There is a strong temptation to stay indoors when the world freezes. But out there in the cold, and especially after snowfall, the brown bones of gardens are suddenly emphasized, outlined in white. Visiting gardens in winter, when leaves and flowers belong to dreams of spring, allows us the thrill of anticipation, the pure pleasure of comparison, and an appreciation of structure, adding layers of understanding to our experience. It also tests our plant identification skills.
For as much as it obscures, snow reveals what we may not have noticed before. Dusted with white, trees do not shape-shift—they can’t—as much as they become eloquent, damp snow emphasizing the gestures of bare branches.
Photography by Marie Viljoen.
Above: Glory be to brick.
Just a whisper north of the Brooklyn Bridge, and within Brooklyn Bridge Park, is the Max Family Garden (also known as the Triangle Garden), a hidden wedge guarded by old brick walls and arches, and designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA).
Above: Snow turns found bluestone slabs into plush (but cold), cushioned seats. Above: New movement is revealed where snow delineates branches.
Near double swing-doors, a mature sassafras branch extends a gracefully welcoming arm, the theatrical winter expression in keeping with the entrance to St. Ann’s Warehouse within the garden
Above: Bluestone slabs found at the site were stacked, redeployed as seating.
In 2015, the St Ann’s Warehouse performance space opened within the vestiges of a late nineteenth century tobacco warehouse, reimagined by Marvel Design.
Above: The unroofed walls frame views of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The two-floor brick shell that encloses the Max Family Garden is what remains of the original structure, and was commissioned by St. Ann’s Warehouse to fulfill zoning regulations that require new waterfront development to include publicly accessible green space. Both an entrance to the theater and a backstage door open into the garden.
Above: In mid spring the frosted shrubs burst into yellow life—they are Kerria japonica.
The restrained palette of trees is limited to birch, sassafras, and redbud. Beneath them shrubs include Japanese kerria and sweetspire, for spring and late summer bloom. Hellebores appear in late winter and the flower clusters of Skimmia follow soon after.
Above: Vertical birch trunks become focal points. Above: A generous arch frames the garden. Above: Layers of arches reveal the cross hatching of snowy branches. Above: Occupying the corner of a 19th century tobacco warehouse, the garden within feels secret.
While the Max Family Garden becomes part of the working St. Ann’s Warehouse space (via doors within the triangle) it is open during regular Brooklyn Bridge Park hours, a quiet space within the bustling greenway.
Susanna Grant is a garden designer and co-director of Care, Not Capital, with the irrepressible John Little (we wrote about him here). With help from “lots of excellent gardeners and ecologists,” they offer a free program that helps to equip trainees with the skills needed for “modern gardening.” Susanna explains: “The main idea is shifting the emphasis and some of the budget away from hard landscaping and infrastructure towards planting, habitat creation—and gardeners.”
This little yard in North London was transformed by Susanna for like-minded clients, who had already successfully campaigned with their Islington neighbors to get the local authorities to install some planters on a sad stretch of sidewalk, which they described as a “disused piece of pavement.” They asked Susanna to make a wildlife garden there; then asked her to help them with their own disused backyard.
Above: A lot of plants and a consistent palette in the hardscaping make a small space seem bigger. “It was a tough brief as the owner wanted interesting plants: lots of planting plus room. I think it shows what you can fit in a space.” Above: “The back garden is tiny, north-facing and quite boxed in,” says Susanna. “It backs onto flats, and rather than try to pretend they weren’t there, I wanted to ensure the view from the house focused the eye on the planting—not up and beyond.” Above: “The client wanted interesting plants,” continues Susanna. “Although my scheme was predominantly quite woodland because of the aspect, there was an existing banana, nandina domestica and acer palmatum which I needed to work around. I added an Abutilon ‘Canary Bird’ right next to the house as it flowers for most of the year and picks up on the vibe of some of the existing plants.”
