WEST VILLAGE
Originally designed and installed by Future Green Studio and Marpillero Pollak Architects in Manhattan’s West Village, this living wall has been under Blue Dahlia’s care for the last decade. Its 576 individual cells make up an austere but pleasing palette of sedges, grasses, and perennials. Sitting eighteen stories up and constantly buffeted by the dry, westerly wind blowing in from the Hudson, finding the right combination of hardy plants for such a harsh environment proved to be a challenge. We needed plants that were not only aesthetically pleasing, but had the sturdy, fibrous root structure to grow in a vertical position and hold the soil in place. After a few seasons, we settled on a selection of Geraniums, Japanese Forest Grass, Artemisia, Catmint and Campanulas that thrive in the warm months and provide texture and interest when the rest of the garden has gone to sleep for winter.

Once housing the largest shoe store in the world, the historic Cammeyer building in the Flatiron has been converted to a luxury residential building with commercial spaces on Sixth Ave.

An arbor covered in Wisteria and native Trumpet vine and a miniature urban bosque of NYC native River Birch provide respite from the summer sun for the residents and their guests. House finches and other feathered friends have been spotted snacking on the seeds of the Birch and numerous butterflies and bees drink nectar from the meadow palette of flowering perennials in this patch habitat.

In Fall of 2022, Blue Dahlia began what would prove to be a massive renovation of this full 360-degree West Village penthouse terrace. While retaining the original hardscape design from Marpillero Pollak Landscape Architects and John Tinmouth Chang Architects, we did a complete reimagining of the planting plan and replaced the surface with more durable porcelain pavers. Everything was  painstakingly catalogued and put back together again with stunning results.

Lined with young river birches and Juneberry, the star of the meadow is the underplanting, which features a diverse selection of grasses and perennials arranged in a naturalistic and wild style. New York City native species like panicum and little bluestem grasses, along with New York asters, are mixed with European and Asian exotics such as Karl Forester and Japanese forest grass. Our plan ensures that the meadow is in bloom from the beginning of the season until November, with a selection of bulbs making their first appearance in April and closing out with Korean mums and anemones in the fall. Meanwhile, the carefully selected color palette features a range of pinks and Autumnal shades that complement the rusted corten steel planters.

This open concept living space connects directly to the family living room, extending into the outdoors where the family and their guests can enjoy barbecuing, al fresco dining, or lounge for cocktails. The planting focuses on grasses (Brooklyn native panicum and northern sea oats) and perennials with prominent seed heads that are left wild, overgrown, and spilling out of the planters while a selection of vines climb the architecture. As a finishing touch, we added NYC native river birches and a magnolia tree to obscure the local electrical utilities. The planting is done in two sections, one right against the window and one lining the back wall of the terrace, to give the impression of depth and fullness in a relatively modest space.

With this project we were challenged to recreate the experience of a countryside home within the confines of a traditional Park Avenue Terrace. Designed by John Tinmouth Chang Architects, the penthouse had recently undergone a full gut-level renovation. Since the terrace is seen from every room, each view was treated as its own unique environment with a foreground planting designed to work with the city landscape beyond while still flowing together into a cohesive landscape. Just take the main bedroom view, with its line of Karl Forester grass with a row of Hyssop in the foreground to attract local pollinators and turn each morning into a scene of bucolic splendor. The low-maintenance planting is also designed for the owners to be able to care for the garden themselves.

Unprecedented for BD, our clients pitched in to load in pallets of soil (about 3 tons!), 250 perennials, trees and shrubs from the sidewalk through the building up to the roof.

UPPER WEST SIDE

Sitting on a landmarked building on the Upper West Side, we approached this penthouse terrace remodel with the utmost care. Working under strict weight limits, we installed a new, lighter hardscape of near-white pavers with a subtle, random interplay of light gray patches. Black planters were chosen to compliment the yellow brick and terracotta parapet caps. For the plantings, we mixed NYC native Northern Sea Oats with Mexican feather grass, along with pollinator favorites such as hyssop, gaura, and lavender. Meanwhile native wisteria and clematis will begin the task of covering the tall brick parapet.

Every room of the penthouse has a door onto the terrace making it a perfect extension of the apartment. The family living here enjoys the space equally for entertaining and everyday dining and lounging.

One of the challenges of designing gardens in an urban context is balancing privacy with openness. Stepping out onto a rooftop garden should come with a sense of peace and relief, but that can be hard to conjure in such a dense and bustling city. With that in mind, we established an intimate space with a semi-permeable wall of mature deciduous trees, shrubs, and climbing vine walls. The Ipe wood modular decking, cedar planters full of perennials, bulbs, and shrubs, and a productive vegetable garden make residents feel as if they are suddenly in the countryside.

