with sandstone from the property and steps fabricated from handmade Mexican bricks. “My main objective was to create a drought-tolerant environment that was friendly for children, while also providing color throughout the year,” he told Remodelista. Photograph by Yoshihiro Makino.
Tranquil. Thematic. Framed.
Plant that makes you swoon:
Any of the native salvias from California and the Southwest mixed in with a native cactus.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Canary pines! They were planted all over Southern California in the 1960s-1980s. I’d rather them be replaced with oaks or sycamores that would be more beneficial to the environment.
Favorite go-to plant:
Above: Aloe arborescens in his garden. Photograph by Patrick Bernatz Ward.
Aloe arborescens is one of my favorite plants. It’s drought-tolerant, easy to grow, and produces a beautiful red floral resceme in the fall in the northern hemisphere. Autumn light with the tinges of red is a really special time.
Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:
You can’t force your preconceived ideas on the plant and how it’s meant to look in the landscape. They will always do what they are meant to adapt to.
A couple months ago, I wrote a story for Remodelista about a modernist landmark Brooklyn Heights townhouse restored by Starling Architecture. The post focused on the sophisticated midcentury-style kitchen, but I was equally enamored with the verdant backyard, cleverly laid out as multiple outdoor “rooms.”
The goal, says landscape designer Nishiel Patel, the mastermind behind the exterior overhaul, was to forge a better connection between the inside and outside. “Previously overgrown with non-native shrubs, the garden acted as a barrier between the two ‘living rooms’ (interior and exterior), discouraging use of the garden completely,” she explains. In addition, the path from the home to the rear pergola (the main living space in the backyard) was awkward, requiring “two sharp turns to even enter the garden.”
Her solution: “We designed the garden to re-orient the home and the exterior deck [the rear pergola] towards a central and usable verdant courtyard, unlocking new views and connections between the two.”
Here’s how Nishiel reset the landscape design on the right path.
Above: “The facade of the house is landmarked, including the integrated large plant beds and entry stairs, so we treaded lightly,” explains Nishiel. “We did, however, add a Hollywood juniper and two Japanese maples to the front with a shrubby understory of rugosa rose and ‘Pee Wee’ oakleaf hydrangeas. The junipers and maples were selected for their twisted and gracefully open forms, respectively, as a contrast to the monolithic cube form of the house. Both trees are commonly found in the neighborhood which, over time, will make them feel as if they’ve always been there.” Above: Nishiel redirected the path from the interior living room to the exterior living room (the raised deck with pergola in the rear) so that it was more straightforward and easily accessible. In the middle, she added a fire pit area with Adirondack chairs (left) and a hot/cold plunge station (right). Above: “While the garden’s primary exposure is from the south, the light is filtered through two existing and large honey locust trees on the adjacent street. Naturally, the light is dappled, and the pockets of more direct and intense light change throughout the day. So we chose to create a matrix of plants that do well in the shade (oakleaf hydrangea, Pennsylvania sedge, Japanese anemone, Actaea, and Brunnera), and then a lot of perennials that prefer varying levels of direct sun (Amsonia hubrichtii, Sesleria autumnalis, Echinacea pallida, Echinacea ‘White Swan’, Martagon lilies, Verbascum, and Penstemon), with the goal of letting nature take over at some point. The plants will do well if they find themselves in a location that allows it!” Above: The cedar hot tub is from Northern Lights with the all-electric pumps, and the cold plunge is the Cold Stoic from Renu Therapy. “Both are intentionally recessed into the new deck so that they appear almost like pure shapes carved into the deck rather than stand-alone objects. This meant that we needed to excavate and retain the earth below by almost four feet to maintain airflow around them and provide subgrade drainage (in the form of a dry well) when the pools needed to be drained. We took advantage of the space below to also hide the hot tub equipment and provided a secret hatch in the deck for access below.”
As a practicing architect, a professor of architecture, and the author of ten design books, Pierluigi Serraino knows modern architecture intimately. But for his latest, The Modern Garden: The Outdoor Architecture of Mid-Century America, Serraino is stepping outside. Serraino says he was motivated to curate and write this book after visiting iconic modern houses in person and seeing these structures within their landscapes.“There’s a gap of understanding between architects and landscape architects,” he says. “I have detected this time and again in my work, my research work on architectural photography and my actual work as an architect: There is a fundamental imbalance between architecture and landscape.” The Modern Garden attempts to bridge that gap.