The depaving movement has become something of a national sport in the Netherlands, with municipalities competing to see who can remove the most paving from their town each year. Stateside the crusade to replace concrete and asphalt with permeable landscapes (ideally: gardens) may be slower to take hold, but it’s been around for nearly two decades, starting with Depave Portland in Oregon and spreading to communities across the country.
In Somerville, Massachusetts, Depave Somerville organizes “depaving parties” for homeowners. Landscape architect Sara Brunelle, one of the founders Lu La Studio, was selected for one of these volunteer-run events. So, one April day, an asphalt recycling dumpster and a crew of about 10 volunteers showed up to tear up the parking lot behind Brunelle’s house with crowbar and sledge hammers.
Brunelle and her business partner, landscape designer Katie Smith, had dreamed up a new permeable landscape for the yard, but they didn’t anticipate how gratifying the actual depaving would be. “It was truly joyful—like the best of a CrossFit gym and an awesome wild community,” says Brunelle. “It really was electric. Katie and I both have a background in urban gardening. This was an awesome moment of direct action.” It was also a little emotional: It began to rain right after the depaving was complete, and they realized the soil had not felt rain for at least 70 years. “That smell of rain on earth was so poignant,” Smith says. “That’s our responsibility as landscape architects to rehabilitate.”
Brunelle and Smith’s goal was to create a multi-functional, re-wilded garden for all the residents of the multi-family building. They managed to fit in an eating area, a play lawn, a permeable parking space, and a vegetable garden on the 30 feet by 40 feet lot.
Photography by Haley Dando, courtesy of Lu La Studio.
Before
Above: The gray-on-gray view of the parking lot from the street. Above: The yard behind Brunelle’s home was nothing but asphalt and a few conifers.
When a family came to Dirt Queen NYC seeking a backyard makeover, they really just wanted one thing: to be able to use their yard. The existing “garden” was a patchy stretch of grass with garages on three sides. Now that their kids were older, the family no longer felt they needed a lawn for playtime. Instead they craved an adult space for hosting dinner parties and a dedicated firepit area, which might even entice their teens to hang out at home.
Jarema Osofsky and Adam Bertulli, co-founders of Dirt Queen NYC, took stock of the existing conditions. The family wanted to keep the existing trees, including some arborvitae that were nicely screening the neighbor’s garage and some Norway maples that were creating dense shade on one half of the garden. Bertulli and Osofsky saw an opportunity to give their clients the function they craved, carving out two distinct garden rooms in the small space, while also creating a dynamic pollinator garden.
Here’s how they did it.
Photography by Brett Wood, courtesy of Dirt Queen NYC.
Before
Above: The yard was nothing but balding grass, arborvitae, and a stand of Norway maples. One impactful move Bertulli and Osofsky made was asking the neighbors if they could paint the back walls of their garages the same color. Luckily, they agreed.
After
Above: From uninspired and useless to inviting and functional. Above: Native flowering shrubs are the backbone of the new garden. For the garden’s midlayer, Osofsky used Clethra summersweet, oak leaf hydrangeas, and Viburnum dentatum, which she notes provides really beautiful berries for birds.
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…
High levels of arsenic and lead in the soil, a decrepit factory building, a courtyard roofed over with half-rotted plywood and tarpaper and paved in concrete—we’ve all heard this Brooklyn story at least once. But surprise, there’s a happy ending for one garden on an industrial block in East Williamsburg.
When FABR Studio + Workshop partners Thom Dalmas, Bretaigne Walliser, and Eli Fernald discovered the skeleton of a 700-square-foot courtyard while remodeling a building for clients, they were able to see beyond the grit. They decided to site their company headquarters in a first-floor studio space (see the interiors on Remodelista) and—in a genius move—to install steel factory doors to connect their office to a courtyard garden. (N.B.: FABR has since disbanded, with Dalmas and Walliser starting TBo Architecture.)
The problem? The plan required them to create a courtyard garden from scratch, which required a leap of faith. “We dug up the whole concrete floor—broken slabs and dirt—and removed layers of plywood and tarpaper, and rebuilt a garden wall,” said Bret. “At that point we tested the soil—and it was shockingly high with lead and heavy metal. It was essentially a brown field site.”
