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Phyto Studio

@phytostudio

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A nature-based design studio focused on the intersection of landscape architecture and ecological planting. Authors of Planting in a Post-Wild World

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Last night, Phyto Studio received the 2026 ASLA Landscape Architecture Firm Award.

It’s a strange and wonderful thing to have a small studio like ours recognized in this way. We spend our days talking about plants, arguing over soil, drawing and redrawing planting plans, crawling around job sites, writing, teaching, experimenting, and trying to make landscapes that are more alive. Most of the time, we’re simply absorbed in the work.

So last night was a moment to look up.

We’re proud of what this little studio has become, and deeply grateful for the clients, collaborators, gardeners, contractors, colleagues, friends, and mentors who have helped us get here.

And then this morning, back to plants.

Thank you, ASLA. What a night.

Portraits: @varneyphoto by @phytostudio

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a month ago

Enhancement planting one year after initial planting. This is a small residential lawn conversion in New Jersey. The project converted a large lawn into a garden space. A series of tapering berms framed a small lawn. Several large trees (Yellowwood, oaks, black gum) were planted as well as a “grove” of Amelanchier to frame a glade-like planting. A Sesleria-Carex matrix filled with blocks of flowering themes (Echinacea pallida, Pycnanthum tenuifolium, Aster October Skies, Salvia Wesuwe, Teucrium, Origanum Rosemkuppel, Calamintha, Allium Serendipity, Actaea pachypodia, Geranium, Erigeron pulchellus, Chrysogonum, Nepeta).. by @phytostudio

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10 days ago

We do occasionally clean up. Usually it takes a national award.

ASLA/Nobile-Morris Photography taken in Los Angeles, California by @phytostudio

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17 days ago

Fall in The Plains. Doing some enhancement plantings a year after installation to fill in gaps and expand seasonal themes. taken in The Plains, Virginia by @phytostudio

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18 days ago

What if stress is part of the design?

During her walk at The Battery, Claudia West showed us how gravel planting works as both a weed-suppression strategy and an “amplified stress system.”

On the waterfront, plants have to contend with drought, wind, flooding, salt, and increasingly extreme conditions. Rather than trying to eliminate those stresses, the planting is designed with stress in it, and around species that can live with it—and together create a more resilient plant community.

It was fascinating to see ideas Claudia explores in Planting in a Post-Wild World applied here, in real time, at the edge of New York Harbor. taken in The Battery (Manhattan) by @phytostudio

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a month ago

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of welcoming landscape designer Claudia West back to The Battery for a walk through the gardens she helped shape.

Our group brought together amateur gardeners, park lovers, and colleagues from the High Line, Riverside Park, Battery Park City Authority, and NYC Parks. Claudia was incredibly generous in sharing the thinking behind her plant choices and design decisions—why certain plants live together, how communities evolve over time, and how she designs for both beauty and ecological function.

There is something special about learning in the garden itself: looking closely, asking questions, and understanding not only what was planted, but why.

Thank you, Claudia, for sharing your knowledge so openly—and to everyone who joined us. by @phytostudio

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a month ago

Claudia West, co-author of the influential Planting in a Post-Wild World, is also the planting designer behind The Battery’s newly transformed Promenade and the gardens surrounding Castle Clinton.
On September 8, she’ll be at The Battery to lead a special walk through the landscape she helped create — sharing the ideas and strategies behind its design.
How do you create a garden that is beautiful, resilient and ecologically functional — while responding to the very particular conditions of New York’s waterfront?
Claudia, Principal of Phyto Studio, will share how the new design builds on the original Piet Oudolf’s Gardens of Remembrance, the thinking behind its planting strategy, and some of the meaningful species selected for the landscape. She’ll be joined by Amy Seek of Stantec, who will offer insights into the site design, sustainability and construction behind the project.
A rare opportunity to walk a newly completed garden with the people who designed it.
🌿 Tuesday, September 8🕐 1 PM📍 The Battery — register at the Eventbrite link in bio taken in The Battery (Manhattan) by @phytostudio

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2 months ago

As summer heats up in Virginia, the perennials in the library garden come to life. Eriogonum allenii ‘Little Rascal’ (yellow flower)— the only buckwheat native east of the Mississippi—really takes off. It’s an incredible pollinator plant, drawing a wide range of native wasps and flies that we rarely see on other plants. Agapanthus, Calamintha, and Allium ‘Millenium’ thrive here too, three non-natives that are pollinator magnets.

All photos taken by @cecilia.palmer who helped us procure, lead the install, and lovingly care for this garden with the team at West Wind Nursery taken in Delaplane, Virginia by @phytostudio

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3 months ago

Some plants quietly become favorites. Others become obsessions.

Geum triflorum—perhaps better known as prairie smoke—is one of ours. After its nodding pink flowers fade, they transform into extraordinary silky seedheads that seem to glow in the light. The closer you look, the more unreal they seem.

Those feathery seedheads have inspired generations of gardeners to give this plant wonderfully descriptive names, including torch flower, long-plumed purple avens, prairie smoke, lion’s beard, and old man’s whiskers. Once you see them, it’s easy to understand why.

We didn’t have prairie smoke at The Battery until Claudia West of @phytostudio Studio introduced it in her planting design. We’re grateful she did. It has become one of those plants we find ourselves photographing again and again… and hopefully you’ll forgive us for sharing it again and again, too. by @phytostudio

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3 months ago

Within a large rural landscape, this library garden creates a quieter, more enclosed moment. The space is small and protected, but still open to the larger view.

The palette leans heat-tolerant, high contrast, pollinator friendly, and bit more exotic than rest of garden: Magnolia virginiana, Calamintha, Kalimeris, Ceanothus americanus, Kniphofia ‘Mango Popsicle’, Agapanthus ‘Northern Star’, Eurybia ‘Twilight’, Sesleria, Salvia ‘Caradonna’, and Eriogonum ‘Little Rascal’.

Photos by @robcardillophoto
Garden care by @cecilia.palmer and West Winds Nursery taken in Delaplane, Virginia by @phytostudio

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3 months ago

Portraits of June. by @phytostudio

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3 months ago

Summer scenes in central Virginia taken in The Plains, Virginia by @phytostudio

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3 months ago