Press & Praise

AWARDS

The Association of Professional Landscape Designers awarded the Lakefront Idyll Project a 2024 Gold Award in Planting Design and the Rambunctious Garden Project a 2020 design award.

APLD AWARDS

Aerial view of a lakeside property with a large house, patio with table and chairs, and landscaped garden surrounded by trees with fall foliage in Carmel, New York.

A scenic garden pathway with stepping stones leading through lush green plants and flowering shrubs, enclosed by a wooden fence, with a stone wall and trees in the background.

ASLA AWARD

The Rambunctious Garden Project was awarded a 2022 design award from the American Society of Landscape Architects, New York Chapter.

A circular garden bed with assorted green plants and flowers, featuring a large gray rock in the center, surrounded by stone pathway.

PRESS

Design Courier

“When Jean-Marc Flack, founder of Hortulus Animae, arrived to restore the property, he approached it not as a relic to be frozen in time but as a palimpsest – a manuscript overwritten through the centuries, whose earlier traces could guide a contemporary reading of the landscape. “We started with a meticulous inventory of every planting and hardscape element, determining what was historically meaningful, what could be reinterpreted, and what needed to be removed to make space for a stronger narrative,” he explains.”
Click here to read the article.

Surface Magazine

“As natural landscapes are destroyed and biodiversity declines over time, people lose the collective memory of what a healthier, more diverse environment once looked like. Symptoms include reduced connection to nature and lack of awareness regarding environmental degradation.

Sustainable landscape design addresses this issue by replacing degraded, high-maintenance landscapes (like vast, mono-cultural lawns) with resilient, biodiverse, and educational environments.”
Click here to read the article.

“A big part of our role as designers is helping clients rethink outdated notions of what a “beautiful” landscape looks like—showing that biodiversity and elegance are not mutually exclusive, but can be deeply intertwined.”
Click here to read the article.

Gardenista Quick Takes

A person standing in a lush, green landscape with tall trees, rocks, and mountains in the background, under a partly cloudy sky.

Upstate Dairy Nº18

A split-page image with a close-up of white wildflowers on the left, and a portrait of an older man wearing a straw hat, sunglasses, and a denim shirt outdoors on the right.

“Every project is an opportunity to promote biodiversity. The more plants you put in, the more carbon is pulled out of the atmosphere, the more habitat you’re creating for pollinators.”
Click here to read the article.

Open magazine spread with a large photo of a sunlit meadow with wildflowers on the left and a close-up of yellow flowers on the right.

A black and white photograph showing a person's hands holding a small clump of soil and plant material, with blurred grass in the background.

“In the opinion of Jean-Marc Flack, part of the problem with climate change is that there’s a disconnect from nature and a kind of collective amnesia around the issue. And further exacerbating the situation is rampant deforestation and the cutting down of meadow based staples like milkweed.” Link

Upstate Dairy Nº20

Garden+Design+Journal+October+2020.png — GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL

Some gardens begin with a blank slate. The Rambunctious Garden in New York State started out as a “disaster moonscape” of boulders after ecological landscape designer Jean-Marc Flack’s clients blasted the foundations of their new house out of solid rock. The concept of the Rambunctious Garden, in part inspired by the book of the same name by Emma Marris, drove both the design aesthetic and the plant selection of this garden.

THE JOURNAL NEWS, LIFE & STYLE

For the last seven years — after way too long in New York — Jean-Marc Flack has been creating a wonderful garden in Carmel that now fully surrounds the charming 1790 farmhouse he shares with his husband, the choreographer Stephen Petronio…

by Bill Cary, Journal News

What People Are Saying

“This design (Lakefront Idyll Project) is all about evolving from the place, and it’s done beautifully. The final shapes are inspired not only by the surrounding landscape but also culturally, from the previous architecture, both in form and material. Sensitivity to the environment is infused throughout the design." –APLD

“Jean-Marc melds his exquisite eye for design and a passion for sustainable ecology in landscape work that seamlessly integrates beauty and function.”—Vicky Lowry, Special Projects Director, Architectural Digest

“I just wanted to let you know how pleased Susan and I are with your efforts on our terrace. The plants have grown lush and it seems like every week there is a new bit of color sprouting somewhere. I know that nature takes time but on the other hand, good taste is timeless and your good taste is evidenced each day. I didn’t want the summer to go by without acknowledging our satisfaction. Thank you.”— Alan, West Village Penthouse Terrace Client

“Jean-Marc Flack has a rare combination of expansive vision, exquisite taste and exemplary attention to detail. We have worked with him for six years now and he has never failed to create magic and add value to our property. Our work is ongoing....”—David Lewis, Carmel NY Client