Patricia Benner
I have always seen the garden as a natural extension of the home. Just as interior spaces serve as sanctuaries for reflection, contemplation, and nourishment, so too should the broader natural environment—particularly in California, where the weather affords us the opportunity for comfortable outdoor living year-round.
I learned to garden from my mother, a Landscape Designer who practiced in suburban New Jersey. From her, I gathered the finer points of planting and tending, and attuned my ear to gentle rhythms of the seasons. Originally my sensibilities lay decidedly in the East Coast—I adore the lush, verdant landscapes that ramble along the North Atlantic and throughout New England. Now that I live and work in California, I’ve sought ways to bring the sense of lushness to the drier gardens I design in my practice. I’ve enjoyed the challenge of bringing the feel of verdancy to even the most drought tolerant garden. It takes a certain versatility to work across the length of California. My practice has long been in Southern California, but I have my own garden “laboratory” in Marin County near San Francisco, where I study plants endemic to the physically cooler parts of the state. I suppose my practice reconciles a love of leafy and abundant East Coast gardens, with the countless expressions of the nature we find here in California.
Learning and discovery is part and parcel to my practice. Following the advice of an early mentor, Mark Rios of Rios Clemente Hale, I enrolled as one of the first students of the University of Southern California’s Master’s program in Landscape Architecture. Through my education and training I have learned a great deal about classical design, architectural styles from ancient to modern, landforms and site specific needs, botany and technology, all of which find a place in my practice today.
As a landscape designer, it has never been my instinct to bend nature to my will—rather, my work emphasizes long-term, sustainable and site-specific exterior design; a patient, holistic approach, informed by years of research, study, and generational insight. Consider the classic, French garden—lush, beautiful, and precise—these gardens, while no doubt stunning, embody an old world relationship to nature, one where designers and their patrons coerce and cajole the landscape into service. I consider my practice to be far more of a conversation, a communion, a discussion, where we compare notes and preferences, and work together, not just with our clients, but with the natural world itself.
The best landscape design offers a transformational experience, and my preference in dazzlingly sunny California has always been to highlight not only the cooling properties of verdant fronds and lush greens, but also sonorous fountains, cozy garden hideaways, and soothing colors. While my work is fundamentally grounded in current design, I draw from the past to build landscapes that will retain their beauty and vigor many years into the future.
- Patricia Benner
WE ARE BENNER LANDSCAPE DESIGN
We are a team of landscape architects and designers with offices in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Our studio serves a broad range of clients and enjoys the challenges of maximizing aesthetic potential in small garden gems as much as the complexities of estate scale garden design and construction administration. The team harnesses their knowledge of planting design and exquisite materials to create gardens with a current sensibility to timeless design. Benner Landscape Design strives to establish a spirit of collaboration with our clients and teams, producing landscapes that are beautiful, sustainable, and long-lasting.
BESPOKE AND COLLABORATIVE
Ms. Benner serves a broad range of clients and enjoys the challenges of maximizing aesthetic potential in small garden gems as much as she enjoys both the broad brush strokes and complexities of estate scale garden design and construction. Benner brings a thorough knowledge of plants of varying color foliage, flower color, texture and form to her plant palette, as well as a current sensibility and sophisticated chic to timeless design. Benner Landscape Design strives to establish a spirit of collaboration, not just in developing the greatest possible outdoor space for our client, but working in harmony with the site itself to create the most beautiful, sustainable, long-lasting landscape.
SITE-SPECIFIC, SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
The firm is sensitive to site appropriate design and is highly knowledgeable about sustainable landscape practices including drought tolerant planting, low water-use irrigation, low impact development and responsible paving approaches, water reclamation methods and systems, organic gardening and green roof design. We have designed landscapes in cities across California that require stringent, drought tolerant design. Bringing a garden to life requires an on-going dialogue with our clients, and ultimately, effectively translating visual inspiration into built form.
CALIFORNIA, AL FRESCO
Californians treasure their year-round opportunities for open air living, and thanks to countless advances in outdoor furniture, fabrics and lighting, it’s now possible to live outdoors with total comfort, luxury, and style. As a landscape firm, we create beautiful, comfortable, well-integrated outdoor experiences. Our clients want their gardens to look beautiful, and their outdoor living spaces to remain inviting and comfortable though all four seasons, which requires a level of ingenuity in structuring and detailing gardens to look their best, even in the spare days of winter.
A LEAFY CORPORATION
Having worked as a Management Consultant and in staff positions at several Fortune 500 companies, Ms. Benner brings a strong background in administration, a high degree of professionalism, a keen eye to budgets, and a well-honed approach to balancing project costs and benefits. Ms. Benner is committed to achieving beautiful, inspired, high quality projects in a cost effective, efficient and value-driven way.
EDUCATION
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Boston University, Boston Massachusetts, Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Master of Landscape Architecture, (M.L.A.)
IN THE NEWS
Benner Landscape Design has been featured in: Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Veranda, British House and Garden, The London Daily Beast, House and Garden, LA Confidential, Town and Country, Pasadena, Angelino, Luxe Magazine, C Magazine, and The New York Times, and Ms. Benner was a featured designer at House Beautiful Magazine Celebrity Showhouses.
MEMBER
Design Leadership Network, American Society of Landscape Architects; member and past Board Member of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America, Southern California Chapter; The Garden Club of America; The Architectural Guild, University of Southern California, Fellow of The Garden Conservancy, and Tree People, Los Angeles, California.
DESIGNING FOR FIRE RESISTANCE
Designing fire-resistant landscapes has become more important in California than ever before.
Fires have always been a natural aspect of the landscape in the state. However, climate change and expanded development into wildlife-urban interface areas have made wildfires a more prevalent danger in vulnerable residential areas.
Benner Landscape Design is well-versed in methods to create a landscape that is better able to resist the spread of fire to your home. Designing fire-resistant landscapes involves well-informed assessment of fire risks and educated planning in areas such as:
Fire-wise plant selection and strategic placement of plants and trees;
Creating defensible spaces and fire- resistant zones with stone walls, patios and roadways;
Landscape maintenance practices including reduction of flammable vegetation and efficient but effective irrigation to ensure a green belt of healthy plants.
We bring these ideas to our landscape design work in vulnerable fire areas and are happy to consult on creating a fire-resistant strategy for your garden.
SERVICES
Landscape architecture, design + construction, Master plan development
Sustainable, drought-tolerant design
Landscape decoration + furnishings
Garden management + maintenance
Aesthetic consulting