The solution? They remediated the dirt below the concrete with ground-up fish bones and fish meal (to render the heavy metals inert) and carted topsoil one wheelbarrow at a time to create a healthy foundation for plants. “It took a week and smelled like low tide for days, but the plants are absolutely thriving,” said Bret.
The result? Magic. Read on and see if you agree:
Photography by Matthew Williams.
Above: “We’ve been building up and layering the palette out there,” said Bret. Potted plants clustered at the edge of a koi pond include tropical caladiums, a decorative orange tree, and a lime tree.
In a neighborhood where rusting construction cranes and corrugated sheet metal are far more common sights than butterflies and bees, Fabr Studio created an oasis both for themselves and for the next generation of insects and humans (Bret and Tom are partners in life as well as in work, and have two young children who have named all the fish).
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.
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…
Most renters, especially if they’re not planning a long stay, prefer not to spend too much time or money fixing up someone else’s property. But what if they still want a nice outdoor space? We asked Brooklyn-based garden designer Brook Klausing for recommendations for finessing a space that you don’t own. Not only has he done it for clients of his company, Brook Landscape, he also has plenty of personal experience, having fixed up several rental gardens for himself.
To start, Brook suggests, figure out what your goal is and how much time you’re willing to commit. Maybe you only have a year’s lease, and just want a weekend project. Or maybe you plan to be there a few years, and you’d love to spend the summer playing in the garden because you enjoy the process. Either way, don’t get overly enthusiastic and embark on something you won’t finish. Assess your own ambition and organize a project that’s right for you.
His other directive: Go big. “Don’t get distracted at the nursery and pick up a lot of random small things just because they’re cute,” he advises. Better to start with strong moves to organize the space.
Read on for 10 more rental garden tips from Brook:
Photography courtesy of Brook Klausing except where noted.
1. Accentuate the positive.
Above: Take note of what’s great about the space and find a way to accentuate it. With judicious editing, Brook created focal points in a backyard garden.
“If there’s a great view or a tree you’re really into (even if it’s in your neighbor’s yard), clear out any weeds or shrubs that are in the way and position your seating and enhancements to maximize the sight lines.” By the same token, identify what you don’t love in the space and remove or, if that’s not possible, downplay the distraction. (See below for suggestions on dealing with ugly walls and fences.)
2. Prune boldly.
Above: A smoke bush (at L) is a visual focal point in a backyard garden designed by Brook Landscapes.
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…
October…strawberries? That would have surprised me, too, before I grew them myself on a tiny terrace in New York City.
Several years ago I bought two strawberry plants at GRDN, a pretty garden shop in Brooklyn. The cultivar name was Fern, and, said the label, these were “everbearing” strawberries. That sounded good. Standard strawberries will bear fruit in early summer only. But as a gardener with space issues, I ask a lot from a single plant. More is more.
I had never grown strawberries before and it sounded hard. Talk of mounding, and rows, and straw, and runners, and renovating…? All I had was some small pots, a lot of sun, a small terrace, and the desire to grow my own. Turns out that’s all you need to enjoy fresh berries till hard frost.
I put the plants in full sun on my terrace edge, and a month later I was eating the first ripe fruit. Soon, the plants made new flowers, and about four weeks later, more strawberries. And so it went, till the pots froze and snow fell. And they returned in the spring, with no extra protection. They weren’t kidding about the everbearing.
Soon I was picking handfuls. And in high summer the plants sent out runners—long, tender feelers with a tuft of leaves at the tip, searching for new land to occupy. Wherever they touched down they set down roots. I dug them up and potted these offspring in even smaller 6-inch pots.
Within a year I had a small strawberry farm, blooming into November. Eventually the reproduction by runners got so out of hand that I was sending the extras to friends, by mail. The parent plants do get tired after a few years, but by then their offspring have risen to the challenge. Life lesson?
