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What do we do? Why do we do it? How do we do it?

We are in the nature business. We work with nature every day, with plants, soil, water, and countless creatures. We believe nature is an expression of God’s love. We need to appreciate it, love it and value our precious natural resources: the trees, the flowers, the fields and yes, even the lawns of our landscape environments.

How do we do it? We nurture our faith and respect for the land by healing the waters and caring for the land. We accomplish this goal every day by first…Do No Harm.

We tirelessly strive to increase the biology of our landscapes by encouraging life…not killing and destroying it!

We practice humility and acknowledge there is no way for us to know what lifeforms to remove from our landscape ecosystems without upsetting the natural balance.

All our landscape systems are challenged and in need of balance. We firmly believe subtraction is usually not the answer. Improving the biological health of our landscapes is our proven winner.

By restoring and regenerating the productivity of our naturally beautiful landscape ecosystems, we create and support living landscapes that contribute, conserve, preserve and protect resources. That includes financial resources.

Reducing waste by better management means repurpose, recycle and redirect resources for the best productivity and result. We do this by not looking for a pill, a product, or a switch to pull to effect positive change.

Instead we look holistically at the landscape as a patient in pain.

We strive to correct the ills, the symptoms, which plague the body of the landscape. Using science, art and intuition we develop plans and protocols which may involve cultural practices, design, construction, bioengineering, organic horticulture, permaculture methods, marriage counseling and any therapeutic means necessary that apply to insure our landscapes deliver a pure, wholesome environment for all living things.

Jay Archer

President, Landscape Ecologist

914-560-6570

Anne, a beloved client in Irvington, NY shares her perspective on nature in the landscape, and why she chose ecological landscaping for her property.

GJL created a Landscape Design Master Pan for Anne that included removing a small useless strip of lawn along the front walk, and replacing it with native perennials for pollinators. Her young children especially appreciated watching the birds an butterflies in their new outdoor classroom. GJL also consturcted a flagstone staircase and stepping stone path, laid completely by hand, to increase access to all areas of the property. The result is a carbon-positive landscape with immense diversity of flora and fauna.

Closing one door and opening another! We love the challenges presented by new construction. In this case, a beautiful addition to the rear of our client’s lovely home in Mamaroneck required extensive conventional engineering and drainage construction.

With all the rainfall this year we have to ask…where do we put the water?

When designing storm water systems, we must consider three sources: sheet flow (surface storm water), ground water, and water displaced by impervious space (i.e. house patios, walks, driveways, pools, ponds etc. that prohibit water from infiltrating to the aquifer

Typical of new construction, to conform to building codes and gain architectural review board approval, subsurface drainage systems are designed to contain allrainfall/storm water on site during a specific, extreme storm event. This usually includes solid piping (from gutters/leaders) and/or perforated pipe surrounded by gravel, in conjunction with storm chambers, cultecs , or some form of galleries or underground dry-wells. While highly effective as designed, when constructed and installed they are limited in the ability to accommodate all the surface water. This is particularly true in the case of managing runoff from adjacent properties.

[Above: Rain Water Harvesting Passive Irrigation system overlayed on existing dry well system required by town for the new construction.]

GJL was hired (in part) to optimize the existing system by supplementing with a tile-like piping system, which will deliver roof collection of storm water from gutters and leaders, redirect it to landscape planting beds, as well a rain garden and two gravel surface patios. An important component of our passive irrigation system is a vertical infiltration pipe connected to a distribution box/clean-out from the system, which insures that surface water reaches the deeply buried dry-wells (~3’ below grade). This is critical to insuring performance and ease of maintenance. Don’t forget to clean your distribution boxes of leaves and debris!

In addition, we find it very helpful to treat the soil to relieve compaction due to construction or the existing soil type (i.e. heavy clay). Sometimes this involves excavating, rototilling, or soil amending with sand, compost, gypsum etc. This pertains to lawn, landscape planting beds and basically all of the 6-8” depth of soil surface.

The next step is to compose the landscape with plants that will improve the natural hydrologic cycle. That is determined by the right soil type, sun/shade, topography and of course the aesthetic style of the landscape design composition and theme. In this case the gardens were named: Health and Healing Garden, Cornucopia of Hope (which includes a water feature, fire pit and living wall) and the Bird and Butterfly Rain Garden. The end result is to create a beautiful and highly ecologically functional landscape in terms of resource management.

A landscape should be beautiful to look at while improving our human health, managing and conserving resources, creating habitat for beneficial species, and critically important: producing a carbon positive landscape environment!

We can make our world more beautiful and healthier by designing and building carbon positive ecological landscapes!

Jay Archer, President
914-560-6570
greenjaylandscapedesign.com

This adorable property features a stream babbling through the backyard. At one point, probably in the 1930s, a concrete dam was poured to create a “natural” swimming pond that until now, held up fairly well, but had recently begun leaking in several spots. Given the woodland setting, the pond had also accumulated quite a bit of debris from surrounding trees, which clouded the water and depth of the pond.

The clients wished to restore the pond as much as possible to its swimming pond function. GJL crew first manually removed large sticks and debris, then we partnered with Cooper Ponds to suction harvest the mud and muck from the pond floor. In the end we achieved a depth of 4’ at the deepest point, and a great increase in water clarity. Jay was swimming by the last day…but that’s nothing new.

We also repaired the leaking stone wall with hydraluic cement to ensure that water flow was constrained to the desired inflow and outflow areas, preserving overall depth in the swimming pond.

