Tara Armistead in historic garden

Tara Armistead has a keen love of nature combined with an artist’s eye for detail. Her projects often span family generations, giving a quality of longevity and sustainability to her work. Her values are reflected in her home, where she has geothermal heating, a water cistern and an ever changing landscape of native plants.

She serves on the Board of The Nature Conservancy, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and The Global Advisory Board of Thistle Farms. Her small and intensive practice designs landscapes that deepen the connection between nature and culture by listening, collaborating and creating. She has worked on the design and preservation of Nashville’s largest park, and was Vanderbilt University’s first Landscape Architect.

A lush garden with various green plants, shrubs, and small trees, highlighted by sunlight. The garden includes ground cover plants, leafy bushes, and an assortment of flowering plants, creating a vibrant and natural setting.

Establishing Concept

TALA begins each project by listening to the land—its history, textures, and unique character—while also building a strong relationship with the client to uncover their needs and aspirations. Thoughtful conversations and immersive site exploration guide the design process, shaping bespoke landscapes that enrich daily life, reflect individual visions, and honor the natural beauty of the land. By blending these insights with her artistic eye and decades of experience, TALA crafts master plans that seamlessly integrate the land's past, present, and future potential. This hands-on, thoughtful approach sets TALA apart, resulting in spaces that celebrate native plants, honor history, and resonate deeply with those who experience them.

Illustrated landscape design plan with labeled areas such as a main residence, pool, terrace, sculpture meadow, potager garden, sunken garden, and great lawn. Pathways and trees are also depicted, along with nearby streets marked W. 56th Street and Grasmere Lane.
Woodland garden design featuring a pathway, a wooden arch structure, and a large stone. Plant palette includes dogwood, deciduous holly, sweetspire, coral honeysuckle, and Virginia bluebells. Architectural sketch of garden arch included.

Project Execution

TALA develops her designs by working in close collaboration with a team of artisans and scientists- including masons, woodworkers, metal workers, gardeners, ecologists, and horticulturalists. Tara personally selects native plants, materials, and elements that harmonize with the site’s environment and the client’s aesthetic. Throughout the installation process, she remains actively engaged, ensuring the vision is brought to life with the highest standard of care.

Architectural site plan with existing residence, kitchen garden, winter lodge, dairy building, smoke house, terraces, and landscaping details.

Lasting Impact

With over three decades of projects, TALA work expresses a quiet beauty and crisp restraint. Our built landscapes create simple artistic gestures and a deep commitment to environmental integrity. These spaces knit history, architecture and landscape together into a design that is both welcoming and uniquely fitting to the land.

Stone statue of a woman sitting on a rock, surrounded by greenery and white flowers in a garden setting.
Stone wall with climbing vines, decorative tiles, and a rustic two-tier water fountain; grass and trees in background.
A decorative stone pedestal on a lawn surrounded by neatly trimmed bushes and white flowering shrubs in a garden setting.