Read on for step-by-step instructions to make a strawberry shrub cocktail called the Ingrid Bergman:
Above: Is there a more appealing summer arrangement? Above: My 66-square-foot terrace. Above: Because of space constraints, I housed the strawberries in terra-cotta pots no more than 8 inches in diameter. Above: Sweet harvest. Above: The Fern strawberry plants bloomed into November. Above: When we moved from a sunny top floor in Brooklyn to a shadier parlor-level Harlem with just four hours of direct sun, Fern languished. I sent the sulking survivors to sunnier gardens. But the surprise performer was the other strawberry I had been growing all this time, an Alpine cultivar called Ruegen.
In this week’s installment of Quick Takes, we present a pair of Brooklyn academics with a flair for garden design, Corwin Green and Damon Arrington, partners in life and business. Corwin teaches communication design and social design at Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Design. Damon teaches landscape design at Cornell, New York Botanic Garden, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
The pair’s four-year-old firm, Verru Design, recently showed up on our radar when we spotted the naturalistic plantings they did for a charming townhouse garden (see Brooklyn Backyard Visit: A Fruitful Collab Between an Architect and Landscape Designers). Their M.O.: “We embed ourselves in communities, research their attributes and ecologies, and then actualize design projects.” The up-and-comers even have a podcast, Tree, Shrub, Flower, launched a few months ago, that spotlights the deep roots they have in their New York community. “Our guests are our friends and collaborators, who happen to have Tony Awards, and Emmys and are incredible creatives, whether it be a landscape expert or a leading actor on Broadway.”
Below, Corwin and Damon share the garden book they both assign to their students, the reason they like to plant when the moon is waxing, and more.
Photography courtesy of Verru Design.
Above: Damon and Corwin in their garden. Their next design? “We are working on a new project in New Canaan, CT, where we will be installing a pool. We’re excited to work on a larger scale—we could never fit a pool in our Brooklyn backyard projects!”
Your first garden memory:
Corwin: My first memory was in my grandma’s backyard in Waynesboro, Georgia. During summer visits, my siblings and I were tasked with picking figs from her trees, which she would use for desserts and preserves, and to instill a work ethic. As a kid, I didn’t like figs or the idea of working during often hot vacations. Even though I still haven’t developed a taste for them, I appreciate learning the practice of fruit picking.
Damon: I grew up on a dairy farm on southwest Virginia. My mother had greenhouses growing up and she kept my crib under the impatiens flats. My first memories of gardening were the smell of vermiculite and the sound of loud fans humming throughout the moisture-filled plastic rooms.
Garden-related book you return to time and again:
Planting in a Post-Wild World. We recommend it to students in our classes. It is the quintessential book for learning how to create ‘plant communities’. They teach you how to create landscapes that are layered.
Instagram account that inspires you:
Matthew Cunningham Landscape Design @mcldllc. His photos are always top-notch and the gardens he design are very much in our style of wild and lush, appropriately vegetated. He deals a lot with slopes, and we are currently working on a project where the client’s backyard has something like a 20 percent slope, so we’ve been watching how he crafts staircases and retaining walls into the landscapes.
Describe in three words your garden aesthetic.
To steal the words of Laura Fenton from her feature [on our project] in Gardenista last week…”low-key wild.”
Plant the makes you swoon:
Above: A cloud of blooming Calamintha nepeta on a patio lined with teak tiles.
Calamintha nepeta. The compact foliage looks good in containers and along pathways and produces a nice show into fall. It has a consistent presence in perennial gardens and a quiet charm that hits you with amazing aromas.
Plant that makes you want to run the other way:
Bamboo. We’ve had jobs where we had to extract bamboo from containers and the roots are really gnarly. We are literally scared of bamboo.
Favorite go-to plant:
Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina). For unexpected texture, the staghorn sumac has always delighted our clients. And its fall color is absolutely stunning. The seed heads that form are striking in the winter, so its seasonal interest is abundant. Sometimes we choose plants specifically for their winter interest.
