The humble freestanding grill will no longer cut it, says Byers, whose clients are requesting fully equipped outdoor kitchens with fridges, storage space, and custom-built grills. The challenge, she says, is making them look like they belong. “Oftentimes, outdoor kitchens look like an awkward appendage in the landscape,” she says, adding that she favors the use of cabinetry and masonry to conceal appliances.
Christine Ten Eyck of Ten Eyck Landscape Architects says that while swimming pools are as popular as ever, it’s no longer a case of the bigger, the better. “Smaller swimming pools take up less green space of urban properties and give the illusion of swimming in a fountain-like water body surrounded by lush landscape versus a sea of paving.” She notes that outdoor showers are also high on people’s wish lists: “Showering or bathing surrounded by the intoxicating fragrance of plants in a completely private small garden gets the day started right.”
A serene backyard setting by Renée Byers.
Photo: Annie SchlechterPeaceful plantings
It’s not just interiors that can swaddle us from the chaos of the world—people want their gardens to do the same.
“Formal, manicured gardens are less relevant today—people are more interested in creating enveloping comfort and serenity,” Byers says. “They want a garden that looks like it has always been there. The right plants in the right place can create private and serene settings, but still be full of interest and color as one moves through them.”
She suggests evergreens such as boxwood or hollies contrasted with drifts of ornamental grasses and flowering shrubs, such as certain panicle hydrangeas, mostly in white. “The grasses sway with the wind and catch the light, and by keeping the flowering color palette limited to white, with blooms that fade to pinks and burgundies as the season progresses, we can achieve a very soothing effect over many months.”
Kuljian says that clients are becoming more adventurous. “For a more modern garden, we’ve been enjoying black and dark burgundy foliage and flowers with accents of light dusty apricot and watery blue,” she says. “We’re also using yellow much more, and it looks great with silver foliage and a charcoal gray backdrop. Always green, though—no matter what, being surrounded by verdant green is a timeless human desire.”
“We’ll see plants with happy colors in a post-pandemic world,” adds Haiman, who was recently made resident landscape designer at 30 Warren. “Regardless of the size of the garden, people are making choices to orchestrate the flowering throughout all four seasons.”
