In Harmony With Nature

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Lindsey Taylor, Garden Editor, Landscape Designer, And Floral Stylist

Story by Diana Keeler / Photography by Dana Gallagher
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After a long and illustrious career as a garden editor for prominent magazines, Lindsey Taylor took the leap and founded her own garden design company. She is now based at Atlas Studios, a formerly derelict building in Beacon, New York. From her soaring, sun flooded studio Lindsey divulges why she works from her head and not a plan, the one plant she adds to every garden, and the importance of designing a garden in sympathy with its existing flora.

“I didn’t grow up a gardener, but one plant I did grow as a kid was strawberries,” says Lindsey Taylor, whose creative and professional life centers on spectacularly beautiful green spaces. Strawberries have played a role in many of them. “To this day, I always plant strawberries on my rooftop gardens, at home now and for clients, even if it’s just one plant trailing from a mixed container planting. I love their leaves, flowers, and of course, the fruit. I’m particularly fond of the alpine varieties — those tiny, ever-bearing berries pack a juicy flavor punch!”
Main Image: Lindsey’s husband and his business partner who founded Atlas Industries, bought this building in Newburgh, NY in 2013. They named it Atlas Studios and turned the once derelict building into a beautiful office and workshop for their business and divided the remaining space into studios for creatives of all types to rent as their workspaces. “I've had a studio here since the beginning,” says Lindsey. The building has incredible windows (all which were cinder blocked up when they bought it), high ceilings, amazing light, and a very good vibe.

Right: This Terrarium was one of the first projects Lindsey and her husband, Joseph Fratesi collaborated on before they were married. “It’s an Atlas Industries/ Lindsey Taylor Design collaboration and we have made quite a few over the years for clients. The one in my studio is currently empty awaiting to be planted so I use it for displaying charmers like a lady slipper orchid or a favorite fern.”
Main Image: Lindsey’s husband and his business partner who founded Atlas Industries, bought this building in Newburgh, NY in 2013. They named it Atlas Studios and turned the once derelict building into a beautiful office and workshop for their business and divided the remaining space into studios for creatives of all types to rent as their workspaces. “I've had a studio here since the beginning,” says Lindsey. The building has incredible windows (all which were cinder blocked up when they bought it), high ceilings, amazing light, and a very good vibe.

Above: This Terrarium was one of the first projects Lindsey and her husband, Joseph Fratesi collaborated on before they were married. “It’s an Atlas Industries/ Lindsey Taylor Design collaboration and we have made quite a few over the years for clients. The one in my studio is currently empty awaiting to be planted so I use it for displaying charmers like a lady slipper orchid or a favorite fern.”

“A GARDEN IS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN HUMANS AND NATURE AND REQUIRES AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE ONE THRIVE AND BEAUTIFUL.”
- Lindsey Taylor

When not overseeing her private clients’ projects, Taylor focuses on her own gardening spaces. Until recently, that’s been her town garden in Beacon, NY, where, she says, she’s been “allowed to plant anything I want — it’s a small, fenced-in yard where anything goes, within reason.” (“I have more there than I should, but since I know what I’m doing, I can keep it under control.”) Soon, though, she’ll be moving to a home in the countryside 10 miles south along the Hudson, in Garrison. “It’s bordered by a state park, on a high elevation with wonderful rock outcroppings,” she says. “There's a lot already there: oaks, hickory, pine, amelanchier, high and low bush blueberry, mountain laurel, little bluestem grass, carex, ferns ...

The approach I’m taking is to mostly edit, adding only what feels right for the setting while working with the existing soil conditions.” In that spirit, she’ll be careful to work with what she finds on site — like wood chips from fallen trees — rather than introducing new soil or mulch. “I want the house to feel like it belongs, and not an intruder.”
Top: Lindsey hard at work in her cinderblock garden tending to species including Valerian, Russian sage, Mexican feather grass, Guara, Verbascum, and plum poppies.
Left: A selection of exquisite, handmade Japanese Garden tools by Asano Mokkousho.
Above: Species including Laurens Grape poppies and Guara Whirling Butterflies thrive in the garden.
Top: Lindsey hard at work in her cinderblock garden tending to species including Valerian, Russian sage, Mexican feather grass, Guara, Verbascum, and plum poppies.
Middle: A selection of exquisite, handmade Japanese Garden tools by Asano Mokkousho.
Above: Species including Laurens Grape poppies and Guara Whirling Butterflies thrive in the garden.

“I LIKE HOW MORE PEOPLE HAVE BECOME INTERESTED IN GARDENING AND LEARNING ABOUT A WIDER RANGE OF PLANTS THAT CAN HELP AND WORK WITH OUR ECOSYSTEM RATHER THAN AGAINST.”

This perspective, she says, is emblematic of changing ideas about what should be grown where. “I like how more people have become interested in gardening and learning about a wider range of plants — their proper names, and plants that can help and work with our ecosystem rather than against. More people, it seems, have expanded their palettes and are responding to a wilder look, thinking about what they are doing and whether it’s beneficial to the environment, which means creating gardens that aren’t dependent on natural resources and chemicals to survive.”

Lindsey tries to get most of her cut flowers and branches from her own gardens, either at Atlas - where she has a very urban raised cinderblock garden adjacent to the building - or her town garden in Beacon, NY. “My next stop is always local growers, and responsible foraging. When needed I head to the New York Flower Market where I have been going since I moved to NYC in 1996.”

“GARDENS TAKE TIME AND PATIENCE TO BECOME WHO THEY WANT TO BE, AND THEY TAKE WORK – LOTS OF IT.”

Lindsey at Atlas Studios with her mood board. “My mood board is a place to pin inspiration, dreams, drawings, colors and textures. Images that catch my eye and make me happy. It's always changing. Currently I have a lot of dreamy images of pools.”
The low blueish bowl is by potter David Moldover who runs a The Newburgh Pottery studio located in Atlas. The “frog” is an old cast iron drain cap that Lindsey’s husband collects. “I like their sculptural and functional design perfect for supporting stems,” explains Lindsey.

Designing a garden in sympathy with its existing flora is a valuable lesson for gardeners of all abilities — especially at a cultural moment when anything is possible, for the right price, whether it’s good for the environment or not. “We have a chance to learn more about working with existing conditions — seeing what you can do to give a garden more layers of seasonal interest using native shrubs, trees, and perennials, all while taking a very light touch,” she says. From there, her approach is intuitive. “There's planning and research that goes into all my work, but when it comes to my own gardens, I tend to work from my head, not a plan,” she says. “I’ll make lists of plants I'd like to include — usually in the winter when I have down time — and sketch out some ideas. I'm more like an abstract artist with a blank canvas pushing around the paint until I get to a point where I stand back and can say, ‘I think that's it!’ But unlike with a finished painting, the work with a garden never stops.”

Above: Lindsey created a makeshift garden bench using cinderblocks and a slab of bluestone. Plants include a profusion of thyme, strawberries, and Clary sage.

To learn more about Lindsey’s work visit: Lindseytaylordesign.com