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Duncan and Julia Brine and the Brine Garden

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GardenLarge

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.

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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.

Doug Tallamy

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.

Hudson Valley landscape design

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

The Brine Garden in Connecticut Gardener

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

Elderberries in the Brine Garden
© 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

Transparent branches in the Brine Garden
 
© GardenLarge

Duncan Brine, Be Mindful of Context

by Deb Keiser

Read Deb Keiser’s article.

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.

.

  • GardenLarge ·
    • GardenLarge ·
    • Timeline at 32 ·
    • Native Plants ·
    • Nursery ·
    • Client Comments ·
  • Publications ·
    • The New York Times ·
    • Connecticut Gardener ·
    • Newspapers & Magazines ·
    • Books ·
  • Duncan & Julia Brine ·
    • Duncan Brine ·
    • Julia Brine ·
    • Talks ·
    • The New York Botanical Garden ·
    • American Gardener ·
    • The Literary Garden ·
  • Brine Garden ·
    • Ambiance ·
    • Snow in the Brine Garden ·
  • Events ·
    • The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days ·
    • Directions ·
    • Area Restaurants ·
    • Garden Clubs ·
  • Contact Us ·
    • Careers ·

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thebrinegarden

thebrinegarden
Hydrangea paniculata 'Tardiva' is featured in seve Hydrangea paniculata 'Tardiva'
is featured in several locations in the Brine Garden. This large shrub flourishes in sun, shade, dry, and moist conditions. We have many large perennials and shrubs in our large garden, their size connects them with the stature of surrounding trees. Shrubs and trees grow into one another here, providing us, birds and others with desired privacy and shade. During these hot, droughty days we all seek and relish shade.
In drought you discover who your friends are. Aga In drought you discover who your friends are.

Agastache foeniculum has a long nectar season abuzz with a variety of pollinators. It's native in Wisconsin and the great plains. Short lived, but a heavy reseeder, it persists well around here. Aromatic foliage, we love to brush against it on pathways.

Deer resistant. 

With a 6 acre garden, we prune few perennials, but I shape this to prolong flowering.
This is our dearly beloved Vernonia. It pleaseth This is our dearly beloved 
Vernonia.

It pleaseth pollinators and people alike. We encourage it to grow and reseed wherever it chooses. Most think of Vernonia as a denizen of moist places, and it is, but we've discovered that it's capable of being floriferous in intensely droughty and sunny spots as well. 

Some think Vernonia has a short bloom time, but in our garden and client gardens, since it's in both sun and part shade, it blooms for more than a month.
So hot, so dry. Do you recollect what rain drops l So hot, so dry.
Do you recollect what rain drops look like?

This is Cotinus coggygria, we also grow the native, Cotinus obovatus. 

We think obovatus has superior looking leaves, whilst coggygria has a more prolonged and ethereal bloomtime. Both play featured roles,  here, defining and separating various areas.
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Recent Posts

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