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Margaret Roach of the New York Times recently interviewed legendary entomologist Doug Tallamy for her article The Four Ecologically Crucial Things You Should Do in Your Garden. Tallamy is renowned for his book Bringing Nature Home, and his research at the University of Delaware on the interactions between insects and native plants, ultimately ranking a list of “keystone plants” as the top native selections to support biodiversity. Tallamy also started the non profit Homegrown National Park, which works to encourage homeowner adoption of ecological landscaping principals to create conservation corridors. In the recent article, Tallamy summarizes his research into four key objectives for homeowners to focus on in their landscape:

Every landscape needs to manage the watershed in which it lies. Every landscape needs to support pollinators. Every landscape needs to support a viable food web. And every landscape needs to sequester carbon.

We couldn’t agree more at Green Jay Landscape Design, in fact, it’s been Our Promise as ecological landscapers since our inception. Below we’ve outlined some tips and case studies for how we implement these four principles in residential landscapes across Westchester and Fairfield counties.

Monarch butterfly feeds on native perennial blue mist flower.

Manage Watersheds

Stormwater must be managed within property lines, and any waterbodies on site must be protected. Treating stormwater at the source, before it contaminates other waterbodies, is our best chance at keeping freshwater clean.

Level spreader installation in the courtyard directs stormwater away from foundation and allows it to infiltrate.

Achieving these goals can take many forms. At the most basic level, a home should have adequately sized gutters for the footprint of the home. Gutters should divert runoff from the roof at least 10 feet away from the house and into the landscape where it can be repurposed as passive irrigation and/or allowed to infiltrate into the groundwater.

If you have a particularly wet zone, consider planting a native plant rain garden above it to intercept the water and allow it to either return to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration or percolate through the soil to recharge the aquifer. Rain gardens are a beautiful solution for stormwater management that simultaneously create wildlife habitat, but they only work on sites with adequate drainage rates – remember to perform a percolation test! For more information on rain gardens, read our previous posts (Rain Gardens for Stormwater Management; Rain Garden Case Study).

A rain garden designed and installed above the cultec adds habitat value and additional absorption capacity.

Another landscape drainage tool we frequently deploy are bioswales – stone armored trenches that direct stormwater through a specific path, typically ending in a dry well, rain garden or retention pond. Directing stormwater through a particular path reduces erosion elsewhere. Swales can become stunning landscape features by designing native plantings around it to mimic a stream bank and using a mix of river rock and boulders to create a natural aesthetic. For more information on bioswales, read our case study blog.

A river rock vegetated bioswale directs stormwater through the landscape.

Faux stream bioswale directs stormwater to the underground Cultec.

If you have a pond, stream, lake or other waterbody on your property, it is critical to protect it from nutrient and sediment loading. We always recommend a vegetative border around most or all of a waterbody perimeter, to intercept stormwater runoff it and filter it via wetland plants, before it contaminates the waterbody. This is especially important if the waterbody is surrounded by lawn that is treated with chemicals. Even an organically treated lawn will still contribute nitrogen and particulates to waterbodies if not stopped and filtered. Lucky for us, native wetland plants are some of the most adept at removing toxins and sediment.

Duck Weed invades a freshwater pond after rains washed nutrients from the newly-fertilized surrounding lawn into the pond. An example of what not to do.

Pocket gardens of native wetland plants intercept runoff from the lawn while also maintaining pond views.

Support Pollinators

A successful pollinator habitat hinges on two elements: the right plants and the absence of chemicals. Plant selection must coordinate a succession of blooms, from late winter to late fall, ensuring an on-going buffet for pollinators. While many native plants support some kind of wildlife, some plants play an outsized role in attracting a variety and abundance of species. Tallamy identifies goldenrod, asters, woodland sunflowers, blackeyed susans as the top keystone plants for lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and native bee species.

Graphic by National Wildlife Fund based of Doug Tallamy’s research

When evaluating whether or not to use a cultivar of a native species, we often consult the trial garden research at Mt. Cuba, where cultivars are compared on a number of features including pollinator visits. (For more information on native plants, see our previous posts GJLD’s Favorite Native Perennials Part One and Two and check out our post about Designing a Bird Sanctuary Part One and Two.)

Goldfinch song bird feeds on coneflower and black-eyed Susan.

All the right plants mean nothing, however, if they are covered in toxic pesticides. Pesticides are indiscriminate killers, lethal to all insects that touch them not just those that are targeted. This is especially true of mosquito and tick spray treatments: they don’t work on mosquitos (who fly away) and hard bodied ticks, but they do kill pollinators that feed on contaminated plants. As Roach writes in her article,

What would Doug do about the peril of mosquito-fogging treatments? Skip them. Even fog solutions formulated from natural materials such as pyrethrin aren’t mosquito-specific, he explains, indiscriminately killing monarchs and other butterflies, pollinators, fireflies and more.