The book features photographs from many of architectural photography’s mid-century greats, including Julius Shulman, Morley Baer, and Ernest Brown, but Serraino has combed through their archives to find photos that may be unfamiliar even to connoisseurs. “I looked specifically at shots where the camera was pointed away from the building,” says Serraino. “I uncovered the enormous richness of landscape design.”
Above: Pool, Pasadena, 1955. Architect: Hester & Davis. Landscape Architect: Unknown. Photograph by Julius Shulman.
The text unfolds as four essays that explore landscape architecture, and in some ways, this is a book aimed at professionals in the spheres of architecture and landscape architecture–Serraino calls it “an invitation for these designers to understand the reciprocity between architecture and site.” The book is also a celebration of landscape design work that often received less attention than the architecture. (Indeed many of the landscapes featured in The Modern Garden are unattributed because the designer’s names went unrecorded or have been lost.)
Perhaps most important, The Modern Garden is an excellent reference for the home gardener or professional designer creating a garden around a modern house. Flipping through these vintage landscapes, it’s hard not to notice how dynamic and playful the gardens are and in turn, to desire to recreate their spirit today. “This book resets our memory to understand how much we have lost along the way,” says Serrraino.
Here are six lessons we took away from The Modern Garden:
Photography from The Modern Garden.
1. Landscape design is not an afterthought.
Above: Lavenant House, Pasadena, 1953. Architect: Smith & Williams. Landscape Architect: Unknown. Photograph by Julius Shulman.
Serraino says the big lesson from the book for architects, landscape designers, students, and even municipalities should be that landscape should be conceived in concert with the architecture. “Today, most of the time, you see architecture that is an object on a piece of land,” says Serraino. He argues for homeowners to make a plan for their landscape design at the same time that they hire a designer to remodel or build a home, cautioning that the landscape budget is always cannibalized by the building.
2. The site should inform the garden.
Above: Otto Spaeth House, Southampton NY, 1957. Architect: Gordon Chadwick and George Nelson. Landscape Architect: Unknown. Photograph by Ezra Stoller.
Landscape architects are almost always inspired by nature, but Serraino says, “You have to be specific about what kind of nature. The landscape of Cyprus is marvelous, but it’s completely different from the one of London, which is different from that of Finland, which is different from Arizona and Mexico.” Serraino says the best landscape architecture is “more specific, a little more tailored” to its site.
3. We should blur the lines between landscape and architecture.
Above: Koch II House, Location Unknown, 1953. Architect: Carl Koch. Landscape Architect: Unknown. Photograph by Ezra Stoller.
If you’re lucky enough to have a garden in a big city, you learn to accept the fact that while you’re out there, you’re in full view of everyone whose windows overlook your yard. Hanging an awning over your entire backyard or planting a tree big enough to screen everything isn’t a good option, since usually, getting the light you need to grow things is already a challenge.
So what are the best ways to make a small urban garden feel more private—or at least to create the illusion of privacy? For advice, we asked landscape designer Susan Welti, a partner in the Brooklyn-based Foras Studio. Susan has designed countless urban spaces; two of her gardens appear in our Gardenista book.
Here are some of her ideas to create privacy in a small city backyard.
Photography by Matthew Williams for Gardenista, except where noted.
Above: An eastern white pine tree draws the eye away from the neighbors’ houses in a Brooklyn garden designed by Foras Studio.
Is it really possible to have privacy in an outdoor city garden?
Let’s admit that it’s almost impossible to create as much privacy as you might want. “There are so many buildings surrounding you, and they’re so much bigger than you,” Susan says. “But while you can’t block out the buildings, what you can do is to create something beautiful and compelling that will hold the eye within the confines of the site, and make you feel enclosed and secure.”
Above: The neighbors’ Japanese maple trees (at right) create a bower and privacy barrier.
How can you use trees to create privacy?
