About
As an award winning
certified landscape designer, I see what you cannot – yet.
Where you see an overgrown or unappealing front or back yard,
I envision a beautiful functioning landscape.
philosophy
background awards
publications region
Philosophy
Informed by more
than 20 years of design, hands-on horticultural experience and
ongoing study, I create beautiful, distinctive landscapes and
original garden places that are designed for your lifestyle. The
gardens invite you to linger, to renew and to play. My landscapes
use regional themes and materials of stone and brick with specifically
chosen plants. They are places featuring plant compositions of
color, form and texture in bloom sequence fused throughout the
landscape. My intention is to weave client values and dreams into
a tapestry employing the strands of genius loci, the practical,
the aesthetic and the environmental into a beautiful garden that
ideally evokes our better selves
Garden-making, in my view, is a collaboration between the client,
the site and myself. Before the initial consultation, clients
are asked to answer a short list of questions. In working to create
the ideal place, the questions concern your lifestyle, favorite
colors, plants, gardens, preferred views, views that need screening,
ages of children and number of pets (if any), maintenance. After
the consultation in which have been offered numerous ideas and
solutions, a deposit for the landscape plan, I write a detailed
description of the landscape I envision based on your expressed
desires and preferences. Clients review design idea proposal,
I revise if necessary, then the proposal becomes the basis for
your landscape plan. My goal is a garden place that is custom
tailored to you and greatly pleases each of you.
Whether undertaking a small project such as adding a perennial
border to an existing garden or designing an entire landscape,
I have the experience and expertise to take an idea or concept,
draw a plan and turn it into an oasis that you'll love.
Background
I earned a graduate design certificate from the Radcliffe Seminars
Landscape Program, Radcliffe College in 1994 as well as national
certification from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers
(APLD) in 2003 -- one of only seven APLD-certified professional
landscape designers in Massachusetts. My work has been featured
in Fine Gardening
Magazine and Taunton Press’ Front Yard Idea Book.
*
Trained also as a fine artist, color theorist and graphic designer,
I bring years of critical design thinking to my landscape solutions.
Environmentally important, In addition, I studied French Intensive,
a method of organic gardening with Alan Chadwick at the Whole
Earth Garden at the University of California Santa Cruz that influenced
organic farming. I employ those practices in the ornamental garden.
My studies of color theory and composition with Wayne Thiebaud
and Bill Wiley at the University of California Davis developed
my artistic sense. I graduated with a BA. My project management
skills, seasoned by my former San Francisco and Boston graphics
design practice, prepared me for landscape construction coordination
and its challenges.
In addition to my landscape practice, I lecture widely on garden
design at Garden Clubs, the New England Flower Show, regional
conferences and workshops. I have taught courses at Radcliffe
Seminars, lead symposia at Massachusetts Horticultural Society
and at the New Canaan Nature Center, and weekend workshops at
Rowe Conference Center. My e-column Garden Notes can be
read by clicking columns on the web site. Contact me directly
for a schedule of appearances or to book a future appearance.
Other professional memberships include: Association of Professional
Landscape Designers (APLD), Ecological Landscape Association (ELA),
New England Landscape Design Association (NELDA), Women's Horticultural
Network (WHN), New England Hosta Society and the New England Rock
Garden Society. I have served as a member and chair of the Town
of Sudbury's Design Review Board, Co-President of the Sudbury
Garden Club, member of GFC Historical Landscape and Trails, and
Trustee and secretary for the Sudbury Historical Society. I authored
the History Trail for Sudbury's Historic Town Center. I am a board
member of the APLD New England Chapter.
Awards
My award-winning entry, entitled New Home in an Existing Neighborhood,
won third place in the 2003 national competition of the Association
of Professional Landscape Designers. A start-to-finish design
of the landscape for a newly constructed home in Weston, Massachusetts,
this project is typical of my ability to create a master plan
that takes into account circulation of people and cars, placement
of driveways and walkways, as well as solving difficult slope
problems. For this client, a unique landscape was created featuring
terraces framed by curving stone walls, groves of ornamental trees,
play spaces for children, an entertaining area for adults, stunning
plant combinations of texture and color with sequenced bloom using
many native plants as well as incorporating night lighting to
illuminate paths, drive, guest parking, and gardens. (Click
here to see the award-winning master plan).
Publications
|
Taunton Press's book, Front
Yard Idea Book, includes eight photos of three gardens
designed by Maria in Sudbury, Lincoln, and Weston.
As a former Contributing Editor to LandShapes
Magazine. Read her LandShapes
columns.
Maria's design
for a front entry garden published in Fine Gardening
Magazine, April 2002.
|
|
Region
Full design services and consultation available in the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Maine and Vermont. Available for lecture in continental US or Canada.
Project locations in MA include:
Acton,
Arlington,
Ashland,
Ayer,
Belmont,
Berlin,
Bolton,
Boxborough (Boxboro),
Brookline,
Burlington,
Carlisle,
Chestnut Hill,
Concord,
Dover,
Framingham,
Grafton,
Groton,
Harvard,
Hopkinton,
Hudson,
Lancaster,
Lexington,
Lincoln,
Littleton,
Marlborough (Marlboro),
Maynard,
Melrose,
Natick,
Needham,
Newton,
Northborough (Northboro),
Quincy,
Sherborn,
Shirley,
Shrewsbury,
Southborough (Southboro),
Stow,
Sudbury,
Upton,
Waltham,
Watertown,
Wayland,
Wellesley,
Westborough (Westboro),
Westwood,
Winchester,
Weston,
Woburn,
and Worcester.
Miscellaneous
It's Maria von Brincken with a 'c' (mariavonbrincken.com),
not Maria von Brinken (mariavonbrinken.com).
|