The Plains, Virginia

Stylized meadow at Brightwood

This private garden began with a simple brief: reduce an excess of turf and create a beautiful, stylized meadow that could sit comfortably within a larger rural landscape.

The site is part of a horse farm, surrounded by natural meadows, pasture, and open fields. The goal here was different. This meadow was intended to read as a garden: cultivated, curated, and visibly designed. It needed the softness and movement of a meadow, but with enough structure and pattern to feel intentional near the house. Much of the concept design was developed directly in the field. A circular central lawn was preserved as an “area rug,” giving the garden a clear open center while the surrounding turf was converted into planting. The depth and shape of each bed were determined by how many planting layers the space could support, allowing the garden to shift from open lawn to immersive meadow.

The planting design uses broad block masses of grasses and perennials to create legibility at a distance. Beneath and between those blocks, groundcovers and drifting emergent forbs—including Liatris, Echinacea pallida, Gaura, and Eryngium—move through the planting to soften the edges and create a more dynamic meadow effect. The installation was deliberately simple. Existing turf was removed with a sod cutter, and the lean topsoil was left in place without amendments. Rather than improving the soil, the planting was designed to take advantage of the conditions already present, using species and planting structure to create beauty from restraint.