Residential landscape design
garden design
Planting, garden care and project management
Invasive species control
Native plant nursery
Hudson valley and beyond…
Current projects
in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
More on
GardenLarge
Duncan & Julia Brine
The Brine Garden
Anne Raver in The New York Times
In the Garden Duncan Brine is a landscape designer with a filmmaker’s eye.
“…a dreamlike landscape that takes its cues from the old shade trees and fence posts remaining from the farm that was once here…”
Read Anne Raver’s article.
The New York Botanical Garden GardenLarge principal landscape designer, Duncan Brine, has conducted the annual naturalistic design seminar, since 2007.
The Garden Conservancy Hudson valley’s six-acre Brine Garden has been part of the Garden Conservancy Open Days program since 2006.
Garden Books Gardens of the Hudson Valley • Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley • Designer Plant Combinations • 50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants
Magazines and Newspapers Horticulture Magazine • The American Gardener • Connecticut Gardener Magazine • Hudson Valley Magazine • Litchfield County Times’ Passport Magazine • The News-Times • The Woodstock Times
Inspirational and influential garden world figures Douglas Tallamy, Thomas Christopher, and Ruth Clausen are notable GardenLarge friends.
Douglas Tallamy is a frequent speaker and author of Bringing Nature Home, Nature’s Best Hope, and most recently, The Nature of Oaks. Since Rachel Carson, no one has been a more persuasive advocate for the environment. Doug and his wife, Cindy, visited the Brine Garden in 2010. Afterward, Doug wrote,
“We wanted to thank you for your wonderful tour of your garden. It was great to see you again and to meet Julia. What a fun place to live! We hope your approach to gardening spreads far and wide.”
Thomas Christopher is host of the ecologically oriented “Growing Greener” podcast. Thomas wrote for Martha Stewart Living and is the author of at least a dozen garden books. In 2019, he wrote,
“This afternoon I sat down with the current issue of Connecticut Gardener and found an article about one of my favorite gardens. Steve Silk has written a great tribute to Duncan and Julia Brine’s lovely and unconventional garden in Pawling, NY. Somehow, while breaking all the rules, the Brines have created a horticultural classic.”
Ruth Clausen is a prolific garden book writer, she recently completed Deer Resistant Native Plants of the Northeast, with Greg Tepper. It’s likely to be as popular as her earlier 50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants. Of these three friends, Ruth was the first to discover us. In 2012, she wrote,
“Duncan and his wife Julia have a well-respected business in landscape design in and around Pawling, NY and beyond. The garden is open to the public from time to time and is definitely worth a visit, not least for all the great ideas that have been incorporated to make a cohesive whole.”
Schedule a landscape and garden design consultation.
Email info@gardenlarge.com or call (845) 855-9023 to arrange a meeting with GardenLarge principal landscape designer, Duncan Brine.
© John Lei
Garden Books
Gorgeous photographs feature GardenLarge in Hudson valley garden books.
Gardens of the Hudson Valley
by Susan Lowry and Nancy Berner
photographs by Steve Gross and Susan Daley
forward by Gregory Long, president emeritus of the New York Botanical Garden
“The line between art and nature has never seemed so blurred as it is in the Brine Garden.”
“Six acres of plantings appear at first to be a most exquisite bit of natural landscape, displaying a minimal amount of human intervention. The Brine Garden, “is a vision that is deeply knowledgeable to? plants’ habits and needs and uses them to tell the landscape story….Although the emphasis is on natives, handsome foreigners appropriate to the landscape take their place in the composition as well.”
Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley
by Jane Garmey
photographs by John Hall
Duncan Brine, “set out to make a naturalistic garden.”
“‘We are now more environmentally conscious and our focus is about creating a natural landscape that takes its cues from the feel of the place.'”
“This means a strong commitment to native plants, but the Brines are not rigid purists. If they like a plant it goes into the mix.”
Read more about Private Gardens of the Hudson Valley.
Designer Plant Combinations
Text and photography by Scott Calhoun
GardenLarge is represented in this collection of landscape and garden designers’ work from around the country.
Scott is the author of the classic, Chasing Wildflowers: A Mad Search for Wild Gardens and a handful of other, colorful garden books.
Read more about Designer Plant Combinations.
50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants
by Ruth Clausen
photography by Alan L. Detrick
This useful book is enjoying a long life in bookstores and on gardeners’ book shelves. GardenLarge is on the cover.
Magazines and newspapers
Connecticut Gardener Magazine
Natural By Design
by Steve Silk
(former managing editor of Fine Gardening magazine)
“Duncan Brine doesn’t play by the rules….he scribbles outside all of the lines…”
Read Steve Silk’s article.
Horticulture Magazine
The Big Idea:
Duncan Brine’s philosophy of gardening large
by Carleen Madigan
A philosophy of “gardening large” instills a sense of personality and place.
Read more about “The Big Idea”.
American Horticultural Society’s
The American Gardener
Inviting Nature into Your Garden
by GardenLarge principal landscape designer, Duncan Brine
“A naturalistic garden combines a gardener’s needs and desires with nature’s dictates…. Designing naturalistic gardens is an art shaped by science.”
Read Duncan Brine’s article.
Hudson Valley Magazine
A Purposeful Confusion
by Lynn Hazlewood
“…it’s hard to tell the difference between nature and nurture.”
Read Lynn Hazlewood’s article.
Connecticut Press
Litchfield County Times’ Passport Magazine
© GardenLarge
Many Splendid Things
by Tovah Martin
“…elements of concealment and surprise are written into the landscape. They have plants of truly connoisseur quality…they’re all botanical aristocrats.”
Read more about “Many Splendid Things”.
The News-Times
© GardenLarge
Duncan Brine, Be Mindful of Context
by Deb Keiser
The Woodstock Times
Back to the Garden
by Andrea Barrist Stern
“A unique vision and appreciation for the landscape have created drama on a six-acre Pawling property.”
Read more about “Back to the Garden”.
Schedule a landscape and garden design consultation.
Email info@gardenlarge.com or call (845) 855-9023 to arrange a meeting with GardenLarge principal landscape designer, Duncan Brine.
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