Photograph by Connie Plaissay
Vitals: Mario Nievera
July 1, 2006
My job is: Landscape architect.
Past projects: A 3,000-square-foot terrace on New York’s Upper East Side; the restoration and expansion of a 13-acre garden in Southampton, N.Y.; improvements to the Haverford School in Haverford, Pa.
Current projects: A three-acre historic residence in Palm Beach; gardens for three residences in Miami’s Indian Creek; tropical garden hideaways in Antigua, British West Indies, and Harbour Island, Bahamas.
My home(s): Palm Beach, Fla.; New York’s Greenwich Village and East Hampton Village.
Inspiration comes from: Simple things like a walk in Central Park, looking at art or fine dining.
First job: In high school, I was a drugstore delivery boy in Winnetka, Ill., on Chicago’s North Shore.
Favorite:
Tool for the garden: Pruning clippers from Hermès.
Thing to make your garden grow: Miracle-Gro or Peters.
Plant that anyone can grow: Fountain grass (pennisetum spp.)
Outdoor furniture: McKinnon and Harris, Michael Taylor, Smith & Hawken or anything from Munder-Skiles in New York.
Garden accessory: My terra-cotta pots, manufactured by Seibert & Rice.
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Nievera's Seibert & Rice pot. Photo by Kim Sargent. (Click image to enlarge)Exotic or hard-to-find item: We’ve been hit by so many hurricanes in South Florida, even the lowly ficus tree is hard to find.
Garden smell: Jasmine, citrus, gardenias, roses, heliotrope, lavender, salvia, rosemary and sweet autumn clematis.
Public gardens: The Huntington Botanical Gardens in Los Angeles, the Tuileries in Paris, New York’s Central Park and the New York Botanical Garden.
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The Huntington Botanical Gardens. Photo courtesy of The Huntington. (Click image to enlarge)Places that inspire you: Marrakech, Paris, Sissinghurst, Kyoto; anyplace in Italy, Spain or France.
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