Outdoor Living
Garden Centers
Amodio’s Garden Center & Flower Shop
1160 Mamaroneck Ave.
White Plains
(914) 949-3922
www.amodiosflowershop.com
If your husband doesn’t bring flowers anymore, let him plant them for you. Give him Amodio’s address, where he’ll find a sizeable selection of green and flowering plants (including—our favorite—orchids), as well as a fully stocked garden center with fertilizers, lawn-care products, bagged stones, pottery and baskets, and mulch, mulch more. Let’s face it: aren’t blooms that brighten your garden for three months better than those that last in the kitchen for three days?
Fleur Garden Antiques
& Decorative Accessories
10 Dakin Ave.
Mount Kisco
(914) 241-3400
www.fleur-newyork.com
If you think the most spectacular French garden you’ve seen is Versailles, you’ll be tickled pink by visits to the Westchester gardens outfitted by Fleur, a charming garden shop in
Katonah Nursery
194 Route 100
Katonah
(914) 232-3570
www.katonahnursery.com
Since it was incorporated in 1977, Katonah Nursery has grown from five to 17 acres, with growing facilities both in Somers as well as in Amenia in Dutchess County. And growing product lines, too, including trees, shrubs, perennials, herbs, bulbs, grass seed, fertilizer, tools, pottery, and potting mixes. All trees, shrubs, and plants purchased from and planted by Katonah Nursery are backed by a 100 percent guarantee for the first 12 months, which is longer than just about anything we’ve planted ourselves.
Mariani Gardens
45 Bedford Rd.
Armonk
(914) 273-3083
www.marianisgardenmarket.com
“How can you get tired of watching people leave home with a lawn and come back to a forest?” asks owner Mark Mariani, who, through his magnificent venture Mariani Gardens, spins his magic like straw into gold. Opened in Spring 2007, his newly renovated one-stop shop for rare and unusual plantings and distinctive home and garden décor is literally a destination (exhausted from the spree, you can contemplate your purchases while grabbing a sandwich at Mariani Gardens’ Café—some of its light fare is harvested from Mariani’s own orchards). To complement the remarkable selection of trees and shrubs and accessories, this gardening utopia also offers a distinct selection of perennials and annuals, statuary, fountains, urns, outdoor furniture, and floral design, all of which are housed in or around a contemporary structure, complete with a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled greenhouse.
Michael and Sons Nurseries, Inc.
200 Tarrytown Rd., White Plains
(914) 682-4224
and
300 Saw Mill River Rd., Elmsford
(914) 592-6620
www.michaelandsonsnurseries.com
If you swear you’ve got a brown thumb, let Michael and Sons introduce you to Stepables perennials, a line of hardy plants that reportedly are easy to maintain and reduce weeds—and can fill in those tricky areas where plants just won’t grow. (Even you can’t kill these.) The business, owned and operated by the Olivieri family since 1961, specializes in large-specimen plantings and estate development with two garden centers, one of which features the ever-popular Kingsley-Bate outdoor teak furniture. A full time landscape architect and three certified nursery professionals are on staff.
Nabel’s Nursery
1485 Mamaroneck Ave.
White Plains
(914) 949-3963
When Oprah features a landscaper, our ears perk up (as do millions of others). During the Backyard Makeovers segment on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Nabel’s used exotic plants that work well in direct sunlight to transform a ho-hum yard into a dazzling outdoor lounging area. With five acres of property and 13 greenhouse farms, Nabel’s Nurseries, voted Best Nursery by Westchester Magazine in 2005, features rare and exotic plants, trees, and shrubs and designs and creates magnificent landscapes (including to-die-for English and Japanese gardens).
Perennial Gardens Inc.
Route 22
Bedford
(914) 234-6311
www.sculptedland.com
Perennial Gardens’ owner Augie Alvarez recalls that as a kid, his father would tell him over and over again that there are no shortcuts. Shortchange your customers, said dad (who started the company more than 50 years ago), and it will come back to haunt you. A half century later, Alvarez still lives by those words, giving projects the benefit of his strategic planning, expert craftsmen, and dedicated staffers. Perennial’s Garden Center is a great source for people who know quality plantings, shrubs, trees, and flowers and, for those who don’t, specialists are at the ready to help find the appropriate picks. The landscaping division also offers complete project management and planning, site work and excavation, masonry, planting and transplanting, pool construction, irrigation, and fencing.
