Tree & Shrub Design
Structural planting plans — specimen trees, flowering shrubs, hedgerows, and specimen topiaries — that give the garden its bones and its year-round presence.
Trees and shrubs are the long-term investment of any garden. A specimen oak planted today will outlive everyone who gardens beneath it; a hornbeam hedge takes a decade to reach its intended height. This temporal dimension — the fact that the best planting decisions reveal themselves slowly — is what draws us to the work. We source from specialty growers throughout the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, selecting plants not just for their catalogue descriptions but for the specific character of individual specimens. Large-caliper trees are hand-selected at the nursery and transported with root systems intact.
The selection of a specimen tree is one of the most consequential decisions a garden owner can make. Get it right and it shapes the garden — and the view from the house — for generations. Get it wrong and the cost of correction is measured in decades. We take this responsibility seriously, visiting nurseries personally to select trees whose form, scale, and character are appropriate to the specific place they will inhabit.
