Welcome to Hartland Designs! We are a boutique Landscape Design / Installation / Maintenance company serving Berkshire, Columbia, and Rensselaer counties, as well as the Capital District. We specialize in naturalized landscapes, formal gardens, stone work, edible gardens and garden care. Hartland Designs works with clients from concept to installation to ongoing maintenance. Please feel free to contact us for a consultation regarding your next outdoor project.
Cheers to another great season. 2024 is nearly wrapped up. We were short one crew member at our lunch party, but had a good time despite her absence. Wishing everyone a blessed and fruitful New Year.
Meadow, year 1. We seeded this last Fall. This year was stunning with the biennials (poppy and cornflower) being the dominant bloomers in June, with daisies being a very important part of the mix. In the years to come, the poppies and cornflower will unfortunately disappear as the other perennials and clump forming grasses get established. Thank you @christina_florada_photography for capturing the romantic essence and scope of this project. Wish we had caught it earlier when the Scarlett clover was in bloom. #lawnsintomeadows #fieldsintomeadows #pollinatorsplayground #berskshiremeadows
Poppies, nepeta, peonies, salvia. Early June. 3 year old Garden just about. This is not what one would consider a low-maintenance garden. We irrigate and mulch and fertilize in the spring. And starting late June, we weed and deadhead a couple times a month. But as things get more established, the weeds are less of an issue, and the irrigation can be reduced.
Things this week...first year meadow in bloom, annuals, and gardens in bloom.
I am constantly thinking about this combination. Time to give it some serious action!
End of the 2023 Season! It was a great year, although you might not know it because in an effort to create some space in my life I`ve removed some things- one of them being the marketing and presenting I do on social media. Sometimes you just need to do what you got into this business to do in the first place- that is be outside, and make the world a more beautiful and ecologically better place. It doesn`t mean taking tons of before and after pictures so I can get it up on Instagram for some exposure and a few likes. I`ve been doing this work for 22 years. But I also wear a lot of other hats. And so do these great people on my crew. The great part about a seasonal job is the break in which we can all exercise all the other parts of ourselves that get neglected in the crazy 8 months that we make hay. Enjoy your Winter everyone. See you in 2024!
Some paintings of local Grafton scenery. Crandall Rd, Hewitt Cemetery, Dunham Reservoir.
These oil paintings will be for sale at Greywacke Festival of Trees on November 18.
Here are my three teenagers who have worked for us all Summer. Lilley D, Lilly V, and Rhi. They`ve been great! Hard working and positive and eager to learn. Two worked full time and one 3 days a week. That`s a big commitment for a teenager. We`ve got one other teen, Nathaniel, who is not pictured here. I guess he couldn`t fit on the steps at lunch time. He`s terrific as well.
Layers of purple. The scaevola in the front are so happy there.
And just in case this garden isn`t fun enough with giant trolls....how about play houses with living roofs, fairy- building houses, gardens based on popular children`s books (Including Blueberries For Sal), and a garden tool archway into a garden with allium growing on the roof. The few kids that were there today in the rain were completely emmersed and engaged with the landscape. I had just as much fun watching their enthusiasm as I did looking at the gardens.
Ok, who wants to do some vertical gardens?! Or how about rain chains that water flower pots?
Water and Stone. I`d say they played just as significant a role in the design of this place as the plants. Water was never hidden. If moved through the landscape. It was visible across paths- no underground pipes. Stepping stones were placed through the water features so you could be IN the water feature. Interpretive signs talked a lot about rain fall, capturing it with soil and plants, filtering it, and moving it through the landscape, and into to Back River, which leads to the sea. Granite is everywhere. Granite is used for everything, benches, walkways, waterfalls, curbing, sculptures, accents. In the Vayo Meditation Garden, the all different Granite types from all over the State are used and labeled. The walkway that I always interpreted as the currents of a river, were meant to look like DNA strands, representing the genetic diversity and similarity of all the elements of the garden.