If you have a mosquito problem on your property, make sure to remove any standing water which is a breeding habitat for mosquitos. Mosquito dunks, a larvicide that only targets mosquito larvae, can be placed in open catch basins. The most effective mosquito program targets the source, not the broader environment. For more information on organic mosquito control solutions, read our previous blog.

Oriole rests in a hydrangea at a GJLD installation.

Support a Viable Food Web

Beyond a pollinator habitat, each residential landscape has the potential to support a larger food web – the complicated interactions between wildlife species and what they eat. Upholding the previously mentioned principles – organic landscapes with a succession of native blooms – supports the ground floor of the food web: insects, particularly pollinators who in turn help plant populations reproduce and survive. Your home landscape can also be designed to support birds, who are severely threatened globally, and other wildlife species.

The National Wildlife Fund created standards for habitat creation in their Certified Wildlife Habitat program:

An ideal Certified Wildlife Habitat® provides food, water, cover, and places to raise young for wildlife with a minimum goal of 70% native plants that provide multi-season bloom and are free of neonicotinoids and other pesticides or herbicides.

Food in a wildlife habitat includes pollen/nectar species as well as grasses producing seedheads and shrubs or trees producing berries. Seedheads and berries last through fall and winter, extending the viable habitat to year-round. Water is essential for drinking and bathing; if designing for birds, be sure to include shallow steps in a water feature to accommodate their short stature.

Robin’s egg nest at a GJLD client’s property.

Cover is an often overlooked habitat necessity – it allows species to travel safely from planting to planting without facing exposure to predators. When implementing in a design plan, we aim to create masses of species and to avoid designing landscape areas that are very isolated from other patches of habitat. Instead, we think in terms of repeating groups and creating habitat corridors.

Hungry babies await a meal brought back form momma bird.

Places to raise young often includes woody shrubs and trees where birds can nest, but also includes plants like sedges and grasses, which can be used as nesting materials.

70% native plants is another unique tenant based off of research that Tallamy’s grad student, Desirée L. Narango, did: “looking at the percentage of native versus nonnative woody plants needed to support a population of chickadees. The figure she came up with was 70 percent native, which means 30 percent nonnative. That is that area of compromise,” says Tallamy.

The three terraced garden beds across the front yard interrupt the monotony of the front yard and absorb stormwater.

Front lawn removal and replacement with native plant garden increases biodiversity and habitat.

If there are non-native, heritage plants you can’t let go of, let them be only 30 percent of your landscape, as long as they are non-invasive. Invasive plants displace natives beyond the confines of a cultivated landscape and can be extremely hard to control once released. “Now, you can’t compromise with invasives. They are ecological tumors, so even one is not good,” says Tallamy.

Sequester Carbon

There are three main factors effecting the carbon footprint of a landscape: 1) organic maintenance not 2) cultivating soil microbes 3) abundance of biomass, especially deeply rooted and woody plants.

As mentioned above, organic landscape maintenance is paramount to the survival of pollinators and birds. It is also critical to supporting soil microbial communities. If a garden is fed synthetic fertilizer, the plant gets essential nutrient directly from the fertilizer, instead of partaking in a mutually beneficial exchange with the soil microbes. As the saying goes, synthetics feeds the plant, not the soil.

Pesticide applications kill insects, wildlife and disrupt soil microbial systems.

In an organic garden that is not treated with synthetic fertilizers, but rather has compost added to support soil microbial communities, a crucial trade occurs. Plants sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis, converting the carbon in carbon dioxide into glucose. They then trade this sugar water to microbes in exchange for other nutrients deep within the soil that only the microbes can access and make plant available. When the microbes eat the glucose, they secrete a form of a sticky carbon molecule known as glomalin. Glomalin helps to aggregate soil particles into hummus, and its stable structure transforms soil into a carbon sink, a storage system for carbon from the atmosphere.

Front yard garden featuring high native biodiversity including grasses, shrubs and perennials.

To further encourage this relationship, it is imperative to plant a diversity of native plants. Just like plants and animals, soil microbes can also be specialist or generalist. By planting a diversity of plants, we can attract a diversity of soil microbes, and take advantage of their niches within the soil strata, thereby storing more carbon throughout more layers of soil! Deeply rooted plants like native grasses are especially adept at storing carbon deep within the soil and play an outsized role in carbon sequestration. Woody plants like trees are able to store some carbon in their woody tissue, creating another carbon sink, albeit slightly less stable (if the tree burns, the stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere). For more information on soil as a carbon sink, read our previous blog.

What About Lawn?

