LOCATION Raleigh, N.C.
COMPANY Myatt Landscaping and Construction
DETAILS When thinking of beautiful landscaping sites, an old steel mill and waste management warehouse likely don’t come to mind.
That was the challenge Myatt Landscaping faced with the Raleigh Iron Works site; a property with a long manufacturing history now turned into a multi-use development.
Balancing that industrial aesthetic with an inviting, native landscape was the goal, and Kate Watts, horticulturist for Myatt, says a lot of work was done to provide a full sensory experience with a variety of colors, textures and sounds from the surrounding vegetation.
“We have a courtyard area where we have vines growing up the beams. It provides a wonderful kind of abandoned warehouse look, but also just a very inviting space on the interior of the building,” Watts says. “And they left a lot of the original beams exposed, so there’s a lot of old with new.”
She says a lot of work goes into finding the best and most resilient indigenous plants to use, something that is extra important due to the site’s lack of an irrigation system.
Watts also says the project was a group effort from start to finish, and that collaboration culminated in Myatt securing a gold award from the National Association of Landscape Professionals’ 2024 Awards of Excellence program.
