Collection by Andrea Smith
Growing Upward: 9 Ways to Plant Vertically
To live in a city often means abandoning all hope of owning a garden. By planting vertically, however, these projects were able to add greenery without sacrificing precious floor space.
Inspired by her visits to Japan, architect Cary Bernstein did not build to the property lines but left open about three-and-a-half feet on each side of the house: “These little side gardens make rooms feel bigger, since they make nature part of your interiors and bring light and air circulation into the house,” she says.
A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.
A thoughtfully designed garden in New York City makes way for an existing fountain by landscaping vertically around it. The water feature includes an Italian marble spout designed by Thomas Woltz.
Urban Garden for Durst Organization, Bank of America building, New York, NY, 2010. Landscape design: Margie Ruddick with WRT. Artist: Dorothy Ruddick. Design architecture: Cook + Fox Architects; Architect of record: Adamson. Fabricator: Mosaiculture Internationale de Montréal. Photo: Sam Oberlander
Even a small patio can have a monumental effect. A green wall in this kitchen patio also brings views to the higher parts of the slender town house, located in the West Village in New York. The counter and floor, clad in gray honed slate, and the teak-clad walls and bench complement the greenery.
Cox initially conceived the deck as a conventional surface for relaxing and entertaining. With the bench, however, he seized an opportunity to create something both functional and visually arresting. “You go down these paths and, as the design mutates, other ideas attach themselves and make it stronger and more interesting,” he says.
The view from the uppermost level of the yard looks down to the slide and the sloped lawn, sandbox, and, beyond the gate, bioretention unit and mulch.
A garden of of small herbs and vines creates a fan of green as the plants creep up the outside walls. What at first seems to be a stark use of artificially dark wood reveals itself to be unironically natural: a soothing and woodsy backdrop for this home in the bustling city.