Article and pictures by Inge Daniels, except as noted.
Six years ago, our clients reached out to us to help them reimagine the landscape of a home they recently purchased in Dover, MA. They had moved out of the city and were simultaneously excited and daunted to be stewards of almost five acres of rolling meadows, woodlands, and wetlands nestled within conservation land.
Sited on a hilltop overlooking all this natural beauty, our clients’ mid-century modern home and its natural context were inspiring from the start. We approached the landscape design excited to tie together ecological restoration strategies with formal and programmatic goals. The distinctive geometric massing of the architecture set within its undulating topography called for strong planes of hardscape and textural volumes of plantings, and our clients were keen to enhance the indoor-outdoor connectivity of their home with the landscape and create exterior spaces for dining, cooking, entertaining, and relaxing.
With the baseline of extensive mown lawns; mature woodland & wetland; oak, hemlock, pine, and dogwood specimen trees; and yew and forsythia hedges, our main restorative objectives on this site were two-fold. One was to enhance the quality of habitat, which we achieved by nurturing existing woodlands and specimen native woodies, respecting the wetland, managing invasive plants, and supporting predominantly native plantings. The second was to enhance the diversity of habitat by converting extensive lawn areas to natural shrub and perennial garden, meadow, and woodland. Additionally, we achieved the ecological benefits of reducing fossil fuel emissions through a reduced mowing regimen, and supporting the aquifer through zero increase to impervious surfaces and by minimizing the need for irrigation beyond the initial plant establishment period.
We opted to use a mix of native and non-native species in our design. While we leaned toward native plantings, we incorporated some non-spreading non-natives proximal to the house to include plants that were meaningful to our clients (i.e. peonies gifted from a friend), provided extra color and interest, and served to hedge some bets in a quickly shifting climate. We used the “right plant, right place” ethos, developing our planting palettes in consideration of unique microclimates, irrigation constraints, root structures, and spreading habit. Plantings that are happy within the extremes of drought and wet, etc. let us establish strong plant communities that lock out opportunistic invasives.
Working closely with our ecologically-curious clients, IDDLA completed this project though several phases. We started with a Visioning Plan to look first at the big picture—to hone in on our goals and to consider improvements property-wide. From there we phased the implementation based on site logistics, client priorities, and budget. Phasing typically helps clients budget the
landscape work, but for this project it also meant we could stagger establishment watering (with the very real constraints of limited well water volume and pressure, and the time available for watering management) as new planted areas were on-boarded over several years.
Around the house we developed a series of outdoor spaces that flow seamlessly from the indoors, and complement the mid-century architecture.
We opened up the front entry by eliminating overgrown yews that were obscuring the scale and form of the mid-century entry porch. We reset the bluestone path, and added plantings including shade-loving climbing hydrangeas for a green entry wall, sculptural serviceberries, traditional azaleas, holly, and ferns. We designed a palette of ground covers that the owner planted over several years and that are now forming a lush, seasonally-evolving, diverse carpet under the serviceberries.
At the garage we replaced a forsythia cluster with a boisterous bottlebrush buckeye hedge. A lightly trained stewartia is highlighted against a blank wall and underplanted with a bed of mixed ferns, hellebore, and ginger.
On the southern, pond-facing side of the house, the home’s doors and windows open up to the expansive view over meadows toward the pond. Here we solved an important circulation problem by creating a series of outdoor spaces that flow from the indoors and complement the home’s mid-century architecture. A terraced pea-gravel path, edged in bluestone and xeriscape plantings, defines circulation and connects the covered bluestone dining porch to two distinct outdoor destinations—an intimate, lawn-jointed bluestone patio on one side and a cantilevered sun deck on the other, maximizing opportunities for entertaining, relaxing, and indoor-outdoor living. The classic, existing wisteria was preserved. Xeriscape plantings of lavender, thyme, and sedum soften the edges while adding seasonal interest. Just off the kitchen, a smaller deck with a built-in storage bench provides a dedicated space for grilling while enjoying woodland views and plantings of Gro-Low sumac, inkberry, Amsonia, and aster.
Photo by Sabine Nordberg
At the site scale we’ve initiated several ecological restoration projects including areas we are transitioning from lawn to woodland, lawn to interim meadow, and lawn to natural garden to improve habitat and plant diversity, using different approaches for these three typologies. In the first we planted additional oak, maple, and fir trees, and transplanted sassafras from elsewhere on site, all the while halting further mowing and allowing the area to naturalize over time. In the second we established a new meadow from seed, planted flowering dogwood, and transplanted in whips of sassafras and fir that we harvested from the property. The meadow areas are still mown twice a year, but once the tree plantings are established further mowing will stop, allowing a gradual transition to woodland. In the third area we have taken an arid lawn within the driveway circle and converted it to a welcoming shrub and perennial garden, where a gravel path meanders and pauses at stones relocated from elsewhere on the property. Here we worked with Gavin Boyce-Ratliff to define a planting palette to create season-wide interest and habitat in this former lawn. Perennials include Amsonia, aster, Baptisia, Echinacea, Geranium, Nepeta, Panicum, Pycnathemum, Salvia, and little bluestem underplanted with a matrix of Carex and Fragaria. The shrub area (Aronia, Comptonia, juniper, Myrica, Gro-Low sumac, and Mugo pine) provides seasonal interest, and cover and forage for birds.
Additionally, at the site scale the clients have worked to remove invasives from woodland areas and have been planting native shrubs along woodland edges to mitigate invasives.
When we compare the landscape from 2019 to now, we see a healthy, thriving landscape that better suits the family’s needs and responds to the unique architecture and landscape context. With the enhanced native plant palette,we have improved and diversified habitats, and are supporting the property’s long-term ecological health. While we didn’t have the foresight to quantify pollinator or avian species diversity in 2019, anecdotally, we see more quantity and variety of birds. Along the way we have reduced by a half acre the area needed to be mown every year, and—as their kids head off to college and lawn use is less intense—the owners are considering further reductions to the mown area. Perhaps most meaningfully, through the design process and our partnership, our engaged clients are now confident in their knowledge and ability to steward this landscape into the future.
Inge Daniels founded her practice, Inge Daniels Design (IDDLA), in 2012, and has realized campuses, private gardens, and residential landscapes. Landscape architecture brings together Inge’s passions for art and environment — she’s equally eager to explore with clients the phenomenological qualities of landscapes at different seasons as she is to address stormwater infiltration and planned plant communities.
Inge Daniels is a registered landscape architect with over 20 years of experience in the design and project management of landscapes. An alumna of the celebrated firm, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), she was Senior Designer on multidisciplinary teams for dozens of projects world-wide including NorthPoint Park in Cambridge, MA; 10 Akron Street Graduate Housing at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA; Rockefeller University Science Labs in New York, NY; and, working with Maya Lin, BJC Plaza in St. Louis, MO.
Inge holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded the Janet Darling Webel prize for special achievement in design and an ASLA Certificate of Honor.
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