Newly terraced slope stabilizes hillside. Natural stone steps make it accessible. Our first landscape design project in Bergen County, New Jersey was a complex storm restoration project on a steep slope overlooking a river. During Hurricane Ida, historic rainfall collapsed the side yard slope just feet from the house.  Existing retaining walls began to collapse, and the once navigable slope …

The majority of landscaping in the United States is really just lawn care. There are approximately 40 million acres of lawn in the lower 48 states alone, accounting for 1.2% of the continental land mass. What do we achieve from such colossal acreage? Well, lawns are the largest irrigated crop in the US, and Americans apply a staggering 80 million …

Mosquitos are a total nuisance – they can make treasured outdoor spaces unbearable!  They are also a public health risk, carrying diseases such as West Nile in the Northeastern US. This is Step Four of our series on How to Make Our Landscapes Safer & Healthier.  Catch up on Steps One and Two and Step Three.  Traditional (Toxic) Mosquito Control Unfortunately, …

In an effort to respond, as opposed to react to climate change and storm water management, this wonderfully unique and highly functional design allows for and encourages casually directed foot traffic around garden beds, while an interesting, random pattern of repurposed brick in a gravel base substrate allows for maximum on-site infiltration of storm water. Talk about the best of …

Topography, flow paths and sheet flow, surface, subsurface, French drains, perimeter drains, berms, bioswales, perk and infiltration rates are all important physical considerations to developing any substantial landscape architecture or garden design plan. In consulting we often see the negative effects of lack of design planning and storm water engineering, like the ponding in the above photo. This occurred at …