“You can’t just throw in a big tree to block the view, because that also blocks the light,” says Susan. “In most city gardens there are trees in your sightline, but they’re often really big—such as oaks or maples or ailanthus. It’s nice to put in a tree that’s a more human scale. We use a lot of fruit trees—crab apple, dwarf apple, even pomegranate and fig. These all flower, which is always nice.”
Susan also recommends small understory trees like Chionanthus virginicus, known as “old man’s beard”; Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’ (serviceberry); and Magnolia virginiana—native magnolia or sweetbay. And if you’re not going for bloom, consider a Japanese maple—“They fit beautifully into a pared-back grassy landscape.”
Above: A row of small hornbeam trees (Carpinus caroliniana) are pruned tightly to create a flat screen against a fence.
What are the best trees for fence-line privacy?
When space is at a premium, Susan often uses trees that are pleached—trained and clipped to grow on a flat plane, like an espalier.
“Pleached trees are a powerful visual element, and you can control where they canopy out,” she says. Susan’s choice is hornbeam(Carpinus caroliniana), a native tree that takes well to pruning; she buys them already started off from Brooklyn’s Urban Arborists. “Pleached trees don’t bloom; it’s more about the shape and the beauty of the foliage.”
Can vines and climbers be used to create privacy?
“Vines are great for adding a green layer to a fence or pergola,” says Susan. “For an airy look, you want plants that have some visual porosity. We use Wisteria frutescens ‘Amethyst Falls,’ a native plant that’s less vigorous than Chinese or Japanese wisteria, and has a nice bloom.” For other flowering vines, she recommends clematis, honeysuckle, and crossvine, such as Bignonia capreolata ‘Tangerine Beauty.’ To create a wall of green, Susan suggests the vigorous, shade-tolerant Akebia ‘Shirobana’—but be aware that it’s considered invasive in some areas, so check with local authorities before planting, and be prepared to monitor its growth carefully.
“There isn’t another site like this available anywhere near Portland, Maine,” said Russell Tyson of Whitten Architects, “and it’s the site that makes this house so unique.”
He’s describing a jaw-dropping 36 acres perched along the oceanfront in Scarborough, Maine, the site of many native habitats—rocky coastline, woods, wetlands, and meadows included. Most of the land is in a conservation trust to preserve its natural character, but that didn’t deter the owners, a young couple with two children who wanted a weekend retreat that was “the antithesis of their high-rise life in New York City.” Two acres could be developed, so they removed an existing 1980s house that had “no sort of relationship to the landscape,” said Tyson, the project architect. In its stead, they designed a four-bedroom, mostly single-story house and detached car barn with guest quarters above.
Whitten partnered with landscape architect Todd Richardson to create a strong connection between the house and landscape. They knew each other well and had collaborated before, so they designed the project’s indoor and outdoor elements in tandem. “Here, the exterior spaces were just as important as the interior ones,” said Tyson. Let’s take a look.
Photography by Trent Bell except where noted, courtesy of Whitten Architects.
Above: At the entryway, a Rockport granite boulder directs visitors from the parking court toward the front door just off to the right. A small apple orchard flanks the walkway.
The site was once part of a farm, full of rolling meadows that drop down to the shore.
Above: In the front garden are salvia and ornamental grasses mixed with lawn. “The walls extend outward from the house to throw the architecture out into the landscape,” said Richardson.
The previous house had an asphalt parking lot prominently featured in front; in contrast, said the architect, “we wanted you to park your car and forget about it for the rest of the time you are here.”
Above: Flanking a porch off the bedroom wing: A birch tree at far left hovers over highbush blueberries, northern bayberry, low huckleberry, lowbush blueberry sod, and hay-scented fern. The patch on the right side of the walkway also includes black chokeberry, rhodora, and cinnamon fern.
The landscape architect chose native plants that thrive in this part of Maine.
Above: Each bedroom has a porch to encourage residents and guests to head directly outdoors in the mornings.
The house is framed in Douglas fir and stained in Cabot Nantucket White. The decking is water-resistant ipe wood, and the roof is standing seam metal in slate gray.
