My Rented Garden: Nil to Abundance in 2 Seasons

WELL, THAT WASN’T SO BAD, WAS IT? Unless we get some late snowstorms (which have been known to happen), spring is just weeks away. My thoughts are turning to my backyard in Boerum Hill, going into its third season.

I’m a renter here, which means:

• I don’t want to spend much money
• I can’t do anything too invasive (my landlady doesn’t like it, and I’m scared of her)

But as my pictures show, you can do a lot with a little, and fast.

"Before," April 07 (note chain-link fence on right)

When I arrived in November 2006, I found a scraggly rectangle of lawn about 22′x40′. Along the back was a raised bed held back by a stacked stone wall. All totally devoid of plants, except for one glorious dogwood tree in a far corner.

May 07

The grass was bordered on one side by some phenomenal hydrangea bushes that belong to my next-door neighbors but topple into my yard, and on the other side, by a hideous, depressing, 7-foot-tall chain-link fence.

My first thought was to disguise the prison fence by lashing rolled twig fencing (useful stuff; you can buy it online) to it with cable ties.  That didn’t fool anyone, plus it blocked light.

Then I asked my next-door neighbor on the chain-link side whether he’d ever thought of removing the fence. I went out for a few hours, and when I returned, lo and behold, the hideous, depressing fence was GONE! My dear neighbor (who also mows my lawn) had done a masterful job of fence-removal in a single afternoon.

My first tentative, unimaginative step in the spring of 07 was to dig three-foot-wide planting beds around the perimeter of the rectangle, which I’ve filled in with catch-as-catch-can plants from a variety of sources:

Found plant bonanza

• donations from the generous members of the Boerum Hill neighborhood listserv — irises, buttercups, variegated hostas, and other things they had too much of in their own gardens and were dividing in spring
• plants imported from my own country casa (including catmint and lady’s mantle, my favorite combination, and ferns transplanted from the woods)
• Lowes and Home Depot specials: gallon pots of euonymous, juniper, and other small shrubs for a few bucks
• annuals from the neighborhood plant sales – the Hoyt Street Association and Cobble Hill Tree Fund both have great ones in early May
• birthday gifts (I had the nerve to send party invitations reading “No gifts – unless it’s a plant!”)
• vegetable starters from the Borough Hall Greenmarket

The first season was good; by the second season, I had color that lasted from early spring through October (someone gave me asters!) You know what they say about perennials: “The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap.” These seemed to be leaping pretty good by Year 2.

Summer 08

The color show is aided by containers of coleus and other annuals, and I cheat by placing large containers of annuals right in the beds. By mid-summer you don’t even see the pots.

It’s a north-facing garden, so it has challenges, but the sky is open. This past summer, I decided to try tomatoes for the first time. I bought two simple 4′x8′ raised-bed kits from a company in Massachusetts that makes them Colonial-style (they’re planks of cedar attached at the corners with pegs).

Then I made the classic newbie error of planting too much – 16 tomato plants, when four would have been sufficient. By August, it was out of control and an eyesore. I kept trimming and staking, trimming and staking; more trouble than it was worth. This year I’ll leave one raised bed in the sunnier position with herbs, lettuce, and a few tomatoes, and probably dismantle the other.

I’m raring to go with spring garden-cleaning. The next warmish weekend, I’m on it!

The Real Deal: Greenport Greek Revival 399K

152 Bay Avenue, Greenport, Long Island

OK, it’s the oldest real-estate cliche in the book, but this house is a gem. A Greek Revival built in 1810 by David Kendrick, a ship’s carpenter, on Long Island’s North Fork, it oozes authenticity, history and charm. It’s the real deal.

Just reduced from 459K to 399K, it’s an estate sale; proceeds will go to Cancer Care.

Picture it in summer

Its last owner, Hope Dewar Hendler, was a chic and feisty lady who worked in fashion and millinery for decades.  She continued to take the jitney from Manhattan out to her beloved Greenport cottage until shortly before she died last December at 92.

PROS: Harmonious ‘golden rectangle’ architecture (the main space is most

Picture it de-cluttered

UNclaustrophobic, about 600 square feet with windows on three sides); formal lawn and garden with boxwood hedge, side pergola over a brick patio;  tiny country kitchen; original floor, doors, and windows. Wonderful location 1/2 block off Greenport’s attractive Main Street; 1/2 block to the harbor.

CONS: Only one small bedroom downstairs, 1 dated bath.  Tiny country kitchen (yes, that’s also a pro because it’s charming as hell, but small — no reason it couldn’t be expanded, however). House needs painting inside and out.

Picture it de-toiled

There’s also an unfinished but clean attic reached by a narrow twisting stair.  Kids might enjoy sleeping up there; adults will hit their heads on the rafters.

For more info: Suzanne Hahn, Brown Harris Stevens, shahn@bhsnorthfork.com

Please note: I am NOT a real estate broker, nor do I have any financial interest in the sale of any property mentioned on this blog.  I just like spreading the word about unique, historic properties and what I believe are solid investment opportunities.

Greetings from…

The American Hotel on Main Street

I'm a sucker for turquoise doors.

Blenko glass at Neo-Studio on Madison Street

A spectacular fanlight

One of many Colonial era houses

Painting an Icon (Again and Again)

Brooklyn-based artist Robert Goldstrom has painted one building, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, 108 times and counting — in every season, weather, time of day, and from every possible angle.  Goldstrom never intended to paint one subject so obsessively, but since starting the series in 2002, he has found the 37-story Art Deco clock tower endlessly inspiring.

“As the sky and weather change, the building changes,” says Goldstrom, who lives in Clinton Hill.  “It can be warm or silvery or fogged-in, with glowing orange hands, or steam coming out the top. It can be front-lit or back-lit. Shadows pass across it.  Depending where you are standing, it can be a sliver or a massive hulk.  It has such emotional presence.”

Goldstrom (who also paints fish, people, and other Brooklyn scenes) came to Brooklyn from his native Detroit in 1979 after studying art and English at the University of Michigan.  He is represented by Brooklyn’s Underbridge Pictures and Carrie Haddad in Hudson, N.Y.

You can see a few of his ‘Bank paintings’ each weekend at the Winter Pop-Up Antiques Market in DUMBO, where his partner, David Sokosh, a restorer of antique clocks, displays them alongside his own wares.

“Brooklyn has wonderful light,” Goldstrom says. But it’s not just the quality of the light. “It’s what the light hits.”

Parlor Tricks: Bohemian Brooklyn

I’ve seen a lot of intriguing places in my work as a freelance field editor.  Some are just too quirky (read: creative, artistic) for the mainstream magazines, like this no-holds-barred riot of paint and wallpaper in a limestone townhouse in the heart of Park Slope.

It was masterminded by decorator Linda Spector of Zelda Victoria, the longstanding, beloved fabric and wallcoverings shop on Fifth Avenue and Third Street, now closed.

Have a look.  Elle Decor, you had your chance.

Note: Oval ceiling with original plaster detail; mantelpiece hand-painted by local artists.

Handpainted ‘harlequin’ walls in the middle room on the parlor floor.

The piece de resistance: a custom ceiling collage made of 10 different wallpaper patterns, mostly from Bradbury.