Hardest gardening lesson you’ve learned:
Sun conditions. Understanding your garden at both solstices is of crucial importance. In the northeast the summer solstice sun is at a 72-degree angle, the winter solstice is at a staggering 27-degree angle. Mapping this on-site analysis is the most important step in your initial steps. We recently did a pinup at NYBG where the students had to show us the extent of the summer/winter sun in plan view, an integral step for young designers to learn.
Gardening or design trend that needs to go:
Above: Verru designed the louvered fence made from locally sourced cedar in this Brooklyn backyard.
After years of living with a shared rooftop garden in lower Manhattan, designer Julie Weiss decided to let the plants win.
“I love the wild, overgrown feel,” says Weiss, who was Vanity Fair’s art director from 2004 to 2014. “It’s a contrast to the city.”
Weiss, an LA native, lets the garden take on a life of its own. Wavy grasses and lavender look billowy and soft against the city backdrop, with all those sharp right angles on the Woolworth Building and the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance.
During an early autumn visit, we enjoyed the panoramic views that stretch to both the Hudson and East rivers:
Above: Weiss anchors the garden with hardy herbaceous perennials that bloom deep into October. Purple agastaches and lavenders mix with wild grasses, hydrangeas, and roses. And there’s the white nicotiana (at left) that she plants by the door for its “beautiful, tropical scent.” Above: Divided into four outdoor “rooms,” the space has lent itself to countless dinners, intimate drinks and summer soirées. Above: Weiss likes how each of the four outdoor “rooms” can accommodate several of the building’s occupants simultaneously but privately. Above: Water tower as rooftop sculpture; a common New York City sight. Above: Keen on planting abundant and “tough” perennials, Weiss anchors the space with roses, lavenders, and late-flowering tardiva hydrangeas. Annuals including zinnias, cosmos, and dahlias (Shown) add color and late-season interest. Above: Weiss lines the perimeter with lacy tardiva hydrangeas, “a great white hydrangea that does well with the wind on the roof.” Above: Secret garden: a pergola and chairs.
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.
Although urban farms are on the rise, the idea of a highly productive agricultural plot in a city might still seem somewhat outlandish (what about space? or air pollution?). The reality however makes so much sense that it feels imperative to make room for more. Edgemere Farm, managed by Vanessa Seiss and her husband Mike Repasch-Nieves, is run by volunteers on New York City’s Rockaway Peninsula, and feeds the neighborhood on half an acre. It was established in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which laid bare the fragility of the city’s food system. “Edgemere is currently a federally designated food desert because of its lack of access to grocery stores that carry fresh and healthy foods,” says Vanessa. “The nearest grocery store is on the perimeter of Edgemere and Far Rockaway [also a food desert]. Most folks here don’t own cars, so getting to grocery stores is difficult. As a result, they mostly shop at the nearby bodegas, which barely carry any remotely healthy or fresh food.”
Scaled down to a smaller and more cyclical system than the large and industrialized farms of our imagining, chickens are on hand for fertilizer, an efficient composting system converts waste into a nutritious growing medium, and seasonal produce is grown with a focus on local needs. Added to this, the city farm is a neighborhood hub, fostering the kind of community engagement that a supermarket chain never could.
Above: There is room for flowers as well as food at Edgemere; the cut flowers are sold at the weekend farm stand.
The book Urban Farmers, by Gardenista contributing photographer Valery Rizzo (with text by Mónica Goya), is a lively testament to the energy behind what happily has become a global movement. The cover stars are Edgemere’s Mike and Vanessa—who talked to us about the ways that the farm serves the local community. “We have public hours during which folks can just come in and hang out,” says Vanessa. “A third of our space is designed with permaculture and food forest ideas in mind, and it truly feels like a garden, with benches, to wander through and relax. Kids love to come for the chickens.”
Above: Local children checking out the very fresh food on offer at the farm store.
