A first plan,
drawn by hand.
Two ways to begin. The Drop is a ninety-minute on-site consultation with a licensed landscape architect, followed by a hand-drawn sketch and a curated plant palette for your home. A commission is the whole plan, drawn and documented. From a practice shaped by work for the Aga Khan in Edmonton, Memorial Park in Houston, and Kings Cross in London. By appointment, for Westchester.
The Drop: one visit, one sketch, one garden plan.
Ninety minutes on the property with a licensed landscape architect. A hand-drawn sketch, a curated plant palette, and a private webpage that holds them.
Ninety minutes on your property. We walk the land and talk through what you want.
A hand-drawn plan of what your space could become. Considered, balanced, drawn for your house.
A curated list of plants suited to your light, soil, and site conditions. Quantities, bloom timing, and referrals to where to find them.
A private webpage: the sketch, the palette, photographs, and guidance on what to plant and when. Yours to return to.
Home on Doris Drive
Crepe myrtle, limelight hydrangeas, sedum, and a white pebble bed at the front of the house.
Transforming a hodgepodge of beds, rethought as a single garden. The front of the house was organized and simplified — a calm, native composition, with each plant placed where it belonged.
The Drop is defined as much by what it leaves out.
A Drop is not a full engagement. It does not include construction drawings, permit filings, contractor bidding, or site supervision, and it is not a maintenance contract.
It is the first move — the vision, the plan, the plant list, the page — in a month rather than two seasons. From there you take it forward, with your gardener, or with anyone you choose. When a property asks for more than a first move, Ink draws the whole thing.
Some gardens want more than a first move.
Ink is a licensed landscape architecture practice. For a small number of properties each year, we carry a project from first concept through the full set of drawings — grading, terraces, pool and pavilion, planting, materials, lighting — coordinating with your architect, engineer, and builder from the survey to the last plant.
It is design-led work. Not a landscape company with a design department, and not a nursery drawing plans to sell plants. Here the drawing is the practice, which is why there are only ever a few projects at a time.
Begin a conversationSelected work, from a longer career.
Sandra Nam Cioffi began in fragrance, trained in landscape, and is home again.
Sandra graduated from the University of Chicago and earned her Master of Landscape Architecture from Virginia Tech.
A first career in fragrance — at Givaudan and Beauté Prestige International, the perfumery house behind Jean Paul Gaultier and Issey Miyake.
A second career as a licensed landscape architect at Nelson Byrd Woltz and Margie Ruddick Landscape, where she was Lead Designer on the Garden of Light at the Aga Khan Centre in Kings Cross, served on the team for the Aga Khan Garden in Edmonton, and was the Project Manager on the Eastern Glades at Memorial Park in Houston.
Ink, founded in 2020, is the third. A licensed practice serving the homes of Westchester, by appointment.
Read the full story“A good garden begins with one decision made well. The rest follows from there — slowly, over seasons, in the way the best things do.”
On the visit
A Drop is ninety minutes on the property, once. The sketch, the plant palette, and the page follow within one month. A commission begins the same way — a walk and a conversation — but the visits keep going: survey, design reviews, and site meetings through construction.
On execution
After a Drop, we can recommend trusted gardeners, installers, and nurseries in Westchester, and the execution relationship stays yours to hold. On a full commission, we carry it ourselves — drawings, bidding, and site visits through to planting.
On scope
The Drop is the considered vision — the part that matters most — in a month. A commission runs on a different clock: village or town approvals, permit filings, and coordination with your architect, engineer, and surveyor. A year from first sketch to first planting is normal, and often longer, since approvals move at the town’s pace rather than ours. Most houses want the first; some properties want the second.
On the fee
The Drop is a fixed fee, quoted when you enquire and payable on booking. A commission is quoted phase by phase, after a first conversation and a walk of the property, so each stage is agreed before it begins.
On geography
Drops: Bronxville, Edgemont, Larchmont, Rye, Hartsdale, and the surrounding villages, with a modest travel fee beyond a fifteen-minute radius. Commissions travel further.
On the page
The page belongs to The Drop: twelve months included. A commission is delivered in drawings instead, a full set issued to you and your builder.
Begin the conversation.
Send a note with your address and a few words about your property. A response within one business day.
Send a note