Above: Bordered by full-height sliding glass doors, the living room links a courtyard in front of the house to a patio on the opposing side. The landscape architect planted pitch pine here, centered on the axis of a single large pitch pine hovering over the water’s edge—the only tree along the waterfront for about 1,500 feet, visible beyond the living room.
When Stephanie Wong and her partner, Daniel Watson, found their future home in Atwater Village back in 2021, they saw potential behind the concrete lot and dated details. “During the search, we saw so many quick flips with cheap finishes and cookie cutter design choices. Although the property needed work, we were glad to design it in a way that matched our personal vision,” Stephanie describes. It was their first renovation and first landscape project. The result is a thoughtfully updated 1920s Spanish-style property the couple dubbed Finca Glenfeliz. Join us for a tour of the garden.
Above: The building seen here is former two-car garage converted into a small studio the couple now rents for production through Peerspace. The etched terracotta pots at the entrance are from Plant Provisions. Photograph by Marc Gabor for Finca Glenfeliz.
Stephanie works as Brand Director for ORCA, an LA-based landscape design and outdoor product studio founded by Molly Sedlacek. “The garden renovation was actually what brought me to work with ORCA in the first place,” she says. “I fell in love with the landscape design process. It truly is an art form.”
Above: Shown here is a Catalina Ironwood tree, a California native found at Devil Mountain Nursery. As for the grass, “we went with a native California no-mow mix which requires less water, feels more wild, and looks less manicured,” Stephanie explains. “We wanted this zone to feel like a meadow so we brought in a chunk wood stool from Angel City Lumber and natural stone.” Photograph by Marc Gabor for Finca Glenfeliz.
Above: For added privacy from the street, they replaced the open wrought iron gate with a cedar gate. The gravel is Del Rio Pea Gravel and the path is made up of Utah Sunrise Flagstones from Bourget Bros. It’s lined with two vegetable gardens that Daniel built of redwood and a mix of California natives and Australian species. Photograph by Marc Gabor for Finca Glenfeliz.
For the first phase, Stephanie and Daniel worked with landscape designer Nola Talmadge at Field Sound who created the overall layout and plant palette while procuring hard-to-find materials like the flagstones, plants, and boulders. Inspired by the gardens of Mexico and the Mediterranean, the couple brought it in a warmer palette of pebbles, grasses, and stone. They demolished the concrete driveway that runs the length of the property from the street to the garage. From there they brought in bigger trees, boulders, laid flagstones, and pea gravel.
For the second phase, Stephanie and Daniel focused on the finishes themselves. Since joining ORCA, they’ve installed ORCA pavers to create a landing off the back studio and cladded the front porch in ORCA tiles to hide the cracked concrete. “The most rewarding part was seeing so much life in our garden after we removed the concrete and dying grass. I started seeing butterflies, bees, and birds creating a mini ecosystem in our backyard,” says Stephanie.
Above: For the minimal outdoor shower, the idea was to feel immersed in plant life. They sourced two pieces of Deodar Cedar beams from Angel City Lumber and planted Acacia iteaphylla on either side. Photograph by Austin John for Finca Glenfeliz.
Above: Anastasia and Taylor (right) at their office.
Talc Studio‘s design aesthetic is the landscape equivalent of the perfectly mussed bedhead. Their outdoor spaces for clients up and down California are naturalistic and bordering on wildness, but at the same time highly considered and chic. “We are artists and designers that make gardens. We are gardeners that live and breathe art and design,” is how its founders, Taylor Palmer and Anastasia Sonkin, describe themselves. “Grounded in the arts and aesthetics, our medium allows us to explore the dense wonder of the natural world.”
Next up for the duo: “We are opening a studio space and a retail shop + showroom in West Marin (Northern California), right on the glorious Highway 1. Stay tuned and come visit us this fall.” We can’t wait! In the meantime, we’ll just soak up Taylor and Anastasia’s plant wisdom, shared below, on everything from the tree they always snap up to their surprising distaste for drip irrigation.
Photography by Jorden DeGaetano, courtesy of Talc Studio, unless noted.
Garden-related book you return to time and again:
Above: Landscape as Protagonist emerged from a symposium at Melbourne Design Week 2019.