ASTORIA
Here at the edge of Astoria, a stunning view of the East River is further enhanced by a gorgeous palette of tall grasses and perennials that dance in the winds like faerie sprites in a meadow. Any of the building’s residents can recline in the sunlight and look out at the Manhattan skyline, its oppressive bustle a temporarily distant memory, or use any of the other outdoor rooms for cooking, dining, socializing, or entertaining.

For this Harlem brownstone backyard, we carved out two main areas, a sitting and lounging space at the rear of the garden surrounded by understory plants, and a patio with a large table for casual dining. Both spaces are connected by a wide path that can accommodate two people walking side by side.

The custom planters are one of the primary features forged in geometric shapes of galvanized steel that vary the height of the beds and create a more dynamic landscape in a small space. We were able to retain two of the mature trees that are an appropriate scale for the size of the intimate backyard.

For this Upper West Side townhouse, the young family in residence wanted an extension of their living room to serve as a casual dining, recreation, and work space. The project began with an extensive excavation of the yard and the removal of 20 cubic yards of rubble and clay. Once clear, we laid a new sub-base for proper drainage with gravel and stone dust. For the new surface we chose natural cleft Pennsylvania bluestone and Himalayan white pebblestones for accents to brighten the shady back corner of the yard. Curved beds were added with custom lighting to create visual flow and choreograph movement through the space. As a final touch, we revitalized the fence surrounding the yard with a plant-based, environmentally friendly hemp shield and custom stain.

For the plantings we had two goals. The first was to ensure that the space itself remained the primary feature. With a beautiful mature tree already hanging over the yard, we only had to add a simple understory with a shade heavy palette of astilbes, rhododendrons, hellebores, loniceras and hydrangeas. Our second goal was to reduce the habitat for pests such as mosquitoes and rats that often find a comfortable home in these shady townhouse yards. To that end we kept the beds small and lined the fence with a rodent-proof barrier that extends a foot below the surface. The end result is a highly functional living space that should serve this family for generations to come.

The family of this Upper West Side townhouse wanted a new entertaining space for hosting parties, barbecues, and everyday recreation, but rather than have it be an extension of the house, they wanted to divide the space in two and create an area that felt entirely separate from the home. No easy task in the relatively tight confines of Manhattan. To achieve this vision we left the forepatio mostly untouched and excavated around the far half of the yard. Once excavation was complete, we built a raised thermal bluestone patio screened in by a row of camellias. Once seated on the patio, residents feel as though they are floating above their surroundings, surrounded by their own private forest. We also installed a new horizontal slat cedar fence with black steel posts with a custom laser-cut dahlia motif on one of the panels.

To complete the scene we installed a moongate to add to the sense of transition between spaces. Keeping with the Japanese principle of “borrowed views” from the surroundings, the moongate is specifically positioned to frame the neighboring trees, making them part of the garden. As the garden matures, vines will cover the moongate, making the scene even more magical over time.

The challenge of this Brooklyn brownstone was to give each of the house’s many separate garden spaces their own unique character while still maintaining a common thread. The roof features an outdoor dining area with kitchen and barbecue, with a nearly 360-degree view of Carroll Gardens. Behind the dining table is a beautiful green wall of Clematis cleverly trained to fill a negative wall space.

Seen throughout all seasons, we designed the bedroom terrace to have strong visual interest all year round. Evergreen shrubs and low evergreen grasses, accented by winter-blooming Hellebores, transform into a colorful palette of pink flowering Rhododendrons, red-foliaged Japanese Maple and PIeris in the spring, then finally the Anemones and Toad Lilies flower in the fall.

When we took over this old rooftop garden space, it was functional but dramatically underperforming on its potential. Intended as a country retreat with its view of the Statue of Liberty and the historic gantries of Redhook, there were numerous leaks and the existing planters were rapidly breaking down. To address this, we re-installed the granite pavers and added a new pergola for the wisteria to climb and create shade, as well as a full kitchen, dining area, viewing nook, and wood-burning stucco fireplace that allows the family to use the space all year round. 

Designed with Celeste Umpierre Architects, this rooftop garden features a simple palette of just a few carefully curated plants repeated in swaths to follow the clean lines of the architectural elements that define the space. Espaliered Hornbeams are the gem of the planting design visually lowering the height of a massive brick wall, while fitting
into a narrow footprint next to a staircase.

Fragrant Korean Spice Viburnum, Lavender and Star Jasmine waft through the air at staggered seasonal bloom times. A muted palette of lilac colored blooms and white flowers keep things simple in the spring and summer exploding into reds and orange fall foliage then settling into the stripped bare espaliered tree forms and colorful bark of Coral Bark Maples for winter interest.

