M. HERNDON LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Landscapes designed to be alive.

I design ecological gardens for homes and landscapes that ask for something considered, across southern and central New Hampshire, from the Seacoast to the Lakes Region.

I believe people feel most at home with a garden that belongs to its place: one that integrates with the natural world and supports wild bird and pollinator species. My approach starts from site history and ecological address, the basis for choosing place-based materials for both planting and hardscape. The result is meant to look unforced, less like a landscape that was installed and more like one the site arrived at on its own. My planting relies on a matrix technique for beauty and for function, because people are happiest living within a healthy, working ecosystem.

design services

Most projects move through the following:

Initial consultation

Site analysis and project goal identification

garden design

contractor selection

garden maintenance management

We work collaboratively with homeowners, businesses, conservation minded landowners, architects, engineers, and building and landscape contractors.

What is Ecological Address?

Ecological address is similar to physical address but instead of state, town, street and house number, it includes ecoregion, watershed, forest community, soils, and habitat type.

For example, an ecological address for a house in Harrisville, NH could be ‘grassland and wet shrub openings within a hemlock hardwood pine forest on sandy loam on the Monadnock Plateau and the Merrimack River watershed.’

When we identify the ecological address of a place, not only does it help practitioners make functional design decisions, it also expands our clients’ sense of home into the natural world.

What is matrix planting?

Matrix planting is a low maintenance layered technique popularized by the New Perennialist movement in Europe. Working with plant communities rather than individuals, matrix planting utilizes a “green groundcover” base layer that replaces bark mulch, and relies on flowering plant combinations for seasonal bloom sequences and fall color. Matrix planting makes a natural segue between a right sized lawn and an early-successional mix of taller shrubs, grasses and understory trees. It is also a functional choice in that it does not require irrigation, is relatively inexpensive to install and supports pollinators and songbirds.

I see so many more insects in my garden now, I feel like we're helping our little corner of the earth.

MATT

POLLINATOR GARDEN CLIENT

CURIOUS?

We’d love to chat. Please call or email anytime.

Because biodiversity is beautiful, and a well-designed garden proves it every season.

PRESS

ARTICLES, PODCASTS AND EVENTS

We are far more innovative, creative, and powerful as gardeners than we imagine or give ourselves credit for and together we make a difference.

Jennifer Jewell, Cultivating Place podcast

IN CONVERSATION WITH MEG