We try to stay off of Instagram, but when we are on it… @lucianogiubbileigardens: His gardens never get old and never go out of style. Endless inspiration.
@maryamnassirzadeh: Maryam’s style and point of view is authentic, free spirited and sophisticated. We want our gardens feel like her collections. She does everything so well.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
Above: The pair at a wild iris meadow in Point Reyes.
Intimate, elegant meadow.
Favorite go-to plant:
It’s a tie. Pennisetum spathiolatum (we call her “spath” for short). Loves the heat, can tolerate a little shade, always reliable.
Banksia integrifolia. Our Banksia grower has us on speed dial for when a good-looking crop is ready because they know our love for them is strong. We believe they are the ultimate, under-used coastal California tree.
Plant that makes you swoon:
Above: Eriogonum nudum. Photograph by Taylor Palmer.
Taylor: Eriogonum nudum (naked buckwheat). I admire its independence, its resilience, and immense beauty. It has this remarkably long, drawn-out process of growing up and dying back for more than half of the year.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Anastasia: Red/burgundy Phormiums…No, no, no!
Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:
Taylor: Sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye. Coming to terms with mortality. The ebb and flow of life and death.
Unpopular gardening opinion:
If this question refers to unpopular opinions that we hold, we are trying to eliminate drip irrigation.. all those plastic tubes!
Gardening or design trend that needs to go:
Above: Dense, naturalistic planting at a Talc project in Sebastopol. Photograph by Taylor Palmer.
Anastasia: Black mulch, plastic edging, planting in a straight line.
Known for his low-key but elegant designs that have a distinctively New York vibe, Brook actually grew up in Lexington, KY, in a family of green thumbs. “My father worked for Parks and Recreation and was known around town as the tree guy. My brother and I started a lawn care company that incorporated into a landscape management company. By the time we were teenagers, all the best local landscape architects were hiring us to do their installations,” he says. After moving to the Big Apple and working with a few popular rooftop designers, he struck out on his own and founded Brook Landscape, a design-build firm dedicated to creating spaces that get people outdoors. “I would like everyone to spend less time looking at pictures of gardens on their phones and more time connecting with nature and local communities,” says Brook.
Hear, hear. But before you heed his words and log off, read his thoughts below on the importance of “boring” plants in his designs, the tree that makes him happy, and the color pairing he can’t stand in the garden.
I spent most of my days as a kid in the backyard. It wasn’t big but my father spent all his time gardening. We had grape hyacinth planted by the front porch. For me, they were mesmerizing. They looked just like food or candy (but you shouldn’t eat them). We had a cherry tree in the front yard that my mom would have us climb every season to pick and then pit them with her on the porch. We had a basic, round brick patio in the backyard that held our grill. Grillouts were the best. The yard wasn’t more than 800 square feet, but my siblings and I played hide and seek every day and always found ways to disappear. It was magical.
Garden-related book you return to time and again:
Wendel Berry’s The Unsettling of America. It tells the story of a society that has lost its connection to the land. It details the value of land stewardship and staying in rhythm with Mother Nature. It reminds us that value is often misplaced and peace is a feeling earned from hard work.
Instagram account that inspires you:
If we do our job right, our clients aren’t on IG. They are outside communing with nature, hanging out with friends, or relaxing and sipping tea. My current truth is, stay off the info smack. I’m not interested in AI-generated gardens. I’m not interested in photography or branding. Yes, some photo inspiration is good but get creative, go hiking, see what Mother Nature is doing, and try and recreate that.
Not to say it’s not a tool but if you need alcohol to dance, you should stop drinking.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
Above: A recent Mediterranean-inspired landscape design for Athena Calderone (of Eyeswoon) in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Relaxed, refined, and balanced. I’m an artist available for commissions. We try and help our clients get what makes them happy. We will apply the art and our gardens have our mark on them. Similar to the previous question, I’m afraid the housing market and renovation generation have placed too much relevance on objects and space. I like nice things but hate working so hard to maintain an all-white outfit. Mother nature is adaptable. Garden style should be too.