You may have noticed that nowhere in these ecological tips did we mention lawn. That’s because lawn contributes no ecological benefit to your landscape. In Tallamy’s words:

It’s not just neutral; if you have a good lawn the way you’re supposed to, it destroys the watershed, or at least it degrades it. It’s not supporting any pollinators. It’s not supporting a food web. And it’s the worst plant choice for sequestering carbon. We can do better.

Lawn area is functional and more interesting by limiting its extent. Here the defined lawn zone is used as a dog play area.

Our landscape designs always include a reduction in lawn – it’s the only way to pack in as much native biodiversity as our landscapes require to reach our ecological goals. When discussing with a client, we always ask – how do you use the lawn here? If there isn’t a good reason, we encourage them to incorporate it into the landscaping. Lawn that must be held on to can be converted it to a no mow lawn that requires far fewer inputs and maintenance.

Inspired to improve your landscape ecologically? Contact us to get started. Now booking summer 2025 designs and installations.

Landscapes are fluid and ever evolving. In this case, the clients’ DIY interest in native plants blossomed mid-way through their landscape development in their home of twenty years. You can clearly see the early exotic selections, closely planted to the home’s foundation, mixed with later musings of native perennials. The result is a somewhat chaotic composition. The client has great native plant knowledge but needed some assistance in designing a cohesive front yard landscape that feels in proportion to the home and the surrounding environment. Many existing plants were able to be transplanted and repurposed in locations better suited to their preferred growing conditions. Below we detail our thought process when designing a landscape renovation like this one in Westchester, New York.

Annotated before photo highlights what can be removed and where to expand beds.

Expand Planting Beds to Incorporate Disjointed Planting

In this front yard, nearly all the beds felt overcrowded, and there were two specimen trees in the lawn that felt disjointed from the rest of the landscape. By expanding the bed along the walkway to be wider and envelope the specimen trees, the overall feel moving through the landscape is less constricted and more open.

Annotated Before photo guides changes for landscape development.

The expanded planting area also allowed us to add more native ornamental grasses to act as a unifying matrix layer, with multi-season interest and texture. Matrix layers create consistent visual backgrounds that let colorful perennials shine and help outcompete weeds. We included three of our favorite native grasses, Little Bluestem (upright, structural habit, blueish foliage, red/purple fall color), Prairie Dropseed (fountain habit, feathery plumes of golden seedheads, medium size) and Purple Lovegrass (groundcover height, purple airy seedheads) for a varied yet unified background layer in a range of heights.

Move Foundation Plantings Away from House

The expanded front yard beds were also the result of needing to improve air circulation around the house. If shrubs are planted too close together or to the house, it can encourage mold growth on the siding and powdery mildew on plants.

Expanded bed along the walkway creates a less constricted experience with more visual interest.

We designed and installed a decorative stormwater apron against the house, consisting of a filter fabric base, layered with gravel, river rock, and Mexican beach pebbles for contrast. Boulders create sculptural accents and the whole system is kept neat by curvilinear aluminum edging. Gravel and river rock help slow down stormwater runoff and allow it to infiltrate into the groundwater. It also does not create any splashing against the siding, unlike soil/mulch when hit by intense storm events.

Decorative river rock apron is a stormwater system and an air circulation improvement.

Before photo: the side yard had two hydrangeas with a strip of lawn in between, creating a silly strip to maintain.

After: a continuation of the river rock stormwater system, with boulder accents for year-round interest.

Edit Yourself! Right Native Plant, Right Place

During the consultation and site visits with the client, we reviewed which old exotic shrubs were no longer desirable, and which felt appropriate to keep in the landscape. The client reported that she had planted several “dwarf” cultivars that reverted to their original size, and for other plants, her taste had simply changed as her knowledge of native plants grew. We removed golden arborvitae entirely and transplanted the hostas, astilbes, and PJM Rhododendrons to create a shady underplanting beneath the existing Leyland Cypresses on the property border.

Before photo: golden arborvitae is jarring and distracting; hostas prefer more shade; and specimen trees are awkwardly separate from the landscape.

The Leyland Cypresses were quite mature and had very little mid-level screening capacity. They were also planted too close together and were now competing for nutrients and light. We removed every other tree in the front yard to enable lusher growth and added leatherleaf viburnum to the underplanting for semi-evergreen mid layer screening of the neighbor’s house.

Before photo: Leyland Cypresses are struggling because they were planted too close together and are unable to provide low-mid level screening.

An existing front yard roadside bed had good elements, like eastern beebalm and creeping juniper, but also had some out of scale elements, like large hydrangeas that obscured the view of the architecture. We opted to transplant the hydrangeas the backyard, effectively screening the driveway parking area from the back patio.

Before photo: hydrangeas are out of proportion to the rest of the bed.

