Meet Frederico Azevedo of Unlimited Earth Care

It is not often that you find your life’s calling even before you learn how to add and subtract, or maybe even tie your shoes. Frederico Azevedo, owner of Unlimited Earth Care headquartered in Bridgehampton, did just that. Originally from Brazil, Azevedo remembers planting fruits and vegetables when he was 5 years old at the family’s beach house.

“Since I was a kid, I was interested in nature and gardening,” says Azevedo, who studied landscape design in Brazil, England and the United States. He has been in business for 32 years and is author of the book “Bloom: The Luminous Gardens of Frederico Azevedo” (August 2019, $74 on Amazon). “Every summer, I would design the garden and decide what flowers to plant. I loved doing that.”

Azevedo, an awarding-winning landscape designer, is one of the premier landscapers in The Hamptons, Palm Beach and Miami. This is after designing all across the United States and around the world. While he still has clients in Palm Beach and Miami, he now focuses closer to his home in The Hamptons. Azevedo, who uses flowers to guide the eye through the landscape, is an advocate of the soil being the guide to the garden.

Azevedo’s designs are known for their curving, floral layers of flowers, trees, grasses, shrubs and hedges, which he combines for dramatic effect. His works also are soft and romantic, while adapting to the existing environment. He is particularly enamored of meadows and works the concept into his designs.

Currently, his schedule keeps him closer to home.

“I was so busy in The Hamptons that I had to focus most of my efforts here,” says Azevedo, who is a well-known environmentalist who helps clients understand and appreciate the versatility and beauty of meadows. “It means having less grass, along with all different kinds of flowers that bloom continuously. The more variety you have, the more you will attract different types of pollinators, which is important for a healthy ecosystem in your landscape.”

Azevedo is a strong believer that grass should be an element of the landscape, just not the primary element, but he says you can have grass in an environmentally friendly design.

“Healthy soil needs less water and less fertilization,” Azevedo explains. “The soil shouldn’t have to be modified for the plants. You should grow plants that are adapted to the soil you have. Just as you need balance in society, you need balance in nature.”

Azevedo says that a good landscape designer can look at a yard and tell if it is healthy.

“If things are growing well year after year,” Azevedo explains, “and, you don’t have to add more and more water and fertilizer each year, that is an indication your soil is healthy.”

He explained that trying to force the soil to accommodate plants that are inappropriate is when it requires more water, more fertilizer, more care. His goal is to educate the homeowner about what their particular soil needs and can support.

“There are times when you really need to call in a professional,” Azevedo says of the many calls he gets to correct mistakes from long-term misuse or abuse of the soil. “If plants are happy, they come back bigger and better each year.”

An advocate of the use of well-adapted native plants, Azevedo says that exotic plants can be used, if done wisely. He explains that includes taking into considerations the common soil types in The Hamptons: clay, fertile farmland and sand. There also are fields, woods, dunes, lakes, ponds, bays and ocean.

“We have three common ecosystems and you have to respect where you live,” says Azevedo, who works with both residential and commercial clients. “It is my responsibility to translate the homeowner’s wishes to the reality of their soil, their environment. I have clients who see plants that grow wonderfully in one place, and want them. I have to help them understand they’re not in that place. I don’t want people to be frustrated all the time, which is what happens when you plant the wrong plants for your ecosystem. You’ll spend more time watering, using more fertilizer and may have to replant.”

Azevedo is quick to explain that his goal also is to provide landscapes that allow clients to spend more time enjoying their gardens and yards, and less time maintaining them.

While he has a full plate that has him starting work at 6:30 a.m. and often not stopping until 8 p.m. or later, much of his clientele is by word of mouth.

“I have some people who may have seen my books, others who may know someone for whom I have done work,” Azevedo says. “I also have people who see me working and like what they see and stop and talk to me and start up a relationship.”

Azevedo says, even after 32 years, he still loves what he does and doesn’t see himself stopping. In addition, as an environmentalist, he understands there are challenges ahead as landscape designers must deal more with the changing climate and attitudes.

Azevedo, who opened his Bridgehampton headquarters in 2006 and The Garden Market in 2021, is a member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, the American Horticultural Society and the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons. The list of publications which have featured his work is long and includes “Architectural Digest,” “The Independent Newspapers,” “Daily Front Row Magazine,” “Behind the Hedges, ” “Garden Design Magazine”  and the internationally known “Casa & Estilo International.” The Garden Market, at 2249 Scuttle Hole Rd., offers a curated selection of native and well-adapted plants chosen for the diverse environments of The Hamptons. What’s ahead for this prize-winning landscape designer?

“I want to keep doing what I have a passion for,” says Azevedo, of working with a clientele that is in sync with his approach to landscape design. “I respect my clients and know many of them are also educated about the environment and want meadows, native plants and landscape in harmony with the ecosystem.”

Todd Shapiro is an award-winning publicist and associate publisher of Dan’s Papers.