MARIA VON BRINCKEN LANDSCAPE GARDEN DESIGN

Maria worked with us to create a complete, beautiful landscape design for our entire ~1 acre lot. It went very well. Usually Maria creates a design and serves as the contractor/manager to implement it but in our case we love gardening and chose to do it ourselves. We wanted something that we could build and maintain without a lot of outside professional help. Our acre yard plan included a circular path/flower garden with a brick walkway passing under a grape arbor and front brick sitting area from which to enjoy it all. We have another sitting area in the back overlooking a pretty big koi fish pond surrounded by flowering perennials. On the south side we have herb and vegetable gardens and in the East we have various fruit trees and on the north a grassy play area. Around it all are native trees and understory, mostly pine and oak. It has taken us a while to do everything and there have been changes along the way but it still looks very much like Maria's original design. Maria has an amazing knowledge of plants and a real artist's eye for pleasing arrangements of texture, color, and shape. She helped us choose plants that were hardy for our climate and conditions (New England winters, very sandy soil and much shade) so that maintenance wouldn't be a onerous chore. We didn't want a lot of repetitive planting so we relied on her advice in choosing perennials with successive flowering throughout the growing seasons. Her advice has been spot on and she continues to answer our questions about the original design and changes we can make. She helped us understand the importance of the "hard" stuff too like brick paths, stone borders, fountains, bird baths, waterfalls, fences and arbors. To save outside expenses her design made good use of our preexisting conditions so that massive changes were unnecessary. We couldn't be happier. Thank you for working with us Maria.

Center Park in Carlisle, MA is a spectacular example of Maria von Brincken’s talents as a landscape garden designer. Not only does Maria have an artistic vision with a broad knowledge of plants and how they grow, she has a warm personality and has shared design concepts with the Center Park team. Beginning in 2007, Maria designed a landscape with a mixed border and sitting/conversation area, a flowering shrub border featuring natives and ground-covers, a boulder sculpture/sitting area, and shaped lawn areas. Her five-year plan for Center Park shows how the plantings would look over time. She gave the park a peaceful, welcoming feeling, with colorful interest in all seasons. www.carlislecenterpark.org Sabrina Perry, Coordinator, Carlisle Center Park, a Collaborative Venture Between the Town of Carlisle and the Friends of Center Park 781-708-9679 Photo sent separately.

Maria transformed our property with beautiful foundation gardens which work really well with our contemporary home. She designed and supervised the installation of gorgeous stone steps and walkways and a stone wall. Additionally her design successfully tied the new foundation garden beds in with my existing perennial gardens to give our property a very polished and elegant look. Very happy with the outcome of our work with Maria who welcomed my plant suggestions!

“Oh, you’re the house with The Yard!” That’s what people say in my neighborhood when I meet them and tell them the corner I live on. And, I have Maria von Brincken to thank for making my yard (and, in turn, my neighborhood) more beautiful. When my husband and I first moved in, we intentionally bought a house with a yard so that we could enjoy the outdoor space. But, we never spent time in it because the layout wasn’t enjoyable. I decided we needed professional help, and so my hunt for a landscape designer began. I looked all over the place, but nothing spoke to me. Then, I found Maria von Brincken. I read about her and looked at her design pictures online. I noticed that she put a lot of emphasis on native plants, which really appealed to me; and, her designs were beautiful. Then I noticed that her work was published in a book that I happened to own! I had to contact her. When Maria came to our house for a consultation, I knew we found a perfect fit. As soon as Maria entered our yard, she started pointing out solutions to our concerns. She explained ways we could add privacy since we live on a corner that gets a lot of foot traffic. She also noted ways we could reduce traffic noise. She noticed our existing patio had no direct access to our house, and described how we could move the patio to a different spot next to a window and replace the window with a door. Yes! This addressed the problem we always had when entertaining guests and grilling—we couldn’t easily do both before. This was way more advice that I ever thought a landscape designer could give, but she has an amazing eye for style and flow. Maria really listened to our concerns and looked at the big picture. The shape of our yard is very triangular and awkward, and Maria described how we could position the garden border to give the yard more dimension. Our yard isn’t very big, but the way she positioned the plants has added such depth and made the yard feel so much bigger. I could go on and on about her wonderful vision…from the stepping stones by the front door to the fence gate, to the beautiful trees that don’t overwhelm our little yard, to the way she considered the view of the yard from inside our house, all the way to how she picked plants that will make our yard look beautiful in every season. (Today is March 15, and my first blooms are appearing on one of my trees!) In addition to designing our yard, Maria project-managed the installation. She picked out the plants and worked with the landscapers (and the electrician because we put in some lights). She was our advocate, and she made the process way easier than I thought it would be. Everything was on time and on budget. I couldn’t be happier. And, now, I love to linger in my yard.

Maria was a delight to work with as she listened to our needs and desires for our garden and developed a five part plan. We chose to go ahead with three of the parts and she then oversaw the creation of a beautifully terraced and lit front perennial garden, the creation of a curved retaining wall that is like a piece of sculpture in our backyard we can see from our back windows, and a succulent rock garden. In addition, the front entry garden planting combinations for all seasons frames and creates your entry garden. We could not recommend her more highly as a creative and professional garden designer.