With the newly opened bed space, we added native perennials to fill seasonal gaps, particularly in spring and fall. Where possible, we repeated existing desirable plants to give them more visual strength. Native asters were sprinkled in amongst the ornamental grasses for a stunning autumnal combination. More aggressive native perennials, like Spiderwort, were transplanted to areas in the side yard where they could spread and not overwhelm other plants.

Before photo: spider wort, honeysuckle and day Lillies make a messy group fighting for space.

Design Your Ideal Native Plant Landscape

Feeling inspired? We are accepting design clients and currently scheduling summer 2025 installations! Fill out our contact form to get started on your dream native plant landscape today!

Spring rains are especially useful for identifying stormwater problems. Often, they arrive before most plants have leafed out after winter dormancy – they are not yet photosynthesizing, and their root systems are not absorbing as much stormwater. When designing a stormwater management system, we combine physical infrastructure with vegetative solutions, so that the system can work year-round. Fortunately, both types of landscape drainage solutions can look attractive and become integrated landscape features. In this Scarsdale, New York property, stormwater was directed from the house and the neighbors’ house into a rear corner where it pooled during even slight rain events. We were hired to design a solution to absorb the runoff before it reached that corner.

BEFORE: flooding from a storm event accumulates in the rear corner of the property.

Pooling stormwater reduces functional space and threatens to kill the surrounding vegetation.

Bioswales for Stormwater Management

Bioswales are trenches filled with gravel and decorative stone that direct stormwater through a specific path in the landscape. This is beneficial because the stone armors the soil, preventing erosion, and also effectively slows down the pace of the runoff. Planting either side of the bioswale creates a vegetated bioswale, which provides additional absorption capacity around the swale.

Installing the bioswale: after the trench is dug, apply filter fabric followed by gravel and river rock.

Since this backyard is so large, we opted to construct a vegetated bioswale from the high point on the property to the back corner. On top of the gravel is decorative river rock to create the illusion of a naturalistic dry stream.

Start of the bioswale at a highpoint of the property.

We designed a rain garden style planting of native plants that can take both inundation of stormwater and drought (called facultative plants). The site had a mature tree and shrub border planting surrounding the property, making the perfect backdrop for sedges, ferns and native perennials that complete the understory habitat. We added this understory layer around the entire backyard border, increasing biomass on the property and absorption capacity significantly. Of course, with any native planting design, we are contributing food for pollinators, beneficial insects, birds and other wildlife.

End of the vegetated bioswale and new gravel seating area.

Placed plants around the backyard border increase biomass and root to shoot mass ratio.

We also noticed that, in an existing island planting bed, mulch was being washed out into the lawn. Stormwater was clearly traveling through this bed, failing to slow down or become absorbed and transporting sediment with it.

BEFORE photo: mulch washes through the island garden during storm events.

The bed contained two Amelanchier shrubs and some perennial underplanting. While we love native Amelanchiers for many reasons, they are a short-lived shrub and these two were reaching the end of their lives. We removed them, installed a bioswale through the middle of the bed, and added more native shrubs and perennials to fill the gaps left by the amelanchiers.

Bioswale directs stormwater through native plant bed.

Hardscape Choices for Landscape Drainage

Organically shaped gravel patio nestles into a native planting for stormwater absorption.

The clients’ large backyard was not used much past the pool area, so we opted to construct a new gravel patio in the rear corner to encourage interaction with a new zone of the landscape. We also knew we had to design the stormwater system to handle large storm events, so we installed perforated 6″ HPDE pipes in the final ten feet of the bioswale and connected them to an array of horizontal 6″ perforated pipe, installed at a depth of 4 feet, and surrounded with gravel and filter fabric. This system creates voids for the water to percolate into and effectively acts as a large dry well beneath the gravel seating area. It is imperative to use filter fabric in all bioswale, piping and dry well installations, otherwise the surrounding soil can clog the holes created by the gravel and reduce the area where the stormwater can infiltrate.

Flagging out the termination of the bioswale in the new native plant bed. Patio is lined with aluminum edging and fieldstone.

The new patio is lined with aluminum edging to hold the gravel in place and reduce maintenance headaches when mowing the adjacent lawn. Now the client can relax and observe their new landscape and all its visitors from a new perspective, knowing that their landscape is capturing and cleaning stormwater, creating habitat and promoting ecosystem services.

Inspired? Contact us today to start your landscape design or stormwater management project!

Winter is the perfect time to get started on your landscape improvements. If you’ve been feeling a void in your landscape, whether that be a lack of entertaining space, gaping views into your neighbors’ yards, or an utter lack of desire to be out in your landscape…a professional can help! We thrive off re-imagining outdoor spaces to maximize client enjoyment and inspire a reconnection with nature.