Urban farms offer not only an alternative to low-nutrient, travel-weary, mass-produced food, but they can guide the way toward personal autonomy and empowerment. Food education can be seamless: “A lot of people who just stumble upon us are surprised that farms like ours exist in New York City. Often, they are amazed at how much variety we offer on just half an acre, including a robust vegetable program, cut flowers, chicken, and bees.”
Above: Spanking fresh heirloom eggplant, ‘Listada de Gandia’.
Edgemere is powered by around 20 regular volunteers as well as irregular help. “Folks who start volunteering with us, or student groups and visitors that come on a tour, see how much work goes into growing vegetables and often leave with a new-found appreciation for food and farmers,” says Vanessa.
Above: Collard greens are harvested by Vanessa Seis, who lives in a beach bungalow nearby with her husband Mike Repasch-Nieves and their young family.
Many Edgemere residents have Jamaican and West African backgrounds and the food that is grown is intended to reflect local interest, including Scotch bonnet peppers, collard greens, bitter melon, and callaloo.
Above: Vanessa separates zucchini and their edible flowers, a seasonal treat.
An allotment is the British English term for community garden, but it means more than that: it is a European concept of growing food where space at home might be limited. It has currency in the UK and Italy, where landscape architect Stefano Marinaz grew up, taking stock of his grandfather’s allotment and learning the business of seed-sowing and nurturing plants from a young age. Now based in Chiswick, West London, the landscape architect has been able to fulfill his dream of owning a glasshouse, while dividing the 30 square yards available to every allotment holder between his interest in food and a desire to experiment with plants. It is also a place for his colleagues to get some dirt under their nails, and to show eager clients a bit more about the business of growing.
Above: In the greenhouse. Allotments are often messy but highly organized. This one in Chiswick is beautifully organized while still being recognizable as an allotment.
“Our apartment didn’t have any outdoor space, therefore the idea of an allotment was perfect,” explains Stefano. “When we got it [there is often a long waiting list] there were brambles everywhere, with rotting timber around raised beds. After roughly a year I realized how much space we actually had. I didn’t need to feed 50 people. So I decided to allocate roughly half of the allotment for edible plants and half for flowering perennials and annuals that I wanted to test and see how different plant combinations worked together. In particular, I was interested in seeing how the perennials would establish with very little care, and which plant communities would be the most resilient, with an idea of adapting these planting schemes for our clients.”
Above: The glasshouse is surrounded by personal touches like a habitat for insects on a bamboo frame, and woven edging along the dirt path.
“The allotment then started to became an interesting project, as bit by bit we were putting in vegetables beds, with new perennial combinations, and growing in pots, and adding the glasshouse. Every season there was so much to look forward to.”
Above: Glass cloches provide warmth for young cucumbers in an uncertain climate.
“It became also an opportunity for us to bring clients along and show them how a naturalistic planting can be integrated with vegetables,” he continues. “The allotment is a way to show clients that it is not impossible to grow vegetables, and to work with nature within your own garden—and that they should give it a try.”
Above: “By showing real examples, it is easier to educate people to make changes in the way they live in their garden,” says Stefano. “The allotment is also a place where we do design work and plan projects, bringing over laptops and sketching paper.” Above: Rusted metal arches provide structure in a wild-looking garden featuring wildflowers and edited weeds such as teasel.
Where would you expect to find a meadow filled with native flowers and grasses, where once an expanse of lawn grew? In a suburban front yard, as the short-back-and-sides neighbors give the gardener’s tousled vision the stink eye? At the summer home of weekend warriors who have newfound respect for the perils of mugwort? Or in an urban cemetery that doubles as a laboratory for biodiversity? Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, is home to an experimental wildflower meadow, seeded in October of 2022, and part of the cemetery’s Urban Grasslands initiative.
This summer, from June through July, I visited the meadow over the course of six weeks, watched its palette evolve, learned about the reasons for the transition from lawn to wildflowers, and some of the challenges unique to this unusual site.
Above: Coreopsis and Penstemon in the experimental meadow in early June.
