We love joining a landscape design project in the early stages – in this case, while this contemporary home in Greenwich, CT was under construction. Our friends at Trillium Architects referred us to the project, a Passive House Deep Energy Retrofit. As eco-conscious architects, Trillium’s clients tend to value our native, ecological, and contemporary landscape designs. These clients hired Green Jay Landscape Design to complete a Landscape Design Master Plan for the property that included a front yard orchard, pool area planting, front entry and driveway plantings, and foundation plantings. Since the project was large and involved multiple contractors, managing the timing and coordination of each construction component was critical to complete the job efficiently.
Landscape Design Master Plan Combines Contemporary Architecture & Native Garden Design
Trillium Architect’s contemporary green home in Greenwich, CT has clean lines and modern finishes that we sought to complement with sweeping native plantings to ground the architecture and anchor the home. A contemporary landscape design for a modern, passive house.
Starting with the driveway, we reimagined the entrance of the property to create a sense of identity, excitement and welcoming. The retaining walls along the street were designed with a planting of low growing, shade tolerant, and colorful perennials and shrubs. The beautiful large rock outcroppings were at the forefront of this garden design, accentuated by strategically exposing existing rock, and planting with perennials offering year-round interest.
The front yard features an orchard of various fruiting trees including Peach, Pear, and Plum as well as Hazelnut and Eastern Red Bud. A feast for the family and the birds!
Shade tolerant perennials, shrubs, ornamental grasses, and flowering trees make up the front foundation composition, a softer compliment to the strong rectilinear lines of the cement front walk.
Permeable pavers were installed for the garage courtyard to maximize permeability and stormwater recharge.
Backyard Contemporary Landscape Design
In the backyard, the pool area features some lawn area between sweeps of low-growing naïve plants. The rear border of the pool area features woodland shrubs and flowering trees for an intimate enclosure.
A wetland zone on the property border benefits from vegetative buffer that both protects the wetland and delineates the drop off from the retaining wall, acting as a “living fence.” This garden bed border frames the backyard and provides visual interest from all gathering areas.
In the front yard, the area surrounding a vernal pool required more wetland planting. Both wetland plantings were done very early on in the project, to help protect the wetland during the construction period, when there was still a decent amount of bare soil around the new home.
Phasing Landscape Installation with General Contracting
Once the contemporary Landscape Design Master Plan was approved by the client, GJLD strategically planned the landscape installation to maximize efficiency and ensure protection of the site. As such, the first line of business was to install a silt fence to eliminate sedimentary runoff (from the exposed soil around the property) from polluting the wetland. Next in line was protecting the newly constructed pool. GJLD’s landscape construction team installed sod around the pool area to eliminate the previously bare soil’s potential to erode into the pool.
Next, the soil around the house was incredibly compact and devoid of nutrients from the on-going construction of the home with large machinery. GJLD brought in new topsoil to create adequate planting depths and performed our ‘Magic Wand’ treatment for soil remediation, applying a host of soil amendments, bio-stimulants, and compost with biochar. Learn more about our soil remediation process on in this video our YouTube.
During this process, Jay acted as the General Contractor for the client, coordinating phases of landscape construction to avoid inefficiencies and competing work areas. This included coordination with masons constructing the entrance pillars, driveway contractors resurfacing the asphalt and installing pavers around the garage area, as well as coordinating with pool contractors, irrigation, and landscape lighting companies. Sequencing all elements of landscape construction is critical to finishing a job in a timely manner.
We can’t wait to revisit this project in the spring and see the native plantings fill in! Follow us on our social media for more project updates! @greenjaylandscapedesign on Instagram, Facebook, Youtube & LinkedIn. @greenjaydesign on X.
Contact us to discuss your landscape design project!
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Green Jay Landscape Design
Where Design Meets Ecology
914-560-6570