As a boutique landscape design and build firm, we aim to do the bulk of our designs for the year over the winter. This allows us to focus on smooth installations and project management from spring through fall. If you are interested in improving your landscape for next summer, here are the top five things we recommend starting this winter to maximize efficiency and enjoyment.

Jay investigating landscape drainage issues during a consultation.

1. Meet with a Professional Landscape Designer

Search for landscape designers in your area and look at their portfolio of work, design approach and customer reviews. If it aligns with your goals, reach out. Think about if hiring a firm that does both design and installation is important to you.

We offer a complimentary fifteen-minute phone call with all prospective clients. If your project seems like a fit on the phone, we schedule an on-site professional consultation ($300). As ecological landscape designers, we seek to work with individuals aligned with our mission to create healthy habitats.

Uziel sketching design ideas during a site visit.

During the consultation, we evaluate your property and landscape wish list with you on-site, providing any top-of-mind suggestions for improvement and assessing the ecological health of your property. After reviewing your property survey, we will provide you with a Landscape Design Agreement priced to design the scope of work discussed.

Good design takes time. It requires site analysis, measurements, thoughtfulness, sourcing and estimating. We visit a site 1-2 more times after the consultation to complete the design. Be suspicious of anyone offering to do design work for you without visiting your property. Be wary of free estimates.

Our design package includes a Landscape Plan, Proposal with Pricing, Plant Photos, Hardscape Examples, Bloom Time Matrix and a Beneficial Wildlife poster. Clients that sign on to install all or part of their landscape design project in winter will be given priority for spring installations.

2. Permitting

Starting design work in winter allows time for permitting, which can be an extensive and lengthy process. Projects that require permitting vary from town to town, but they are often for projects involving: manipulating a steep slope, building a wall over 4’ tall, permanent structures, developing near a wetland zone, and more.

Section depicting a cross-section of a bioswale, created for a permit submission.

Depending on the scope of work, other professionals such as engineers or architects may become involved (we make recommendations through our Preferred Partners network). Specific drawings such as elevations, perspectives, or construction documents may be required to present to the town’s building department. It is beneficial to start the permitting process as early as possible to avoid any installation delays from permitting hold ups.

3. Improve Stormwater Management Before Spring Rains

Ideally stormwater management plans are executed in fall, before the ground freezes and before winter precipitation has the chance to freeze in undesired locations (driveways, walkways, patios). A GJLD client had an improperly installed (not by us) drainpipe malfunction and direct stormwater across her driveway, creating an icy hazard in winter. Not good!

We armored the driveway corner, where stormwater would stream over, with boulders and river rock to inhibit flow.

If the ground is frozen, there are still stormwater elements that can be completed in winter, including armoring vulnerable zones with stone to interrupt stormwater flow.

Come march, our region has typically warmed up enough to dig into the ground and complete any subgrade stormwater installations. These drainage solutions may include installing new piping, French drains, button drains, bioswales, dry wells, and more.

A type of dry well, called a Honeycomb Bio-cell, that include vertical infiltration pipes that will be covered with decorative stone and boulders.

This is a great time to schedule stormwater implementation because often plants are not fully available from our nursery suppliers yet. If we complete the stormwater component early, we are ready to plant in April and you get a full season of growth and enjoyment in your landscape.

GJLD crews install the tile drain, with vertical infiltrator pipes every 10′, across the backyard slope.

4. Masonry

Masonry is a year-round activity! Our expert masons can custom build walkways, stairs, patios, fire pits, water features, or walls to enhance your landscape. We almost exclusively use natural stone for our masonry projects and can add artistic details for a truly unique outcome.

A custom-cut circular piece of stone in the center of the front walk landing mimics a circle detail in the front door.

Patios can offer numerous entertaining functions, from dining al-fresco to warming by the fire pit.

Newly constructed flagstone patio offers a fire pit entertaining area.

Fieldstone steps navigate a slope in the backyard

Walkways and stairs enable better, safer circulation through your property and often allow you to appreciate new corners of the landscape. Fire pits and water features add calming energy to a landscape, through mesmerizing light or tranquil trickling.

Backyard fire pit nook with native plantings and natural stone masonry. Designed and constructed by GJLD.

Slate fountain creates a dynamic focal point.

Completing the masonry components of your project during winter ensures you can enjoy your new features longer, from Mother’s Day brunch outside to Halloween s’mores by the fire pit.

5. Grading & Site Development

Every project has elements of site development – the work that prepares a landscape for planting. This may include removing vegetation or turf, pruning, and amending the soil.

Many of our projects also require some amount of grading—manipulating the topography of the landscape by bringing in additional topsoil or cutting into an existing slope. Altering landscape grades allows us to expand functional space by making areas flatter, expanding planting zones, or enabling new hardscape areas.

