The Todd Group collaborates with some of the most talented landscape designers in the tristate area to create beautiful, distinctive properties. One such designer is Deborah Nevins, who envisioned a stunning landscape design for this 50-acre estate in Somerset County, NJ. The Todd Group installed and continues to maintain this exceptional property.
Ms. Nevins is one of the most sought-after landscape designers in the world. She has designed landscapes for notable public figures including Rupert Murdoch, David Geffen, Paul Walter, and Henry Kravis. A style for which she is internationally known is the concept of outdoor “rooms” with walls of greenery: distinct areas within a broader landscape. The simplicity of Ms. Nevins’ design is seen throughout this project—from the various gardens to the great lawn. The Todd Group was charged with not only the installation, but with ensuring that the property was equipped with the proper grading, drainage, irrigation, and lighting systems to support the landscape.
Visitors are welcomed to the estate via a meandering driveway that is lined with meadow grasses that provide unique color bands that bloom and change throughout the summer and fall. A stone bridge made of locally sourced granite crosses over an active creek bed feeding the Lamington River, which has a range of mature shade trees and meadow grasses. Native winterberry hollies add seasonal color.
After emerging from the woodland, the entry meadow is simply majestic. The specimen maple trees on either side of the drive provide spectacular fall color. To ensure good root development and health, The Todd Group under-drained each tree and added beneficial bacteria to the soil mixtures. With its varying conditions due to slope and moisture variety, this meadow requires specific management practices to achieve beautiful results—a rare specialty that our team possesses.
From the home’s kitchen, the homeowners greet a perennial alley with a carefully planned garden that offers a constantly changing palette of colors throughout the blooming season. The garden is a lovely spot for picnics and stargazing, with a multitude of roses and perennials from agastache to artemisia, anemone to iris, lavender to peony. The gardens include a variety of materials to stay colorful all year long and are supplemented with select annuals and biennials.
The “white garden” is a beautiful example of an outdoor room—perfect for relaxation and rejuvenation. A bench provides a central vantage point of the ever-changing mixture of white flowers and foliage plants, including tulips, roses, hostas, peonies, anemone, vinca, viburnum, and daffodils as well as white blooming trees and shrubs—all contained within boxwood hedges. Potted fig trees throughout mark the intersection of the two axial pathways. The entire room is encircled by a tall, pruned Arborvitae hedge.
The Todd Group planted a cutting garden with a variety of long-stemmed annual flowers that bloom at different times throughout the spring and summer seasons. Carefully selected, multi-stem species include a dozen varieties of peonies, two dozen varieties of annuals, and bulbs from snapdragons, cosmos, dahlias, tulips, lilies, and hyacinth. Such an assortment offers the homeowners hundreds of different flowers to cut and form gorgeous bouquets to bring inside when they are in bloom. The garden also provides an array of fresh herbs and some vegetables.
An understated, yet luxurious saline pool with bluestone coping and grass surround reveres the classic European feel throughout the entire property. The lawn area creates a serene and garden-like feel, while the lack of stone surfaces minimizes the heat on hot summer days. With a convenient pool house to offer shade and storage, this aquatic room—also surrounded by Arborvitae hedges—offers the homeowners a wonderful place for lively all-day gatherings and restful days alike.
One of the most impressive parts of this estate is its great lawn, which frames a pasture just beyond—a setting that is reminiscent of the area’s rich history of farming. Conical Cap Yew topiaries punctuate a large expanse of grass, and The Todd Group keeps the lawn meticulously mowed in rows to accentuate the artistic aura of the space. An Arborvitae hedge encloses the lawn, save for an open passage to the pasture.
A beautiful landscape is a significant investment. We believe that upholding its splendor and maintaining its health is essential to ensuring that investment appreciates over time. Our estate management team has expertise in all aspects of landscaping, including tree and shrub care, perennial gardens, annual enhancements, turf management, lighting, irrigation and water management, soil composition, and more. If you need a redesign of your existing landscape or would like to improve the landscape management program you have in place for your estate, contact us.