Poundridge Nurseries, Inc.
6 Pound Ridge Rd.
Pound Ridge
(914) 764-5781
www.poundridgenurseries.com
If you’re like us, you consider your home your castle, whether it’s faced with granite or not. The surrounding grounds have got to be as attractive and functional as the main palace, so we head to Poundridge Nurseries, which is kept so beautifully that it’s like visiting a well-kept public garden—one where you can not only collect ideas but take the exhibits home with you. Filled with a well-edited selection of plants and accessories (like collectible birdhouses and bird statues), it’s worth making the nursery a regular destination, where you’re bound to find some true inspiration. Still looking to do something special for your castle? Ask Poundridge Nurseries; they even do moats.
in the can
These Tuscany Faux Stone Urns look like heavy stone, but actually are made of a limestone and molten cast-stone mix, making them light and easy to move, in addition to being more frost-resistant than terracotta.Available at Smith & Hawken in Scarsdale. large urn $279, medium urn $159
Rosedale Nurseries
51 Saw Mill River Rd.
Hawthorne
(914) 769-1300
www.rosedalenurseries.com
A veritable shopping mall of flora, you’ll find hundreds of species of plants at Rosedale nursery: evergreens, flowering shrubs and trees, vines and groundcover, fruits and nuts, perennials, tropicals, and the time-honored favorite, roses. With complete landscaping services, Rosedale can create residential landscapes and gardens, renovations of existing gardens, transplanting of large trees and shrubs, horticultural pruning, land contouring, and lawn seeding and sodding. Think you’ve got it going on in the garden? Click on the Plantsman’s Guides on Rosedale’s website for handy planting and growing tips.
Sprainbrook Nursery, Inc.
448 Underhill Rd.
Scarsdale
(914) 723-2382
www.sprainbrook.com
Sprainbrook Nursery is taking advantage of the online community with its extensive website that offers everything from organic gardening products to watering implements. Its landscape department creates environments from start to finish, including foundation planting, perennial gardens, evergreen privacy screening, patios and walks, bluestone terraces, Unilock pavers, dry and wet laid stone, retailing walls, railroad ties, brick paths, and even renovations.
Sun Valley Nursery, Inc.
136 Croton Ave.
Ossining
(914) 762-6161
You’ll find more than a cosmic collection of trees, shrubs, and flowering annuals and perennials here, but just about anything you can imagine to put them in, too, including handmade and hand-painted imported Italian ceramic pots and a large selection of statues, fountains, benches, and cast-stone, cast-iron, and terracotta planters. If you don’t have a green thumb (or do, but don’t want to get it muddy), you can bring your own pot and have the nursery staff do the planting for you.
Tony’s Nursery
2285 Boston Post Rd
Larchmont
(914) 834-2172
As one fan told us, if it’s got chlorophyll, the staff at Tony’s can locate it and tell you how to plant and maintain it. A Larchmont legend, Tony’s Nursery practically takes up the whole block on the Boston Post Road, its greenhouses filled with planting picks.
Garden Systems
Teich Garden Systems, LLC
South Salem
(914) 533-2484
www.teichgardensystems.com
You may have moved up county to get back to nature, but the deer in your garden leave you wistful for the Upper East Side. Before you weep over your wisteria, you can turn to Teich Garden Systems (TGS), which has found a profitable niche in the sustainable agricultural market with its user-friendly, self-watering garden systems. Formed in 2005 by South Salem entrepreneur Mark Teich, the company builds and maintains enclosed structures where owners can grow their bountiful harvests in peace, keeping deer, rabbits, and other plant- and veggie-eating critters out. Gardens can be customized to fit individual specs.
Gates & Fences
Grand Entrance Gates, Ltd.
487 East Main St.
Mount Kisco
(800) 486-7553
www.grandentrance.com
You only get one chance to make a first impression, so better go for the gold. Grand Entrance does the deed with an
Northern Fence Corp.
