Julie Moir Messervy

landscape designer

Julie Moir Messervy's vision for composing gardens of beauty and meaning is furthering the evolution of landscape design and changing the way people think about their outdoor surroundings. With thirty years of experience, four books and numerous high-profile lectures, Messervy has emerged as a leader of a movement in which landscape design is as much a personal journey as it is leaving a unique imprint upon the earth. She has inspired a new generation of landscape designers, homeowners and others to create soulful gardens that reflect an inward vision deeply rooted in outdoor archetypes, childhood imagination and aesthetic impulses. A celebrated author, Messervy's first book, Contemplative Gardens (Howell Press, 1990), was named one of the ten best garden books of the year by The New York Times. Her second book, The Inward Garden (Little, Brown and Company, 1995), won the Garden Writers Association of America Gold Medal in 1996. Her third book, The Magic Land, was proclaimed a delight by Yo-Yo Ma and a companion for inspired daydreaming by The Boston Globe. Messervy's latest book, written in partnership with architect Sarah Susanka, Outside the Not So Big House, (The Taunton Press, 2006) is a consistent best seller on Amazon.com and ranked at the top of bookseller lists in Canada. In 1999, Messervy completed the award-winning Toronto Music Garden; a collaboration with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the City of Toronto to create a three-acre public park based on the First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello by J.S. Bach. The six garden movements mirror the form, feeling and structure of the famous composition. Messervy and the Toronto Music Garden are the subject of the Emmy award-winning PBS film, Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach: The Music Garden. In 2005, the Toronto Music Garden received a Leonardo Da Vinci award for innovation and creativity. Messervy is the honored recipient of the Association for Professional Landscape Designer's 2006 Award of Distinction. In 2005, she was awarded the Great American Gardeners Award for Landscape Design by the American Horticultural Society. She is a regular contributor to Fine Gardening magazine with her column, Inspired Design. Her design work and books have been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Japan Times, The Washington Post, House & Garden, Country Living Gardener, Elle, Decor, Vogue, Garden Design, Landscape Architecture and numerous other leading newspapers and magazines around the world. She has appeared on WGBH's Victory Garden, NECN's New England Dream House and public radio stations across the nation. Julie is an affiliate member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Messervy has lectured at distinguished venues such as the Smithsonian Institution, The National Geographic Society and the Getty Museum. Her imaginative landscape design work has delighted clients including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Marshall Field's, Fidelity Investments, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and scores of residential clients. As a Henry Luce Scholar and as a Japan Foundation Fellow, Messervy studied landscape design with eminent Japanese garden master Kinsaku Nakane in Kyoto, Japan. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wellesley College, and Master of Architecture and Master in City Planning degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.