Plant that makes you swoon:
The Tamarisk tree always makes me do a double-take. It’s magical. Like a scotch broom but a tree. So soft-looking, and it just makes you happy.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Potato vine. Lime next to burgundy? Now I’m just being snobby. In reality, it’s not about hating things, it’s about loving them.
Favorite go-to plant:
Above: English Ivy—boring but reliable and does a great job of softening hardscaping.
Earlier this week, Remodelista readers were treated to a tour of a row house in Ghent that was was formerly “charmless” and now fresh and chic thanks to its resourceful new owners, Arthur Verraes and Kelly Desmedt, who did much of the remodeling work themselves. Today, we’re visiting the elements that make the outdoor space equally cool.
While Arthur, architect and founder of Atelier Avondzon, led the house renovation, his girlfriend Kelly, a corporate lawyer, is the mastermind behind the overhaul of the back garden. She had no prior experience with gardening. “I grew up without having a garden myself and knew nothing about plants,” says Kelly, who discovered her green thumb during the COVID pandemic, when they purchased the house. “Ever since, I’ve been thinking about studying to become a landscape architect or to do something with it in a more professional way. For now, I’m indulging this passion by helping out friends and family from time to time and by designing our next project.”
The landscape design was actually the first thing the couple tackled, before turning their attention to the house renovation. “I would definitely recommend this sequence. The moment we were able to move, it already felt like home and the garden was already in full bloom,” she says. “Not to mention, this allowed us to plant trees that we wouldn’t be able to plant afterwards (urban townhouse).”
Below, she gives us a tour of the newly reimagined outdoor space. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom for the before images.)
Above: Arthur and their dog posing at the front door of their remodeled row house. Two simple changes to the exterior transformed the entire look: 1) painting the garage door, gutter, and window frames green and 2) adding a wisteria to frame the front door.
Above: The couple tackled the backyard before renovating the house. Next to them on the lower left is a Mediterranean spurge shrub (Euphorbia characias). Above: “We wanted to create an intimate, green, and cozy environment. a perfect place to catch some morning sun, to have a coffee next to the master bedroom or a place to cool down on a hot summer day. That’s why we decided to plant multiple trees in it, despite the small space,” says Kelly. The tree on the left is an Amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense).
Above: Arthur and Kelly added these concrete steps that lead to a green roof above. The stairs serve as plant shelves as well for their collection of potted succulents. Above: Kelly chose gravel for the hardscaping for environmental reasons. “We really wanted to ensure a permeable surface. [Flooding] is a big problem in Belgium.”
Chances are high that over the last two decades, you’ve been influenced at least once by Deborah Needleman, even if you’ve never heard of her. At different times over a long stretch starting in the early aughts, she helmed three of the most influential trendsetting publications in the country: domino (which she founded), followed by WSJ (the Wall Street Journal’s monthly magazine), and later T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Before she was a style arbiter, though, she was a garden editor (House & Garden) and columnist (Slate). And now, she’s returned to her first love—the world of plants. “It’s been ages since I was a garden writer and constantly immersed in the world of gardening. But now my days again revolve around being immersed in nature and making things from it—gardens and baskets, including basketry things for the garden like plant tuteurs, cloches, and trugs,” says Deborah, who spends most of her time now at her country home in the Hudson Valley. “I’m just so happy to back mucking around in the garden and in the woods.”
Below, she makes the case for non-natives in the garden (when they make sense), Okatsune secateurs (“better than Felcos”), and an all-white gardening outfit (we’re now converts).
Photography courtesy of Deborah Needleman, unless otherwise noted.
Above: Deborah, in her sitting room, surrounded by flowers, both real and man-made: painting of tulips by Luke Edward Hall, watercolor of nasturtium by Emma Tennant, porcelain hyacinth by Vladimir Kanevsky. Photograph by Lily Weisberg.
Your first garden memory:
Not a garden, but the wild woods at the edge of the newly built suburb where I grew up. It felt like entering the private, backstage area you weren’t supposed to see, because everything around it was neat and manicured and without drama or mystery. And years later, when I first heard the term “landscape architecture,” it opened my mind to the idea of designing spaces from the materials of nature. A total revelation. I wanted to make places that incorporated wildness and unpredictability within the bounds of a structure.