166 Tomahawk St.
Yorktown Heights
(914) 248-1100
www.northernfences.com
Business is booming for this family-owned business that offers scores of fencing from a variety of materials, including PVC vinyl, ornamental aluminum, and wood, from handrails and decks to those posh automatic estate gates that impress your high-school friends. The company also surrounds swimming pools and tennis courts (which, no doubt, impresses them even more).
Salem Fence Company, Inc.
34 Route 118
Baldwin Place
(845) 628-7200
www.salemfence.com
Having established Salem Fence Company in 1969, Vincent Bellissimo, Sr. knew about elegantly fencing in a home long before there were gated communities. Today, the family business is operated by sons Vincent and Chris Bellissimo, who continue the quality workmanship one associates with this Old World art. The company installs all types of fences, with wood fences manufactured in its own shop by its own skilled craftsmen. Salem Fence also offers a full range of arbors for distinctive garden and walkway accents, in addition to ornamental aluminum, chain link, PVC, wrought-iron, and deer fences.
Walpole Woodworkers
346 Ethan Allen Hwy., Rt. 7
Ridgefield, Connecticut
(203) 438-3134
www.walpolewoodworkers.com
Walpole Woodworkers has been building custom fences for nearly three-quarters of a century, so challenging projects are a forte—the company has seen it all. When Walpole was asked by Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to create a miniature ballpark in the backyard for Will Johnson, a 6-year-old suffering from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, the company was right there, designing the model replica of Fenway Park in the child’s yard—and completing it within two weeks. When it comes to your project, Walpole controls the entire woodworking process from forest to finish, taking charge of every aspect of the work, from lumber selection to the fence’s milling, crafting, design, and installation.
Westchester Automated Gate, LLC
34 Route 118
Baldwin Place
(914) 962-7770
www.gatesandfences.com
If now you’re familiar with Vincent and Chris Bellissimo (see Salem Fence Company), get familiar with their other venture, Westchester Automated Gate. This second company, formed in 2003, is dedicated to access control, from sales to fabrication to installation (plus, perhaps most important, future service). Since all of the company’s gates are custom fabricated in its shop, any design or opening can be accommodated.
Landscaping
Benedek & Ticehurst
Landscape Architects & Site Planners
448H Old Post Rd.
Bedford
(917) 842-3251
www.btlandarch.com
Armand Benedek’s landscape-architecture firm had already gained a brilliant reputation by the time Glenn Ticehurst joined the firm in 1982. Establishing his business in 1960, Benedek, who died in 2004, collaborated with landscape architect David Engel on the design of the Japanese Gardens at the Pocantico Hills Rockefeller estate, Kykuit. Becoming a partner in 1990, Ticehurst brought the firm to new heights, designing projects from modest urban gardens to 500-acre estates, including classical, formal gardens, natural biomorphic environments and equestrian properties. The firm’s goals and results are constant: the site’s landscape is dictated by the surrounding area’s natural topography and indigenous conditions.
Clean Air Lawn Care
(888) 969-3669
Yonkers
www.cleanairlawncare.com
Clean Air Lawn Care believes it has the answer to the problem of air and noise pollution: electric equipment, as in electric mowers, edgers, and blowers. Even the
vehicles that haul the equipment are mounted with solar panels that charge the equipment during the workday. All additional electricity is purchased from a
renewable energy broker: the windpower this new lawn maintenance company purchases is used to power the lawn equipment and offices, qualifying the entire organization as carbon neutral. No doubt your grass will be greener, in more ways than one.
Daniel Sherman Landscape Architect, PC
4 Broadway (Suite 9)
Valhalla
(914) 824-0999
www.danshermanlandscape.com
Dan Sherman’s overflowing English gardens are enough to take your breath away and send your senses reeling; the lushness of his botanicals and plantings are truly artistic. (Sherman rightfully considers himself an artist and techie, skills he applies to his work.) His projects have been featured in publications such as House & Garden, Modern Estate, New York Spaces, and within our pages (again and again, since we’re suckers for luxe landscapes). Established in 1991, Sherman’s landscape-design firm moved from Chelsea to Valhalla in 2002 and has grown to include a large staff, four of whom are landscape architects/designers who talk as passionately about the gardens they tend—and tend to transform into suburban oases—as their boss does.
