It all started when Frederico Azevedo was a child.
A vegetable garden at his childhood home in Brazil would spark his interest in what would become his lifelong career as a landscape designer. His journey has taken him all the way to the United Kingdom, to New York City and then to Bridgehampton, where he operates Unlimited Earth Care. Now, he will celebrate his achievements by showcasing them in a book titled “Bloom: The Luminous Gardens of Frederico Azevedo.”
“Bloom” came together in one year, but it has been an idea for seven. At a designers dinner in Paris, Mr. Azevedo sat next to founder of Pointed Leaf Press, Suzanne Slesin.
“You should have your book,” Ms. Slesin told Mr. Azevedo.
The book will be published by Pointed Leaf Press on Saturday, June 22, and will, according to the publisher, explore “the hallmarks of an Azevedo garden, featuring his signature curving, floral borders, and his creative integration of native or well-adapted plants.” The book is divided into chapters with stories and pictures of his landscaping designs. But, the chapters will not be just about his projects; the book will be about how he “envisions landscaping projects.”
Mr. Azevedo has been designing landscapes for decades, but one aspect of his design that always stuck was the color, no matter where he designed it. Each project he does is personal to the client, the landscape and architecture, with a hint of his own style.
“Even though you don’t notice you have a style, in the end of it, you have a style,” Mr. Azevedo said. “Because I’ve been doing this for like 30 years and I would say [my style] is to mix colors, textures, heights and a lot of varieties.”
Mr. Azevedo established his hallmark early on. Not only did he have a knack for creating art with nature, he was inspired by the environment around him.
“I always remember doing a vegetable garden at my parents’ house and then growing a little bit more, moving plants around, switch them to look better,” Mr. Azevedo said. “I always see myself as a natural gardener.”
He found inspiration in the formation of Flamenco Park in Rio De Janeiro and Brasília, the capital of Brazil that was founded in 1960 and developed by modern architects and landscape designers.
“All this movement of modernization and culmination of landscaping is what attracted me to the arts of architecture and landscaping,” Mr. Azevedo said.
As an adult, Mr. Azevedo went on to study landscape design in Brazil and then at the University of Oxford. When he came to the United States in the 1990s, he had almost accepted a position at a New York City landscape design company that had a Japanese style, which interested him because Brazil and Japan have very close relations.
Yet, Mr. Azevedo would find himself pursuing an opportunity in the Hamptons. In 1993, he would launch his business, Unlimited Earth Care, and in 2006, he would open his very own garden concept store in Bridgehampton.
“I’m really fascinated by the Hamptons,” Mr. Azevedo said. “It’s the combination of different landscapes that we have. We have farm fields, woods and we have the shore, so we have these three types of environments, one next to the other, and I find that very fascinating.”
Mr. Azevedo hopes that readers of his upcoming book will be inspired by nature itself, becoming more respectful of the environment and to create “ecosystems in their own backyard.”
He prioritizes using natural and well adapted species to create ecosystems that require less water and “can take care of themselves.” After all, he has watched nature grow into what he imagined over and over again.
“When you finish a landscaping project, that’s a beginning for a whole creation,” Mr. Azevedo said. He later added: “They’re going to have a whole texture; they’re going to be combined. Every element will have their own space.”
Frederico Azevedo will celebrate the release of “Bloom: The Luminous Gardens of Frederico Azevedo” on Saturday, June 22, at Unlimited Earth Care, 2249 Scuttle Hole Road, Bridgehampton, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. RSVP to info@unlimitedearthcare.com.
Staff Writer on Jun 10, 2019