Susan Cohen is known for the use of natural materials in her elegantly designed residential landscapes, as well as for the two celebrated exhibition gardens she created for The New York Botanical Garden: Momijigari – The Japanese Autumn Garden, and Sculptures from the Museum of Modern Art. She also co-designed the Garden’s Kiku show, which celebrated the importance of meticulously trained chrysanthemums in Japanese culture.

Born with a designer’s eye, and inheriting her father’s engineering aptitude, Susan Cohen discovered landscape architecture after graduating from Smith College with honors in English literature. She did further studies at Yale, the New York Botanical Garden and the City College of New York, from which she received her degree in landscape architecture.

A lecturer and long-time teacher, she is the Coordinator of the Landscape Design Program at the New York Botanical Garden and is the founding coordinator of their acclaimed Landscape Design Portfolio Series, which, since 1998, has brought outstanding landscape architects from around the world to share their design visions with a New York audience.

In 2015, Timber Press published her book, The Inspired Landscape: Twenty-one Leading Landscape Architects Explore the Creative Process, a generously illustrated landmark study of the varied sources of design inspiration in the work of landscape architects practicing today.

Susan Cohen’s work has won multiple awards and has been featured on garden tours as well as in many publications. She draws inspiration from her professional training, her experience as a home gardener, the hundreds of gardens she has visited throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, and from the aspirations of her clients. All of her designs respond the particular nature of each site.

A Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, she serves on that organization’s Education Advisory Committee. She is also a Trustee Emerita of Smith College and a member of the Board of Advisors of The New York Botanical Garden. In 2021 she was made an Honorary Member of the Garden Club of America.

Her studio is in Riverside, Connecticut.