Making Room for ‘Cosmopolitan Plants’ Among Native Species

The naturalistic landscapes that Donald Pell creates meet with approval from such discerning constituents as pollinators and birds, and seeing and hearing their feedback delights him in return.

But when Mr. Pell begins to conceive the transformation of a space, it is always with another demographic squarely in mind, he said: “How do we make it a habitat for humans as well?”

Mr. Pell’s objective as a designer is an immersive landscape that invites us to engage — one we intuitively understand how to interact with, not simply look at.

“I want to live in these places that I can move through and explore and be in,” he said, adding that a successful landscape is “not just this thing that you see, it’s this place you live in.” We touch and smell the plants and hear the birds, he said, making “multiplicities of connections that you are now part of.”

At first glance at one of his effusive, wild-ish landscapes, an observer might guess Mr. Pell works in natives only. Though many figure in his designs, he is “not the native plant guy,” he is quick to point out — not a purist.