Talc Studio: An Interview with Founders Taylor Palmer and Anastasia Sonkin

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:

John Greenlee’s The American Meadow Garden. Jason Dewees’s Designing With Palms. Landscape as Protagonist, from publisher Molonglo.

Instagram account that inspires you:

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.

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:

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:

Anastasia: Black mulch, plastic edging, planting in a straight line.