Landscape grading can help direct stormwater to capture zones and away from the house.

Newly graded soil, secured with erosion socks for soil stabilization, restores planting depth for new landscaping.

Oftentimes, we will soften a steep slope by adding soil and erosion control measures, transforming the slope into a useable feature instead of a steep and non-functional zone.

Most planting areas have lost soil depth from erosion, so even flat areas receive supplemental topsoil to restore an adequate planting depth.

Erosion blankets help secure slope as turf seed gets established.

Grading and site development can be completed in winter and soil can be protected with erosion blankets until planting time in Spring. Remember, the more site development, grading, masonry, and stormwater elements are completed in winter, the faster the planting portion of the project can be completed, and the more time you have to enjoy your landscape!

This landscape’s site development was completed in fall and planting in early spring, by July it looked like a lush landscape!

Get Started Today, Enjoy Your Landscape Summer

If you’re ready to get started on your landscape project, fill out our contact form! We’ll give you a call to discuss your project. There is still time to get your dream landscape design and claim a spot in our Spring / Summer 2025 installation schedule.

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Green Jay Landscape Design

Where Design Meets Ecology

914-560-6570

Reflecting on 2024, we see a year of growth and expansion for our boutique landscape design & build firm. In 2024, we added new field crew members, office staff and design staff to our team. We continue to attract like-minded clients, who understand the impact their land can have on our environment and chose to steward it responsibly, planting native plants and returning ecological function to the landscape. This past year challenged us in new ways, working on more complex slope, erosion and stormwater projects, as well as expanding into new offerings like natural play areas for children. We completed more projects than any previous year, brought in more revenue, and planted over 8,000 (mostly) native plants! As we evaluated each of our 2024 projects, we couldn’t help but feel immense pride for the work we’ve done, with every project leaving us more knowledgeable and insightful than the last. Our top five best landscape design projects of 2024 represent our most unique, creative, designs that required immense skill and craftsmanship to build. Please enjoy our best landscape design projects of the 2024! Feeling inspired? Contact us to discuss your landscape design project today.

GJLD’s top five landscape design projects of the year.

#5 Nature’s Cradle

Restoring Functionality & Reducing Erosion on a Steep Slope | Dobbs Ferry, NY

Jay tours the woodland trail atop the newly renovated slope.

One of the more complex slope projects of the year! This build required a multitude of erosion control devices, plus some heavy machinery to move the stone steps up the hillside.

In process: crafting a safe, family friendly outdoor staircase to navigate the slope.

The result is a family-friendly backyard where the hillside becomes a destination, navigable by steps and a woodland trail sure to delight their young children. Read about the project in the case study blog.

Boulder scramble and play tunnel as seen from the new garden.

#4 Growing Up in a World of Wonder

Nature Play at Home: Designing a World of Wonder for Children | Montclair, NJ

One of our most unique projects to date! We designed six play features made completely of natural materials, to inspire outdoor play and connection to nature!

Natural play features including a timber tower of logs, balance beams, and a vegetated tunnel.

The entire play area is also part of a stormwater management system, including a faux stream bioswale to collect and direct water. A new adult entertaining patio extends outdoor living and makes supervising the new play area easy. We used every area of our expertise on this project and expanded in new creative ways…what a treat! Read the full story and watch a video tour on our case study blog post.

Gazebo habitat garden featuring 1,300 native plants!

#3 Heavenly Hilltop, At the Meeting of the Waters

Hilltop Edge Habitat Fit for a Public Garden | Redding, CT

Our largest planting project of the year, this design is fit for a public garden! We were hired to create a garden around an existing custom gazebo. A long border of woodland also received a native underplanting. The two new gardens together form an extension of the woodland edge habitat, helping to link from one ecosystem to another, critical for bird and wildlife migration. Read more about the design and installation logistics of this unique Fairfield County property on our blog.

Careful selection of plants allows to optimize biodiversity while maintaining visual continuity.

#2 Modern Living on the Waterfront of the Wild World

Contemporary Front Yard Landscaping, Screening & Pond Management | Dobbs Ferry, NY

A complete renovation of this Dobbs Ferry home called for an equally contemporary front yard landscape. We designed a modern, biodiverse planting that manages stormwater on site.

Matrix planting along the front walk favors grasses and spreading shrubs for visual consistency.

We also designed vegetative pocket gardens around the pond to intercept nutrient runoff. Screening on the back hillside was essential, and the planting also stabilizes the slope and reduces erosion. Read about the project on our blog.

Wide lawn paths allow appreciation of each garden terrace.