Garden-related book you return to time and again:
I most often go back to Henry Mitchell’s The Essential Earthman, essays from his old column in TheWashington Post. He was a colleague of mine in the ’90s–erudite, hilarious, eccentric, and wildly opinionated. He was offended by the idea of “low maintenance” gardens, and adored ephemeral plants and flowers, as those are the ones that have the power to break your heart. He would take the day off work when his bearded irises bloomed.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
Nature coaxed into atmosphere.
Above: Deborah’s mostly cultivated, slightly wild garden in Garrison, NY.
I’m crazy for spires like verbascum and foxglove. And I also love an umbellifer–Queen Anne’s lace, ammi, angelica.
Above: A gorgeous jumble of Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’, nepeta, and allium in her gravel garden.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
I don’t go in much for leaves that are red or yellow or variegated as they often look sickly or like they’re trying too hard to make a point. And I’ve often thought that if forsythia didn’t flower so early, probably no one would countenance that beastly yellow later in the season when there are so many other things to delight us. This season I realized I’d had enough of its shaggy demeanor and clashing jolt of brightness against the soft, subtle colors of early spring. They’re getting evicted as soon as I have a moment.
Favorite go-to plant:
Boxwood balls. They seem to solve almost every garden problem.
Above: Boxwood balls make an appearance in Deborah’s vegetable patch.
In the introduction to her epic new book, Visionary; Gardens and Landscapes for our Future, photographer Clare Takacs admits that in 2021 she set out to shoot only 30 to 40 gardens across the Mediterranean for the book. Instead the project, co-created with landscape architect Giacomo Guzzon, turned into an odyssey of sorts, with almost 80 gardens shot from Carmel Valley, California, to The Dandenongs in Australia, close to where she grew up.
The book showcases the way that garden design is attempting to keep pace with climate change and how it can respond to or mitigate the effects of prolonged drought, record-breaking temperatures, flooding, and extreme rainfall on our gardens. It’s a sumptuous survey of resilient garden design right now; the results are inspiring and thought-provoking, and illustrate how nature can thrive even in the most hostile environments.
Below, a peek at just a few of the magnificent gardens featured.
Above: In the Toledo garden, in Talavera de la Reina, Spain, designer Fernando Martos uses a limited palette and an understated approach to link this garden to the wider landscape. Enclosed by a curving dry stone wall, the garden features large boulders dotted around low-rise buildings and a farmhouse. The planting includes species that can cope with the exceptionally harsh environment including Euphorbia seguieriana, Stachys byzantina, Achillea tomentosa, Phlomis viscosa, and prostrate rosemary, as well as light-catching grasses including Sesleria ‘Greenlee’ and Stipa gigantea. Above: A guesthouse on an old estate in the north of Ibiza is entirely enclosed in terraced gardens with stone terraces matching the house and gravel walkways, and neat Mediterranean plantings of prostrate rosemary, ballota, achillea, Helichrysum orientale and Santolina chamaecyparissus.
Above: James Basson’s work in the south of France, where his landscape business is based, is well-known for its often trail-blazing response to climate change and reassessment of what garden design can be. His drought-tolerant plantings are more in keeping with the wild landscapes of the region. In this early project there are olive and cypress trees, clipped shrubs including rosemary, bupleurum and teucrium along with the intense blue flowers of pervoskia.
Above: The terraced gardens of The Rooster in Antiparos, Greece, meld into the landscape with native planting, fig and olive trees, along with Juniperus oxycedrus, Bougainvillea spectabilis as well as Sarcopoterium spinosum, a native species reintroduced by local nurseries. Above: A series of roof gardens designed by Piet Oudolf in collaboration with Tom de Witte, surround a private house south of Amsterdam. Plants including Allium tanguticum ‘Summer Beauty’, Amsonia hubrichtii, Calamintha nepeta, Eryngium bourgatii, Limonium platyphyllum, lavandula, Salvia yangii (syn. Perovskia atriplicifolia), Sesleria autumnalis, sporobolus, echinacea, Teucrium x lucidrys, agastache, Origanum laevigatum, Salvia sclarea, Sedum matrona,Stipa tirsa, Stachys byzantina and Festuca mairei are planted into six inches of free-draining substrate.
