We were commissioned to create a landscape for this historic English Tudor home with a vision that extended far beyond traditional landscaping. The client expressed a heartfelt desire to truly live in a garden—not merely admire it—and to raise her children in a backyard filled with beauty and nourishment right outside their door. The front yard was designed as a space for aesthetic enjoyment, with lush flower gardens flanking historic bluestone pathways. Strawberries were thoughtfully planted along both sides of formal boxwood hedges, offering a charming and edible detail within the ornamental framework. Embracing the romantic spirit of the ‘Picturesque Ideal,’ each window of the home was treated as a living picture frame, carefully positioned to reveal curated views of the garden beyond. The landscape was organized into seven distinct garden rooms, one of which—the Indigenous Edible Garden—was inspired by Marie Antoinette’s cottage gardens at Versailles. Here, edible elegance was achieved through a refined design: formal hedgerows serve as natural barriers, filtering out invasive species and seeds, while dwarf boxwood borders create triangular compartments reminiscent of the layouts at Versailles and Parc de Bagatelle. These compartments cleverly conceal raised vegetable beds, allowing the garden to remain both functional and beautiful.