Delphinium Design
South Salem
(914) 763-6026
As a result of Jan Axel’s background as a ceramicist and sculptor (she has a BFA from
Elaine Yellen, LLC
Scarsdale
(914) 723-4090
Trained at The New York Botanical Garden, Elaine Yellen’s pet project is Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, a place where she first got her feet muddied. Yellen can transform a tiny yard into a small oasis, through ingenious design and a thorough knowledge of her material. Working primarily in Scarsdale, Yellen’s work usually involves the transformation of entire properties, including scaping and plantings.
Earth Water & Stone
25 Whittier Hill Rd.
Salem
(914) 232-5787
www.earthwaterandstone.com
A subsidiary of Tony & Luigi Bueti Landscaping, Earth Water & Stone has developed and maintained the lofty landscapes of some pretty impressive estates in some pretty impressive neighborhoods in Pound Ridge, Bedford, Chappaqua, North Salem, and Katonah. Earth Water & Stone does complete project management and planning, from site work and excavation to designing and transplanting, masonry and landscape design to irrigation and natural-lawn programs. Already looking forward to summer fun? Ask about the company’s spa and pool construction and outdoor lighting services.
Fiori Garden Design
Irvington
(914) 591-2679
www.fiorigarden.com
Just as Fiori Garden Design incorporates a wide variety of foliage, owner Sheri Silver follows suit, assimilating a variety of skills to the task. Silver has an eye for merging colors and textures, coupled with an architectural background; she earned a bachelor of architecture degree from Pratt Institute in addition to experience with The New York Botanical Garden School of Continuing Education. Fiori Garden Design offers maintenance instruction, on an hourly basis, for clients who want to give their own green thumbs a hand.
Garden Artistry
85 Harriman Rd.
Irvington
(914) 714-3056
www.garden-artistry.com
When the Irvington Historical Society decided to renovate the 1853 McVickar House and turn the building into its headquarters, Mark Gilliland of Garden Artistry volunteered to re-create landscaping that looked both historically accurate and drop-dead gorgeous, while incorporating modern requirements (like wheelchair access). But Gilliland doesn’t need landmark status for inspiration; he’s got arsenal to transform even the most mundane of yards into art by using seasonal planters, labyrinths, and atriums, and creating sanctuary, cottage, four-season, shade, herb, and secret gardens—and he’ll do so all while being as “green” as possible.
Greener by Design
87 Wolfs Ln.
Pelham
(914) 637-9870
www.greenerdesigns.com
Founded by Ann Roberts Levine, Mornhurst Gardens adopted its new name, Greener by Design, to reflect the expanded focus her son, Richard Heller, brought to the landscape-design firm. (Mother had an interest in interior plants while son added to the firm’s reach with his expertise in exterior urban landscapes.) But in addition to the gorgeous greenery it grows, Greener by Design is committed to the practice of sustainable landscaping and land care, which informs its recommendations for materials that are right for both the location, architecture, and light conditions (the company only uses organic fertilizers and non-chemical weed controls), which has earned it kudos from The New York Times, The English Garden, and WFUV radio.
Hallie Flanagan Wolfe Gardens, Ltd.
1380 Spring Valley Rd.
Ossining
(914) 941-5331
www.hallieflanaganwolfegardens.com
Named one of Westchester Magazine’s Green Giants in 2006, Hallie Flanagan Wolfe—recognized for her vibrant, colorful blooms and gorgeous, natural-looking gardens—offers a slew of services, including design, consultation, installation, maintenance, hardscaping, and fencing. A horticulture professional for nearly 20 years, Wolfe favors environmentally friendly landscaping, never using organic pesticides and selecting native plants when she can. A frequent contributor to Woman’s News and Westchester Magazine, Wolfe, a former set designer, and her work most recently were featured in Home’s 2007 issue.
John Jay Landscape Development
282 Katonah Ave.
