Green Jay Landscape Design is the proud recipient of two 2025 design awards from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD). We are beyond thrilled at this recognition and want to extend our thanks to the APLD judging committee, whose review of hundreds of award submissions is no minor feat. GJLD will take home a Silver Award in the Specialty Projects category and a Bronze Award in the Residential Category III ($100,000+).
Silver Award, Special Projects: The Liberation Garden | Somers, NY
Designed by Uziel Crescenzi and Jay Archer, built by Green Jay Landscape Design.
This was a very meaningful project, as it went beyond the average design program. The client’s partner has health issues, and they desired a serene outdoor space that could provide therapeutic benefits.
The design needed to be wheelchair accessible, which meant any new stonework needed to precisely meet the sliding door threshold elevation. GJLD constructed an irregular flagstone patio with tight joints to prevent any accessibility snags. Using a base of compacted stone and stone dust allows us to avoid cement, which contains the carcinogenic element silica.
From the sliding door, the patio overlooks the new backyard garden. In the words of the client – the perfect place to drink your morning coffee. An irregular flagstone walkway extends from the patio in a loop around the garden, interspersed with benches and large sitting boulders to take in different vignettes of the landscape. A secondary gravel path allows for closer examination of the garden and a creates and audible and textural experience when walking across it.
The existing site has mature trees about thirty feet from the home, creating a feeling of enclosure and intimacy that evokes a cloister garden. As always, we opted for a predominantly native plant palette to support the local ecology. Since this is a therapy garden, we also included high sensory plants: fragrant, varied textures, colorful throughout the year. Ornamental grasses create movement in the landscape and velvety plants like lambs’ ear along the border beg to be touched. Therapy gardens are about stimulating the senses, creating meditative spaces and inspiring a reconnection with nature. Our clients love to observe the pollinators and songbirds that visit the garden from season to season.
Bronze Award, Residential Projects Category III: Modern Living on the Waterfront of the Wild World | Dobbs Ferry
Designed by Kathryn Saphire and Jay Archer; built by Green Jay Landscape Design.
It was a delight to design a contemporary landscape for this newly renovated home. The site has unique features and complications including: compacted and degraded post-construction soil; an existing man-made pond; sloping topography, and a backyard that directly abuts a golf course.
Most of the planting design is around the front entrance and driveway, where light conditions range from part shade in the driveway to full sun by the house. To update the landscape, we designed a matrix inspired planting featuring an abundance of native grasses and low-growing shrubs. We added three pocket planting beds along the right side of the existing front walkway to balance out the large existing bed on the left side of the walk. A mix of Purple Love Grass, Threadleaf Coreopsis and Allium created an airy, ethereal feeling while slightly taller perennials punctuate through the matrix to create colorful vignettes. We made sure to keep the overall planting height low to preserve the architectural views of the home and the view of the pond from inside the house.
For the driveway entrance, we opted for a textural, foliage driven composition, featuring ferns, sedges, variegated leaves and velvet foliage for a low-maintenance and consistent aesthetic. Boulder accents create structure and bas-relief year round.
In the backyard, a level lawn area transitions to a steep slope that drops off to hole at a golf course. There were existing mature trees along the property border, but no understory planting to screen the golfers. We planted the slope with native woodland shrubs and seeded the lower slope with a conservation mix, both of which will stabilize the soil and prevent erosion.
Around the pond, we deployed several tactics to preserve water quality. Three pocket gardens along the closest side of the pond were planted with native wetland plants (Cinnamon Fern, Milkweed, Red Cardinal Flower, among others) that will intercept runoff from the lawn and prevent nutrient loading in the pond. Along one side of the pond, where the topography outside the property slopes up, directing stormwater to the lake, we installed underground piping to funnel the water without eroding the pond bank.
Thanks again to the Association for Professional Landscape Designers for these awards! And congratulations to all other award recipients!
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