David: Filter or weed fabric is an entire industry that, if I could, I would delete with the push of a button. Weeds go through it, it’s plastic, you always see it (and it’s ugly), and it impairs the ability of insects or worms to move through soil horizons, and that seems incredibly unkind.
Dawn: Impervious surfaces in general! We should really stop pouring concrete.
Old wives’ tale gardening trick that actually works:
Dawn: I talk and sing to my plants at home, and they’re happy.
Diego: Love your plants!
Favorite gardening hack:
Dawn: Sticking my finger in the soil seems to answer a lot of my client’s questions.
David: I love that answer, Dawn! I have a bathtub in my garden and I use it to water my Sycamore Trees (which like a bit of water). Feels like a solid hack to me.
Diego: Hire Carmen Orozco of Barranca Landscape. Everything comes out beautifully.
Every garden needs a…
Diego: A low-tech water fountain for birds and insects.
Dawn: A birdbath!
David: Well, I don’t want to ruin this, so I will also say birdbath, but it’s true—inviting wildlife into your garden is the ultimate baller move.
Favorite hardscaping material:
Dawn: Reclaimed brick! The classics never go out of style.
Diego: Urbanite (broken concrete). We’re increasingly trying to use recycled materials in our projects and urbanite transcends aesthetic worlds in a really cool way. We’re trying to learn how to build mostly native, spiritually Japanese gardens out of trash—that’s one of the present goals of the office.
Go-to gardening outfit:
Above: Terremoto’s Flap Hat is $43 at Plant Material.
Dawn: My old Terremoto shirt.
David: I have a flap hat that protects my red neck from getting even redder, and when I put it on and put glasses on, I go into GARDEN BEAST MODE.
On your wishlist:
Dawn: Owning a fucking house someday hopefully.
David: A small cabin in the woods next to a creek. Ideally with no cell reception.
Favorite nursery, plant shop, or seed company:
Above: Plant Material is the retail arm of Terremoto. Photograph by Caitlin Atkinson, courtesy of Terremoto.
David: Absolutely shameless plug alert, but Plant Material! It’s our Los Angeles nursery with three shops and an ecological point of view. And, of course, shout out to Theodore Payne and Artemisia Nursery. It’s a big city and we’re trying to push it in an environmentally positive direction together, which is lovely.
Dawn: N-K Bonsai Tree Nursery.
Diego: Plant Material!
David: Hey, Diego, you’re getting a raise—awesome answer!
Not-to-be-missed public garden/park/botanical garden:
Diego: Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s house in Mexico City.
David: California Scenario shreds. The Test Plots in Elysian Park (and everywhere) are a constant source of joy for me.
The REAL reason you garden:
Dawn: Mental health!
David: Yeah, kinda also mental health and well-being.
Diego: Community and bonding, with co-workers and soil.
Thank you, David, Dawn, and Diego! If you want to see what the team is up to, follow them @terremoto_landscape.
Add this to the long list of small details that, if given some thought, can yield big curb appeal: rain gutters. Chances are you haven’t spent much time Googling cool eavestroughs and downspouts, but perhaps you should. We recently spotted on Instagram super-chic rain gutters—modern, angular, clean-lined, in COR-TEN steel—and decided to do a little digging into the architecture firm behind the design.
Turns out, those unique rain gutters aren’t a one-off for Jespersen Nødtvedt. The Danish-Norwegian studio always makes sure to pay special attention to the design and placement of these exterior drainage features. When we reached out to founders Emil Jespersen and Marte Nødtvedt Skjæggestad to find out why, their response was simple: “We like gutters a lot. There’s just something magical about working with water and you can articulate certain places in the architecture with a special gesture at the entrance.”
Here are three of their projects with stylish rain gutters:
Above: This is the image on Instagram that first captured our attention.
Above: The COR-TEN steel gutter was designed for a garden shed.
Above: From the project description: “The corten steel details are welded together with standard flat and U-shaped profiles, with the resulting kinks and overhangs leading the water out over the wood and into the gutter, and finally down the cylindrical downpipe.”
