Spotlight on Philip Nixon Design

Awesome firm!  Note the use of solids and voids.  An excellent display of plants used for traffic control and circulation. 

I also love the use of the planters and water elements throughout the design.

 Chelsea, London

It is also very well illuminated.

This project is a residential one.  The fence is a nice backdrop for the outdoor living spaces and doubles as wood storage for a firepit.

These trees look espaliered to me.  They serve as a high privacy screen.  I would love to see them in winter without their leaves.

 Berkley House, Gloustershire, England

   Want more?  Visit Philip Nixon Design.

TGIF - Inspiration

It’s Spring and I have found a little inspiration from two of my favorite Landscape Architects Wolfgang Oehme and James VanSweden. This house is on Long Island Sound and they say it was once owned by Charles Lindberg. The job involved a new design for the grounds, a motor court, sensitive seaside planting and shoreline refurbishment. As you can tell from these photographs, they design using broad strokes and a native plant palette.

These gentlemen have written a book entitled Gardening With Nature. To me, all of their work is so natural and harmonious to its existing environment that it is hard to tell where they begin and the natural setting ends.

It is so harmonious, it reads as one with its setting. The grasses and perennials placed in the yard mimic and link to the native marsh grasses beyond.

Wouldn’t you just love to spend your Memorial Day weekend in a place like this?

To learn more about Oehme and VanSweden and their work visit their firm website Here. To see what others are hooked on this Memorial Day Weekend, visit Hooked on House's "Hooked on Fridays" or Fifi Flowers' Fashionable Fridays. I wish you all a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend where ever you may be!

A Meadow for Georgetown

Wolfgang Oehme and James Van Sweden have long been my heroes.  They have influenced at least a generation of landscape architects!  Here is a design they have completed in Washington, DC.  3303 Water Street is located in Georgetown.  The design is a sustainable one and features a large meadow overlooking the Potomac River.  It is typical of  Oehme and Van Sweden’s style.  They have the ability to design in large swaths, almost with a painterly touch.  Here is the view looking out toward the Potomac River.

Now, here are some other angles of the same meadow …

Look closely …

This is a sustainable Green Roof design in Georgetown! 

Can’t wait to see it the next time I’m in town!

Roberto Burle Marx, His Life and Work

Roberto Burle Marx

Recently, I wrote a post called "Grass Patterns." In it, I posted photographs of some of the work of Roberto Burle Marx, one of the 20th Century's greatest landscape designers and plantsmen. Just today, New York Times correspondent Larry Rohter has written an article on the life and work of Roberto Burle Marx. I promise, it would be well worth your time to Read the Article. Also, view the accompanying Slideshow of some of his works. To learn more about this Brazilian master, check out this blurb on Wikipedia. He is most definitely one of my heroes. Not only was he an extraordinary designer and artist, but he was a Master Plantsman as well and did so much to identify new plant species and preserve them in his native country of Brazil. Lastly, I'd like to give a shout out to garden design ONLINE where I stumbled upon this news!