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Landscape designer Anna Aquino at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Her favorite public garden in Richmond: the VMFA hillside. “I love sitting in the sunshine with my dogs, surveying the people and listening to the cascading waterfall,” Aquino says. (Photo by DeAudrea Rich)
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Favorite garden planters: Aquino works with Bryan Puckett, PLA, and Julio Mojica of Terra Forma Landscaping to bring her garden designs to life. (Photo by DeAudrea Rich)
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Favorite design element: “Sightlines. They begin with an observer’s eye, often through a door or a window, and follow a straight path to something interesting,” says Aquino. (Photo by DeAudrea Rich)
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Favorite cutting flower: “That depends on what mood I’m in,” Aquino says. “I enjoy how bold dahlias are — they are so preposterous in their glamour, their shocking size and their colors.” (Photo by Mark James/Unsplash)
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Favorite native plant: the American sycamore tree. “Near the intersection of Riverside Drive and 21st Street, there are several insanely white ones," Aquino says. "Their dangling fruits are like ornaments." (Photo courtesy Anna Aquino)
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Favorite local plant resource: Sneed’s Nursery “has really set itself apart,” Aquino says. “They are the loveliest people, and they actively work to eliminate the planting of invasive plants.” (Photo by DeAudrea Rich)
A passion for the outdoors was instilled in Anna Aquino at a young age.
Aquino, who has practiced landscape architecture in Richmond and around Virginia for more than 25 years, learned about nature — as well as art and design — from her father, who had an architecture firm in Petersburg. “I combined these pursuits to craft the perfect career for me,” she says.
She received an undergraduate degree in environmental studies from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in horticulture from Virginia Tech, followed by a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. After interning with Henrico-based Ralph Higgins Landscape Architects (now HG Design Studio), she struck out on her own.
Working primarily for private residences, one of her favorite projects was overseeing the landscape design for the 2006 restoration of a Tudor Revival mansion on Cary Street Road. “It was an unlimited exercise in fun, with no limits on creativity,” she says.
Aquino also works with several Richmond-based nonprofits: Challenge Discovery Projects, Capital Trees and the James River Park System’s Invasive Plant Task Force. She designed and implemented the Boxwood Garden Club’s children’s garden at the Peter Paul Development Center in Richmond’s East End, which received the Garden Club of Virginia’s 2019 Common Wealth Award.
When it comes to hiring a landscape architect, Aquino advises clients to look for a professional who is formally trained in thinking spatially. Once the project begins, the sky’s the limit as to what can be accomplished, she says. “The practitioner can tailor it to your liking in innumerable ways. This field is half art and half science — half solitary and half collaborative.”
Presently, the designer is focused on advancing the sustainable and organic movement in its application to landscape design. “I want to turn conventional landscape maintenance on its ear by taking more pages from Mother Nature’s handbook,” Aquino says. “As wildlife ecologist Doug Tallamy says, ‘We have got to start thinking about what gardens do — not just what they look like.’ I’m excited about being part of the solution and not the problem.”
