Year: 2022

Location: Chelsea, New York

Scope: design, project management, planters, planting, irrigation, maintenance

Herbaceous perennials, evergreens, and ornamental grasses create a lush and layered terrace border, and a sense of a garden in the sky, as you look out across the diverse architecture and planted rooftops of Chelsea.

The silver-greens and blue-greens of Lavandula (Lavender), Juniperus procumbens (Creeping Juniper), Thymus serpyllum (Creeping Thyme), Stachys byzantina (lamb’s ear) and Festuca glauca (blue fescue) join glossy green Buxus ‘Green Velvet’ (Boxwoods) and purple-flowering Armeria maritima (Sea Thrift), spilling over the edges of modern fibre cement planters. Specimen Japanese maples, Acer palmatum var dissectum ‘Waterfall’ & Acer shirasawanum ‘Autumn Moon’ frame the space in complementary corner vases, offering showy color from spring to fall. 

At one side, a row of taller planters packed with pink-flowering Pennisetum ‘Karly Rose’ (Fountain Grass) and Miscanthus sinensis (Silver Grass) screens a nearby neighbor’s terrace, with an underplanting of bright and limey Lysimachia nummularia (Creeping Jenny) pouring down the front.