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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,
and the aesthetic 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, and a deposit for the landscape plan, a detailed description
of the landscape I envision based on your expressed desires and
preferences is written. After client review and any revisions
or additions, the proposal becomes the basis for your landscape
plan. The 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 as a fine artist, color theorist and graphic designer,
I bring years of critical design thinking to my landscape solutions.
In addition, I studied French Intensive, a method of organic gardening
with Alan Chadwick at the Whole Earth Garden in University of
California Santa Cruz and 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
region
Consultations in: Massachusetts (Cambridge, Boston, Wellesley, north shore,
south shore, western suburbs, Berkshires), and communities bordering
Massachusetts in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and
New York.
Project locations in MA include:
Acton,
Arlington,
Boxborough (Boxboro),
Brookline,
Burlington,
Carlisle,
Chestnut Hill,
Concord,
Dover,
Framingham,
Groton,
Harvard,
Lexington,
Lincoln,
Marlborough (Marlboro),
Maynard,
Melrose,
Natick,
Newton,
Northborough (Northboro),
Quincy,
Sherborn,
Southborough (Southboro),
Sudbury,
Wayland,
Winchester,
and Weston.
Also serving:
Ashland,
Ayer,
Belmont,
Berlin,
Bolton,
Hopkinton,
Hudson,
Grafton,
Lancaster,
Littleton,
Needham,
Shirley,
Shrewsbury,
Stow,
Upton,
Waltham,
Watertown,
Wellesley,
Westborough (Westboro),
Westwood,
Woburn,
and Worcester.
miscellaneous
It's Maria von Brincken with a 'c' (mariavonbrincken.com),
not Maria von Brinken (mariavonbrinken.com).
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