Honored with Recognition: Care + Time

Sep 11

This summer we were honored to be recognized at the Perennial Plant Association’s (PPA) 2025 National Symposium with an Award of Excellence. Initiated in 1992, the Landscape Design Awards program recognizes design projects that are exemplary in use of herbaceous perennials to help create balanced and beautiful landscapes. This award is meaningful to us on several levels:

First and foremost, we love when new or existing clients come to us with their hopes and vision for their lived environment, and work with us to bring them to fruition. This project has engaged three of our four branches over several years: Design, Installation and Garden Care & Restoration.
Next, we were awarded this honor for a front yard meadow, requested by clients who are dedicated stewards of habitats that nurture people and nature simultaneously. Meadow style plantings are a long-term commitment, requiring careful site preparation and planning in regards to texture, color, timing and species suitability.
Additionally, this project is with sustained clients, giving us the opportunity not only to witness their meadow mature but apply stewardship, year after year. It is a building block in many ways: relationships, learning laboratory, and a conservation touchpoint.

In our last Field Journal entry, Todd shared our commitment not just to making beautiful places, but to being present with them, the people who use them, and staying connected as they all grow together. This client, this project, this award reinforces the value of this commitment.

This project began with an initial site visit in April 2020, at the start of the COVID pandemic. Listening to our clients, the master design replaced the lawn and commonplace garden beds with diverse meadow plantings rich in color, texture, and habitat value. Site preparation included: removal of all existing materials but for the mature trees, hardscape installation of a broad, welcoming walk and steps of full-range natural cleft PA flagstone, then applying a layer of leaf compost to serve as mulch and planting medium. In the early autumn of 2021, over 4,000 plugs were planted over two days. The garden took off the next year, and in the years following has been tended to by our Garden Care & Restoration branch.

The soft and enveloping planting design coupled with the expansive, deeply spaced steps and walk gives the home a relaxed and welcoming entrance. This meadow offers profuse blooms from early spring until late fall and provides food and shelter for an abundance of wildlife. During the winter months this garden loses none of its character or charm. All of the foliage is left in place to provide structural and textural interest as well as providing habitat for overwintering wildlife and food in the way of seeds for songbirds. The front porch now serves as a prime outdoor viewing area.

We have continued to work with this client, adding ecological design and installation in the side yards, out into the back, and into the woods they steward. The front yard meadow was just the start, in many ways.

On a final note, this award is also meaningful due to the good company we find ourselves in with the other award winners. Some we have followed for years, others we are excited to get to know. See a list of all of the award winners here.

While our teams at Indigenous Ingenuities were granted this award based on the design, plant selection, installation and care, we gratefully share it with the homeowners and the plant growers and suppliers who contributed to making this vision a reality.