Set on a ridge in South Brooklyn, with views of New York Harbor, Green-Wood is no ordinary cemetery. The green space is a haven not only for the dead but for the living: for birds and the birders who watch them, for a monk parakeet colony, for honey bees in hives, for native pollinators, for artists in residence, for researchers, and for the local community, who find respite from urban life among the towering trees of this nationally accredited arboretum and historic landmark.
Above: In early June the meadow’s palette is yellow with white relief from Penstemon and Achillea.
Stippled with weathered marble and brownstone headstones, the 1.2-acre wildflower meadow is one of four re-wilded areas in close to 30 acres of public lots on the cemetery’s historic perimeters. “These lots were some of the first areas to be developed as an affordable internment option when Green-Wood was established in 1838,” said Sara Evans, the Director Of Living Collections and Curator at Green-Wood. In contrast to the large opulent family lots, she explained, “the public lots are dense with small graves characteristically marked with modest headstones primarily made of more delicate stone.”
Collectively, they are now the site of the ongoing project to transition from high-maintenance turf that requires noisy and carbon-unfriendly mowing (which also risks damaging these modest headstones), “to resilient native species more tolerant of drought, an increasing feature as the planet warms and the climate changes.”
Each of the six sections in the experimental meadow is seeded with a different combination of native grass and wildflower species “that also differ in species-richness (low-to-medium-to-high diversity),” said Sara. The goal is to “test and see what communities evolve, especially in terms of mowing stresses.” Paths are mown to allow access for visitors and researchers, and each wildflower block is given at least one annual mow with a weedwacker or hedge trimmer, “cut very high, at eight to ten inches, to leave material for nesting pollinator habitat and seed heads to establish a seedbank,” she said.
Above: Coreopsis leaning over a mown path in the meadow.
To prepare the site prior to sowing, the existing lawn grasses were treated with herbicide. Sara explained that such a large area, “with hundreds headstones,” cannot be solarized. (This technique involves placing expanses of plastic sheeting over unwanted vegetation to heat the soil underneath, spurring the germination of seeds, and their subsequent death. With established plants it can take a very long time.) Despite the treatment, some resilient invasive and naturalized plants persist: Mugwort, as well as bermuda, foxtail, sweet vernal, and brome grasses remain a perennial challenge.r
New Yorkers who discover Rockaway Beach, the sandy peninsula at the end of the A train, tend to fall in love. Alexandria Donati and Jonathan Chesley, the husband and wife duo behind Ktisma Studio, were among those who appreciated the charms of the beach-meets-urban setting. The couple first visited Rockaway Beach more than a decade ago when their friends began buying up houses on a block where 1920s bungalows had survived development. In 2017, Donati and Chesley finally got a chance to buy their own bungalow in the community, and perhaps equally important to Donati, who is a landscape architect, the tiny yard that came along with it.
Over time Rockaway’s original wooden boardwalks have been replaced with concrete, and Donati and Chesley’s yard was no exception. “When we moved in there was an old privet shrub growing on a fence line, a pile of debris, and a lot of concrete,” says Donati. So, the first order of business was to remove concrete to make way for planting beds and to replace and repair fences. (Donati had already been on a years-long campaign to convince friends to rip up their concrete. “I told them I would help them plant it if they just jack-hammered it out,” she says.)
Since buying the property, Donati has experimented with the planting and carved out distinct gardens within the petite lot. In front, the west-facing garden has a warm palette inspired by the sunsets; there’s a rambling berry patch along the side of the house; and the back garden, which is all about scent, even includes an area rug-sized stretch of lawn. Pots of herbs and flowers are scattered everywhere.
Above: No irrigation here—Donati hand-waters her bungalow garden because she prefers to encourage stronger roots. “I definitely stress the garden out, but I do it on purpose,” she says. “I feel like gardens get over-irrigated, in general.”