#1 New Frontier of Place-Based Design

A Native Plant and Pollinator Paradise Transforms Front Yard Steep Slopes

This property is a great example of landscape phasing, editing and defying conventions. What started out as foundation plantings and rebuilding a front walkway escalated over several seasons to a tremendous front yard garden consisting of three terrace-like beds interspersed with lawn pathways.

Severly Sloped Lawn transformed into Garden Terraces — Severely Sloped Lawn transformed into Garden Terraces

The next season the client decided that stairs through the slope would make the landscape much more accessible and easier to appreciate. Constructing the staircases allowed us to edit the planting, after seeing a season of growth and free-will mixing. We relocated some plants to make them more legible, and removed others entirely that were extending themselves too much. For more photos and information on our BEST project of 2024, check our full case study blog.

Do you have big dreams for improving your landscape? We are now accepting design clients for 2025, contact us to get started!

Step into a landscape that has undergone one of the most breathtaking transformations of the year! Nestled around a classic Tudor home in Hartsdale, NY, this project began with a vision to elevate the exterior. The homeowners, eager to breathe new life into their outdoor space after renovations to the home, partnered with us to reimagine the entire landscape in carefully orchestrated phases. We aimed to create a garden of native plants that would navigate the front yard’s steep slope while providing resources for a diverse array of pollinators.

Phasing for Plants and Pollinators

Each phase, timed to perfection, embraced the changing seasons, ensuring optimal plant growth while working around the windows of plant availability. But the real magic began with the first and most critical phase: transforming the soil and refining the hardscape, laying the groundwork for a garden path that would invite discovery at every turn.

Soil Reconditioning

The fieldstone exterior walls had been beautifully repointed during the renovations, but this process left behind a challenge—soil contaminated with masonry debris, an elevated pH, and altered texture. Rather than seeing this as a setback, we saw this an opportunity. We seized the moment to redesign the garden path, subtly adjusting the course of the existing bluestone walkway to create an elegant curve from the driveway to the front door. This was no small feat, as the path had to align perfectly with the future grade of the yet-to-be-installed driveway. With the path established, we focused on revitalizing the soil, carefully amending it with a rich blend of topsoil, compost, and strategically applied elemental sulfur to lower the pH.

Before: Front Foundation after home renovations and HVAC relocation

We expanded the existing garden beds, with some existing perennials seamlessly incorporated into the new design such as the Vernonia lettermannii, beloved by the client and pollinators alike. While we prepared the entire bed, we took a thoughtful approach by planting the shrubs and perennials first, leaving the grasses to be planted in the spring, ensuring they’d thrive in the optimal conditions.

After: Front Foundation Native Landscape and Bluestone Path

Pollinators Paradise

While working we encountered active ground nesting bees. These pollinators were quite literally buzzing at our feet as we planted, however they were passive and nonconfrontational, not a problem at all to work around. These native bees are most active in the spring and by the summer I did not see them in the landscape.

Other pollinators word appear more regularly: Monarchs on the milkweed, painted ladies on the pussy toes, dozens of other species drawn to the masses of Goldenrod and Mountain Mint. We were also excited to hear from the client, that there were considerably more fireflies than in the past.

Agastache attracts many kinds of bees and pollinators

Stormwater Management

Winter 2023-2024 found us hard at work tackling pressing drainage and erosion issues that had become increasingly urgent. As downpours grow more intense and frequent, flooding and drainage problems have become a recurring challenge. The silver lining? These issues are now more visible than ever, giving us a clear opportunity to prepare and adapt for the storms of the future. While we can’t control the weather, nor the land of our neighbors, we’re still committed to addressing the most pressing stormwater concerns. Unfortunately, surface runoff from properties above our client’s home had been overwhelming the landscape—eroding soil, carving gullies, and depositing debris right in the driveway. With a new driveway slated for installation, it was critical to resolve these issues before the work began.

In the mature woodland garden at the top of the property, we carefully identified the most strategic spots to introduce stormwater management solutions. We dug infiltration trenches, filled them with drainage stone, and incorporated drywell overflows. Using the resulting fill, we created small check dams to slow water flow. We also installed a river rock-armored forebay and swale, designed to direct water, reduce erosion, and improve water infiltration.

River rock armored swale and infiltration trench

As we dug nearly 3 feet deep to install the storm water infrastructure, we were pleasantly surprised by the soil’s composition—loose and well-draining, ideal for hand excavation. Considering the landscape’s natural slope and soil conditions, we hypothesized that the entire hill might be a moraine of glacial till, left behind thousands of years ago by retreating glaciers. A soil test from Rutgers was consistent with this idea, classifying the soil as sandy loam, with an unusually high percentage of organic matter for that texture.

If you are interested in testing your you can contact Rutgers soil testing lab.

