Birch and Basil Design is a boutique landscape design firm based in New York City that creates beautifully curated outdoor spaces. We believe nature and landscapes provide life changing benefits.
You might say we’re obsessed with quality. We hand select plants from top quality growers for our installations, build planters, pergolas, landscape elements and bespoke structures out of stylish and long lasting materials, and care for gardens with an all organic approach.
The principal, Kristin Monji, brings a California sensibility to East Coast gardens, having spent her formative years climbing trees and exploring orange groves in Southern California. Kristin is a landscape designer, horticulturist and certified arborist from Orange County, California. She is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine. Her partner, Cory, is a former mechanical engineer and graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. He wears many hats in the business, and also works as a photographer.
We design, install and care for gardens in New York City and the surrounding tri-state area. We take pride in our creative horticultural artistry and in providing the highest level of service tailored to each garden and client. In addition to landscape and garden design, we offer the following related services: landscape lighting, drip irrigation, pergola design, outdoor kitchens, backyard and patio design and rooftop and terrace design. We are specialists in rooftop, terrace, townhouse and urban backyard gardens and in creating spaces for outdoor living and dining. We’d love to work with you to create the landscape of a lifetime.
Fasano Fifth Avenue’s penthouse terrace was designed in a modern classic style that look inspiration from architect Thierry Despont. Upper East Side meets resort living. One of our favorite details are the umbrellas, perfect for getting that resort-like rooftop as they offer shade and privacy to enjoy the panoramic views of Central Park.
The design challenge for this terrace in Tribeca was to incorporate as much seating and storage as possible for a client who frequently entertains. Because of the narrow dimensions, we built custom furniture and a storage unit to take advantage of every inch, tailoring everything to fit the space like a made to measure suit. The end result makes the space feel much larger, more useable and significantly more comfortable like it’s truly an extension of the rest of the apartment.
This Brooklyn Heights townhouse got the full outdoor renovation treatment that included a new patio, custom built in cedar seating and planters, an outdoor kitchen with soapstone counters and a cozy raised seating area/deck under a fifty year old dogwood tree. We kept some of the mature plantings and layered in lots of new perennials and larger pieces to complete the look.
Wrap around ipe fencing and custom ipe planters along with the bespoke pergola create a lush outdoor room framed by floor to ceiling glass windows and doors, blurring the lines between indoors and out. Limelight hydrangeas, Japanese maples, laurels, azaleas and heucheras anchor this shade tolerant plant palette.
When she’s not running her own company, this client practices yoga and eats meals with her kids out here. A fully automated irrigation system keeps all the plants cared for during frequent trips and vacations so she never need worry. Seasonal plantings provide touches of color and additional interest throughout the year, so there’s something new for each season.
This young family wanted to create an outdoor room they could enjoy year round as much as possible. The design challenge here were upstairs neighbors whose cigarette butts made their way down onto this terrace, making it a problematic play area for the couple’s 2-year old daughter. The solution was building a custom sloped pergola with planters to anchor it, and including a clear, reinforced roof that could be hosed down to remove debris. Lighting, plantings and furniture complete the space as an outdoor living room.
This young couple loves to entertain, so plenty of seating and a large communal table was a must. The plantings were designed to be all green and all about the grasses for a relaxed, beachy feel.
Front and rear yards were both transformed to maximize the outdoor space and make them better fit this young family’s needs. One of the unique features are the custom stroller sheds and ramp for the front yard to make getting in and out with the kids a breeze.
This fourth-floor rooftop space in the heart of the Upper East Side provides a respite for the hospital’s staff to recharge and relax. Most of the plants selected for this space are edible, so there are herbs, fruit, and leafy greens available for staff and used for cooking classes. Workshops, meetings, yoga and wellness classes can all happen out here in the great outdoors right in the middle of NYC. Watch this Inspiring video of the daily 7pm cheer for health care workers during April 2020 that took place here.
City retreat for two artists and their family. We kept some of the original touches like the brick and went for bold plantings and the tallest ivy we could find to make this feel like a verdant secret garden. The landscape lighting is magical at night.
When this Park Slope family isn’t sailing around the world, they can unwind in their fully renovated outdoor space. The centerpiece of this garden is a modern hedge that acts as part privacy screen, part green oasis. The stand alone structure in the rear attractively stores the family’s sailing equipment in between trips.