Donati has been strategic about using plants to both conceal and reveal views from their small yard. Espaliered fruit trees, for example, soften the border between neighboring yards and an elderberry hides an unattractive deck. String lights and a shade sail that they hang in the summer help to enhance the feeling of enclosure, while matchstick blinds add privacy (and shade) to the front porch. “There’s a giant apartment building that says ‘luxury condos’ nearby, but that’s New York City life,” says Donati. “Even in a Brooklyn brownstone, you could have the nicest house and garden, but you can’t change what surrounds you.”
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.”
A career in art direction is a useful grounding for anybody wishing to go into garden design. Sheila Jack’s career shift was not so much a break as a continuum—of research, editing, and presentation. Before designing the pages of Vogue magazine, her first job was for the architect Norman Foster, and these visual strands from the past feed into her present-day career as a landscape designer.
We visit the project which turned Sheila’s design ideas into something more three-dimensional: her own urban garden.
Above: A work studio faces the house in Sheila Jack’s garden in Hammersmith, London.
“When we installed my husband’s garden studio, we needed to create a pathway to it,” explains Sheila of the garden’s layout. “Our children were beyond the need for lawn, so there was scope to include more planting.”
Above: Photograph by Sheila Jack.
I first met Sheila by the photocopying machine at Tatler magazine, several decades ago. Amid the madness, Sheila stood out as a beacon of clarity, in a crisp white shirt. A few years later I spotted Sheila, ever crisp, at 444 Madison Avenue, a recent arrival at Condé Nast in New York. While I failed to take my job on the 17th floor seriously, Sheila worked hard downstairs, in the scary offices of Vogue. Fast-forwarding a few years, she suddenly appeared on Instagram, with beautifully composed pictures of gardens, in focus. How had she got from there to here?
Above: Sheila’s London garden of mainly green and white.
“You have to be a tough to be allowed in.” Lindsey Taylor is explaining how she decides which plants to grow in her cinderblock garden, which is located in an old mechanic’s lot that she’s transformed into a thriving urban garden in Newburgh, NY. “I don’t have a lot of time to care for it, so it’s a bit of a survival of the bullies,” she continues. “Drought-tolerant is important—no heavy drinkers. And I have a thing for tall plants and umbels. If you’re an umbel, you get a free pass!”
Ornamental grasses and deep-rooted prairie plants like rattlesnake master make appearances, as do seasonal blooms: bulbs in early spring, poppies and valerian and lots of self-sowers like Ammi majus, Orlaya, Nigella, Scabiosa, Clary sage, Verbascums, and Asters for the fall. They’re all contained (barely) in raised cinderblock beds, a nod to the squat cinderblock garage on the property. On the other side of the garden is a a three-story brick factory that’s now home to Atlas Studios, a compound for creative professionals co-owned by Lindsey’s husband. (See Industrial Revival: Atlas Repurposes a 1920s Abandoned Factory into a Creative Hub.)
“Aesthetically it made sense to use the cinderblocks to create raised beds, and the cost was right. We already had a lot of cinderblocks in the yard,” she notes. ” And the raised beds are very functional as they help to keep dogs out of the planted areas.”
The beds keep the rowdy plantings in check, too. “I like a bit of madcap-ness in my garden. Plants are allowed to mingle but the clean edges of the cinderblocks and the groomed gravel paths (I try to keep them tidy) help hold it all together, like a wonderful huge crazy wild arrangement.”
Above: The cinderblock garden abuts the parking lot for Atlas Studios. Lindsey purposely chose higher-than-normal raised beds and tall plants so that the garden can be admired from inside the building.
Above: Lindsey working in the garden. In these beds are Valerian, Russian sage, Mexican feather grass, Guara, Verbascum, and plum poppies. “I weed selectively—after a rain is easiest. I let certain plants like Orlaya, bronze fennel, and Nigella stay, but I consider how much I leave. You don’t want to leave it all or you’d just have a mess.”
In San Francisco’s often foggy, dune-filled Outer Sunset neighborhood, landscape design firm Talc Studio transformed a small “sand pit” into a lush and characterful garden. While the garden is equal parts custom and artful, there are a number of design details and useful sources to glean. Here we detail our favorite components. Materials Furniture & […]