To promote lasting water quality, GJL also constructed two retaining walls, one forming a semi-circle within the pond, and one across a vacant area between the pond and bank. Both areas were filled with the extracted pond muck, and used as the foundation for planting beds. The bed within the pond became a bog garden, planted with native aquatic plants that help to clean the water when the bog is flooded. The second wall-turned-planting-bed became the terrestrial continuation of the bog garden, featuring flowering native perennials and ferns for a flowering forest vibe.

The APLD International Design Conference (Sept 13th – 17th 2018) is a power-packed weekend to say the least. Unlike most conferences I’ve attended, we weren’t locked in a lecture hall for four days. Rather, APLD strikes the perfect balance of specialist speakers and boots-on-the-ground garden tours; seeing theory in action, which is always preferred!

Friday: Lectures, Demos & Networking

On Friday we heard from legend Darrel Morrison, FASLA and senior faculty at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Darrel spoke of teaching and drawing inspiration from naturally occurring Wisconsin plant communities, in both their species groupings and the innate beauty in their natural patterns: Rivers & Drifts, as he so called his presentation. Below are some fascinating examples of his theory on paper.

We also saw a thematic compilation of landscape styles – traditional, rustic. & contemporary, from Susan Cohan and learned about Green Infrastructure case studies from Sabrena Schweyer. Jan Johnsen delved into the ‘most ancient materials’ –STONE and “stonescaping” – for a delightful preview of her newly released book The Spirit of Stone. Finally, Toronto Botanical Garden’s own Paul Zammit delighted the room with an energizing container gardening demo.

Saturday: Public & Private Garden Tours

Kim Price

We visited three gardens designed and constructed by Kim Price Landscape Design and were lucky enough to have her present for two of the tours to field our questions. Kim’s designs consistently used strong architectural elements with clean lines, and an emphasis on structural evergreens and foliage (to withstand Toronto’s half-year winter). I admired her modern blend of materials, especially to disguise unsightly features like A.C. units! The photo above is of a custom water feature of cor-ten steel and stainless steel egg planters; it created such a great focal point for that coveted indoor-outdoor continuum. See more photos of Kim’s work in the gallery below!

Jennifer Hayman

Jennifer addressed a challenging pie-slice lot shape by creating two patio areas on 45-degree angles, effectively elongating the space, increasing functionality and maintaining clean, modern geometry. The front yard featured textured block plantings of Pervoskia, Taxus, and Pennisetum. See photos below.

Toronto Botanical Garden & Toronto Music Garden

It was a real treat to tour the Toronto public gardens, especially after learning that they have been maintained organically for over a decade! The Toronoto Music Garden, designed by Julie Moir Messervy to reflect Bach’s First Suite, features swirling paths inspired by fern frond for the early sections; ‘performance rocks’ in every gathering space; and spiraling crescendo and decrescendo staircases surrounded by grasses, perennials, and an outdoor grass amphitheater.

Sunday: Private Garden Tours & Sheridan Nursery Tour

We began the day with a tour of Old World Wonder which was a fabulous example of how to design on a tricky site. Right against the property line is a massive 2.5 story church, which would have dominated previous site views. In the finished landscape, the church is an afterthought, as is masked by a charming old-world style dual pool house, with green roofs and an antique mask waterfall. Designer Jim Mosher seamlessly melded the clients’ collection of found objects and worldly artifacts.

The next tour was an organic, naturalistic ten-acre beauty. Designer Randy Tumber cut around an existing pool to create a walk-out basement entry, and used the fill to create sweeping berms across the once-flat front yard. Other areas of the property were left un-mowed and allowed to re-vegetate as native meadows with mowed paths for optimal nature walks.

Finally, we ended the day touring one of Canada’s largest nurseries –Sheridan Nursery.

Monday: Rooftop Garden Tour

Monday’s program featured several public and private roof gardens, each with their own inspiring mission and style. First was the Women’s Hospital garden which features raised beds of veggies that serve as an outdoor classroom for at-risk youth. Next was the Native Family Center whose beautiful rooftop was designed to highlight the four sacred plants: cedar, sage, tobacco and sweet grass. A modern sweat lodge and birch planting accentuates important cultural practices. Finally, a park-like private rooftop for apartment residents proved just how successful of an amenity garden roof space can provide.

We left the conference feeling inspired and energized by our fellow designers and their commitment to elevating our public and private outdoor spaces in a sustainable way. Learn more about APLD, and especially check out this year’s APLD Award Winners, on their website and in APLD’s The Designer magazine.

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Kathryn Saphire

Landscape Development Associate

914-560-6570

When we first visited this Croton-on-Hudson property, we noticed the unique existing architectural features, including a wooden bridge from the deck to back lawn and a beautifully curving, stacked stonewall that enclosed the rear perimeter. The rest of the backyard, though, left much to be desired. One narrow garden bed in front of the deck cut off the rest of the yard visually, and a lack of garden paths further inhibited access.

The lawn in the rear yard was sparse, bordered by patchy pachysandra and few other plants aside from towering Norway maples. \

Working with the existing frame, GJL created a faux riverbed with mixed river rock and boulders beneath the existing wood bridge. A stepping stone path through the riverbed connects you to the far side of the yard, with steps up to the rear. We reorganized the shrubs and perennials in the existing bed off the deck and expanded it to accommodate more plant diversity.

A circular gravel path was created around a central dogwood and clethra bed, drawing inspiration from native scrub-shrub habitats that support our local bird and butterfly populations. Three large fieldstone steppers on the east side of the backyard improves the transition and access from front to rear yard.

The clients love strolling through their new backyard, resting in the shaded seating nook, and observing the bustle of an organic, ecological landscape at work. #WhereDesignMeetsEcology

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