Office environments present unique challenges for planting design. Space is at a premium and displays must be unobtrusive so as not to interfere with the flow of work. Using a biophilic approach, we designed a plan that would add much needed life and vibrancy to the space while adding functional value wherever possible and integrating seamlessly into the office environment. In addition to a selection of large potted tropicals like strelitzias and dracaenas and a plant wall of trailing vines and succulents, we installed a 15-foot desk planter filled with Chinese evergreens, ZZ plants, bromeliads, and anthuriums. The lush planting also provides privacy and noise mitigation between office areas, along with increased oxygen and air purification.

Designed in collaboration with Celeste Umpierre Architects, this tranquil Jackson Heights was envisioned as an outdoor extension of the living room and dining space. An ideal entertaining space, the family and their guests are treated to a peaceful vista of neighboring trees and houses that feels like an extension of the city rather than an escape.

The beautiful mature multi-stemmed Birch was held over from the previous iteration of the space and served as an anchor around which we could build a new vision, and serves as an organizing element in the middle of the space to bridge the paved lounge area and soft surface of the no-mow Carex lawn. Fences were designed with optimal air circulation in mind to both deter mosquitoes and allow cooling summer breezes to add to the enjoyment of the yard. Beneath the surface, a French drain captures stormwater runoff from the driveway retaining it on site and out of the sewers.

An outdoor dining room and firepit lounge flow seamlessly into an open floor plan creating a space for outdoor living in all seasons where mini meadow plantings of mixed grasses and flowering perennials are anchored by deciduous trees and specimen conifers. Seen from inside the apartment in all seasons, this garden has lots of winter interest including the red bark of Coral Bark Maple and dangling seedheads of NYC native Northern Sea Oats.

For the Malta Mission to the United Nations, our goals were to create an event space to accommodate 20-60 guests while still remaining functional for every use by office staff and passively serve as a viewing shade garden from the adjacent conference room.

The design features angular custom steel planters which were welded together on site, integrated cedar benches, plants for deep shade and distinct lighting effects. Hand picked boulders and the shapes of the planters are all intended to subtly reference the Malta landscape. The paving, huge Ailanthus tree and the rear stacked stone planting bed were all preexisting and were fully worked into the design.

Originally built in the 90s, this garden was in need of a modern update when we arrived. We immediately demolished and removed the deteriorating planters and replaced them all with custom powder coated aluminum planters. Every plant and tree that could be salvaged was transplanted to a new home and a new trellis was added for vegetable training, along with a seating area. We also added a new ipe fence along the parapet, the outline of which gracefully mimics the Manhattan skyline.

BRONX
The result of an extensive collaboration between Blue Dahlia, school administrators, and parents, the Spuyten Duyvil School represented a unique opportunity for us. Established as a library in 1894 and one of the oldest educational buildings in the city, the school grounds exist now as both an aesthetic exercise and a teaching opportunity that helps young students connect with their natural environment. Trees, shrubs, and perennials were selected for their high wildlife value, fast growth rate, and tolerance for pre-existing conditions such as poor soil. 100 years ago this site was also part of the Tibbet’s Brook watershed. Runoff flowed into Tibbet’s Brook approximately two blocks away, where it was cleaned by cattails and wet meadows before entering the Harlem River. Rainwater is also collected from the school house roof, deflected from sewer drains, and collected in repurposed olive barrels for use in garden irrigation. When it rains, a small stream of water flows along the school's walkway from Kingsbridge Avenue into a shaded rain garden composed of a Weeping Willow, Smooth Joe Pye Weed, Golden Alexanders, and White Turtleheads. We look forward to the Spuyten Duyvil campus remaining a place of learning and beauty for generations to come.

JACKSON HEIGHTS
Planned with Garden City Movement ideals, this 100 year old development is made up of 14 residential buildings surrounding an interior courtyard which serves as a common backyard for all the residents of the complex. Hawthorne Court was a precursor to the better known Sunnyside Gardens, which was planned using tenets of the movement such as interior air circulation and access to open space and public transportation.

Our scope for this project included redesigning pathways and circulation within the garden and designing a new palette of naturalistic planting with four seasons of interest. As the trees and large shrubs mature, the garden will once again need to be re-imagined with new plantings for shade.

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN

When the Arbor School of Williamsburg wanted to reimagine their grounds, Blue Dahlia was brought in to come up with a master plan that would provide utility to the school and natural enrichment for the students.

Intent on crafting a fully living environment, we mapped out a master plan for the school that included a playground with a native plant habitat, rain and pollinator gardens, multipurpose fields, multiple outdoor classrooms, and an amphitheater. A woodland path runs the entire western side of the school complex, bordered by rich perennial berms. For the expanded sidewalk plantings, we proposed a paving design inspired by the work of legendary landscape architect Burle Marx, with native “patch habitat” plantings running along colorful patterned concrete sidewalks.

