Look aloft, to the top of the buildings… a roof garden design is outward looking, a designed sanctuary high up on top of a building, sometimes with an endless panorama, a bright, beautiful, and open sky above it. Most appropriately, it fits today’s city dweller with their overscheduled, time challenged lives.
For many, traveling to a city park takes a 1/2 hour or longer to embrace nature; walking up a flight of stairs or out their side door to a shared...
Read More“Promenade” is defined by Webster’s dictionary as a leisurely place to walk or ride, especially in a public space for pleasure or display.” It’s french in derivation, mid 16th century, (from "se promener"...'to walk') recalling the actions of people of the court leisurely strolling as if on display, to be seen by all – commoners as well as other gentry/society.
In Paris these leisurely strollers are referred to as flaneurs. Yet, in the Bronx of the 1930's, they are...
Read MoreMost historians would agree that Versailles is one of the most splendid expressions of absolute monarchy in history. A precedent in the history of great landscape design.
There's a marvelous story behind it! ....
Andre Le Notre, (the landscape designer of Versailles) had the good fortune years earlier to...
Read MoreThe urban roof garden in Manhattan and other cities may have a significant precedent in ancient Pompeii!
The landscape design of the Villa of the Mysteries preserved from Pompeii, AD 79 shows an entranceway which led to the peristyle, followed by the atrium and an extensive terraced gardens surrounded the villa on three non-entrance sides.
The desire to create an aerial oasis recreationally at the Villa of the Mysteries could possibly be the same as at a firehouse 2,000 years later. In an article from the year 1912...
Read MoreThroughout the history of landscape design, garden designers have been creating beautiful gardens, designed for entertaining.
There isn't a country or culture that is more synonymous with the garden than the British. English landscapes are among the most beautiful and English gardens designed by Lancelot Brown to Gertrude Jekyll to Tom Stuart Smith are among the most bespoke gardens.
With tea, cakes and a beautiful garden to stroll in...
Read MoreAs far back as the 6th century, grand carpets were depictions of formal pleasure gardens. Landscape design and garden design influenced textile design.
Read MoreA few of our favorite film scenes shot in the garden from major motion pictures. Garden design ideas abound in these scenes. Please suggest a few of your favorite movie scenes in the garden after you enjoy watching...
Read MoreSissinghurst is perhaps one of the most beloved gardens in all the world. For many it is the definitive English garden, evoking the poetic sensibilities of its creators, their deep feeling for history and rural tradition and the influence of their aristocratic upbringing and travels. A labor love created by...
Read MoreGrids have been and continue to be used in all manner of layout tasks from urban design to building construction. For a landscape designer, garden designer, or novice homeowner this method of design can be essential for garden planning.
Read MoreThe issue of where a given plant comes from must be secondary to the issue of its future survival. Again, the sad thing about the debate over native versus exotic species is that it has become so polarized. At its most simplistic level, native is equated with good, exotic with bad...
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