Enter the Matrix

Throughout the winter, we dove into planning the next phase of the landscape, building upon the existing conditions and natural grade of the front yard. The layout was clear: the steeper areas would be transformed into lush planting zones, while the flatter sections would be carefully graded and maintained to create terraces of inviting lawn spaces for relaxing and enjoying the garden. These zones were carefully flagged, and the plan was reviewed and refined with the client on-site. We took precise measurements to estimate the square footage of the proposed planting areas and determined the ideal plant ratio: 40% shrubs, 25% perennials, 35% grasses, and 5% boulders. Armed with this framework, we curated a thoughtful plant list featuring native species and cultivars, aiming to stay as true to the local flora as possible while considering practical needs. A conceptual planting plan was then created, outlining the front yard slope and driveway planting area—setting the stage for a beautifully balanced landscape to unfold.

Flags were used to delineate garden beds and terraced lawn

Creating Rhythm and Flow

While the primary focus of this project is the front yard, circulation and egress across the entire property were thoughtfully incorporated into the master plan. Early in the spring, we installed a set of natural stone steps, framed by boulders, to navigate the slippery steep slope of grass beneath the home’s shaded canopy. This new connection seamlessly links the front yard to the backyard, enhancing both accessibility and flow throughout the landscape.

Natural Stone Staircase and Christmas Fern Planting

Sculpting the Steep Slope

As spring progressed, we completed the planting of the front foundation with grasses and began preparing the remaining garden beds. The existing slope presented a significant challenge, making the use of heavy machinery nearly impossible. Opting for a more hands-on approach, we tackled the work manually. Though we used a sod cutter where feasible, we removed most of the lawn with sharpened garden hoes, with approximately 60 yards of sod, roots, and soil painstakingly loaded into wheelbarrows and carted off to the dumpster. The effort, though labor-intensive, was crucial to the process of soil reconditioning, removing much of the seed bank and persistent lawn weeds.

Lawn removal done by hand necessitated by steep slope

Topsoil ,Compost, and Boulders are added the Garden before planting

Balance, Form, and Function

‘Winter King’ Hawthorns provide stunning spring blossoms and vibrant red fruit, which not only catch the eye of garden enthusiasts but also attract birds in the winter, and pollinators in the spring. Their strategic placement was key to anchoring the garden, framing the house with their elegant presence. Once the trees were positioned and the conceptual plan in hand, we took the design into the field, working alongside the client to fine-tune plant placement in real time, adjusting as we went.

Given the scale of the planting, it was essential to create plant masses that felt cohesive yet not overwhelming. The natural slope of the land played a significant role in our decisions—taller plants were placed lower down on the slope, acting as a buffer from the street and framing the higher garden beds. In contrast, we strategically placed low growing perennials in the upper beds, nestled in front of the garden wall between the hawthorns.

‘Winter King’ Hawthorn’s balance the landscape while providing wildlife resources, masses of Blue Mist Flower, Side Oats, and Agastache are underplanted below

In the some of the steepest areas of the sloped garden more erosion control measures were needed. Jute netting was stapled into the landscape, and plants were planting throughout.

The driveway planting bed offered a unique challenge, with a different plant ratio and species mix, tailored to its specific conditions. Shaded by mature trees, including a willow oak and flowering dogwoods, this area called for a distinct palette of native plants. Despite the variety, we we designed to maintain a sense of unity through overlapping rhythms, textures, and forms, ensuring it harmonized beautifully with the rest of the landscape. This diversity creates resilience and resources for pollinators and wildlife.

Mastering Maintenance: Irrigation, Weeding, and Erosion Control on Steep Slopes

With planting complete in early summer, the next challenge was achieving the right balance between irrigation, weeding, and soil erosion. Without a strategic approach, a negative feedback loop can easily emerge. Excessive irrigation encourages weeds, weeding disturbs the soil, which increases erosion and weed pressure—especially tricky on a steep slope. Over time, as the garden matures, this becomes less of a concern, but in the early stages, it requires vigilant attention.

Evolving the Landscape: Enhancing Access and Plant Composition

As we continued to monitor the garden into the fall, we worked closely with the client to find ways to improve access to the garden beds and create safe, easy pathways to navigate the slope. To address this, we installed two stone staircases, which also necessitated transplanting some of the year’s plants. This turned out to be a great opportunity to re-edit and refine the landscape. As a team with the client we agreed, although great for the pollinators, the large swaths of mountain mint and blue mist flower were overwhelming for this particular garden. We reduced or removed these plants entirely. Meanwhile, smaller plant clusters were relocated and concentrated in more impactful areas, improving both the visual strength and legibility of the garden.

The middle lawn was regraded and fresh sod was installed. We installed stairs to help navigate the steep slope

Street view of the garden after mulching

Interested in improving your landscape? Contact us for a consultation!