One of our more technically intensive projects, this DeCicco & Sons Supermarket greenroof comprises 750 individual 58-pound trays of beautiful sedum plant material, all laid by hand by our install crew. For this project, we used a modular greenroof system, which allows for the connection of trays into larger units without visible seams and unnecessary plant die-off.

While the greenroof system does look stunning, its purpose is not only aesthetic. As a piece of green infrastructure, the living roof increases the efficiency of both the building’s heating and cooling systems, as well as extending the life of the roof itself by protecting it from the harsh natural elements. The system is also entirely extensive, requiring only natural rainfall and precipitation to thrive.

CHELSEA

For this iconic building along New York City’s High Line park, our task was to create a master plan for the building’s main terrace. Our final design included green roof elements, trees for shade, a productive vegetable garden, a play area featuring sprinklers and swings, and many more opportunities for natural play.

An exercise in maximizing space, we aimed to make this tiny Gramercy terrace  as lush and vibrant as possible. In order to save enough room for a dining table and lounging space, we designed custom cut-out planters that fit directly over the base of the parapet. In addition to a selection of carex, rhododendrons, and perennials like coreopsis, the terrace is bookended by a crepe myrtle at one end and an ornamental cherry at the other. The trees provide blooms through spring and summer, and each has its own unique bark that provides pleasing winter interest.

This was an established garden that needed some significant upgrades to make it more conducive to intimate gatherings of friends and family, as well as increasing its value as a viewing garden for all seasons. The terrace is divided into two areas with distinct characters and goals. The first is a main patio area with lounging furniture and a space for casual dining with open views of the city and waterfront. The second is a secret garden, hidden from the eyes of neighbors and the surrounding buildings. A series of stepping stones leads visitors around the corner to a secluded hideaway filled with lush shade plantings. Truly one of the area’s hidden gems.

The aim of this project was to provide an intimate space for the couple in residence that would extend their bedroom into the outdoors. To suit their needs, we constructed a contemporary style, dark-stained trellis for their existing mature wisteria and new vines to climb on. For the rest of the planting we used a fun and unconventional color palette, mixing purple wisteria with traditional red roses to create an unexpected mix of contemporary and traditional styles.

To give this family the feel of a real suburban backyard in the heart of Park Slope, we installed a custom contemporary horizontal slot cedar fence, a bed of simple low-maintenance perennials, and the crown jewel, a real turf lawn for play and recreation. Along with the extensive dining area, the family can entertain guests as though they were in the countryside.

An outdoor shower, loungers to bask in the sun or enjoy the cover of shade, a vegetable garden and built-in kitchen offer everything needed to live life al fresco in the warm months on this penthouse rooftop.

A colorful tropical palette of annuals flowering from early spring through late fall are complemented by a mix of flowering taller perennials with staggered bloom times creating a riot of color and a feast of nectar for visiting pollinators.

Overlooking the scenic Hudson River and Hudson River Park, this rooftop garden was designed as an extension of the natural waterfront, complete with beautiful ipe wood decking and cladding on the parapets. A simple palette of low-maintenance European and NYC native grasses creates a seamless visual transition from the shoreline that changes with the seasons, and can withstand the harsh winds off the water.

After moving to the city from idyllic Westchester, this family didn’t think it would be possible to have a “real” vegetable garden in the city. They didn’t just want a smattering of herbs and a tomato or two, either. They wanted a fully functioning and prolific vegetable garden that would produce jars of pesto and red sauce by the crate, and we were up to the challenge.

Using the guide Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholemew, we set about maximizing every inch of territory. Custom planters were designed to allow for minimal pathways in between, with differing sizes and depths based on the needs of the vegetables. We also engineered our own custom soil mix to ensure that each crop was in its ideal environment and released beneficial insects to keep pests to a minimum. With the additional rooftop sun and without the constant threat of deer and rabbits, the garden has thrived beyond any of our expectations.

As a purveyor of all sorts of health and wellness services, from NutriDrip IVs to infrared saunas and immune-boosting detoxification treatments, Clean Market needed a horticultural display to match. To meet their needs, we installed vertical surfaces for our pothos vines to climb and new planters for a variety of large-leaf monsteras and strelitzias, filling this healing space with new life.

Centered around a 175-square foot carpet of grasses, sedum, and aromatic lavender, this park slope rooftop garden represents a new, unique approach to urban horticulture. Designed in collaboration with Future Green and nARCHITECTS, this green space is more than just a calming visual. This low-maintenance installation is part of a larger initiative to introduce the art of xeriscaping to urban horticulture.

This approach emphasizes minimal interference and the use of natural irrigation over mechanical systems, crafting a more organic osmosis between the plant installations and the urban landscape. The roof also provides the building with additional heat insulation in the winter months and natural cooling in the brutal heat of NYC summers. Residents can walk the ipe plankways or stone footpaths day or night and feel the pulse of the city beneath their feet.