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THIS IS WHERE I cut my gardening teeth: the 21′x35′ backyard on Verandah Place in Cobble Hill where we lived for twenty years, above, as it looked in May/ June.
We inherited a graceful Japanese maple, a stand of honeysuckle (abelia ‘Francis Mason,’ I later learned), and climbing hydrangea that served to disguise a rusted chain-link fence. There were a few slabs of slate on the ground, which we gradually expanded to a good-sized patio, with pieces salvaged from vacant lots in Red Hook and contributions from friends (I remember one summer night being surprised by a delivery of bluestone slabs from a friend who saw them going begging someplace).
We added a small wrought iron balcony and steps going down into the garden from the parlor floor, and had some old-school masons build steps and a landing with bricks and railroad ties — nothing elaborate — leading down to the well area.
Little by little, through trial and error, I learned how to create a garden. The main challenge: excessive shade. Though south-facing, sun was limited by gargantuan ailanthus trees in the neighboring yards.
A couple of the principles that served me well:
- Use variegated foliage – that is, shade-tolerant plants that don’t flower showily but have green and white foliage to bring light to dark corners of the garden, e.g. ‘striped’ hosta, caladium bulbs, variegated lirope (the festive-looking silver stuff in the left foreground below), vinca and ivy - anything at all that comes ‘variegated.’
Below: The white feathery plumes on the right (there’s a purple one too) are astilbe — shade-tolerant, reliable, ironclad.
- Limit color for cohesiveness. I stuck to a palette of blue, purple, pink and white. Very little orange, red or yellow, a situation partially dictated by circumstances; most hot-colored flowers require a lot of sun.
Most satisfying: oak leaf hydrangea along the back line of the property. Three plants (expensive at the time; about $50 each) grew in a couple of years to create three-season glory, with huge, neat, colorful leaves and massive white panicles from June until frost.
See below for more plant suggestions. Any and all of these are recommended for Brooklyn backyards; they’re foolproof and readily available.
Below, left to right: chartreuse andromeda, Japanese fern, ‘money plant’ (those purplish flowers will turn to dry, translucent, coin-like things come fall), the blue spikes of ajuga, all under a climbing hydrangea, soon to flower white.
Below, a deep shade corner, with (left to right) the round glossy leaves of European ginger, Japanese fern, small leaved ivy and small-leaved chartreuse hosta, and yellow-tipped houtonia — pretty, with white flowers, but invasive — you have to be prepared to pull it out where you don’t want it. The cardboard is from a package of caladiums, to remind me where I planted them (they don’t show up till July).
Below, my favorite afternoon reading spot. Left to right: pink creeping phlox; white ‘starry eyes,’ a sun-loving groundcover; the remainder of some pink bleeding heart (easy, showy, great for shade); small white flowering bulbs (the name escapes me – anyone?); variegated hosta; blue wood hyacinth in the background.
This last picture, below, is a bit earlier in the season — late April. The hostas are just coming in. The fuchsia azalea was too gaudy for me; I got rid of it. In the foreground, you can see brownish huechera (coral bells), more ‘starry eyes,’ yellow-flowering lamium or dead nettle, and some tiny hybrid tulips on long thin stems — ordered early on from a bulb catalogue, they came back year after year, providing great pleasure.
Mind you, these are all perennials, not annuals. They don’t flower all season, just for a few weeks. But you plant them once and have them for years with no additional effort or expense. Perennials are the way to go if you’ll be staying put for any length of time. You can divide them in spring or fall to create more of the same, and take some with you if you move.
SO MANY INTRIGUING THINGS cross my desk (or inbox) that I’d like to share, but I already have 50-plus drafts for blog posts and it’s getting out of hand.
So I’m going to try something new on the weekends: a round-up of short items of interest (usually Saturday, but this week Sunday, because I had a pre-move stoop sale yesterday that kept me away from the computer).
Let me know what you think.
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1863 CATSKILLS FARMHOUSE AND BARN
This is what you can get in Roxbury, N.Y. (2-1/2 hours from the GWB) for $599K: 13 acres in a serene valley with non-stop views in all directions, plus rolling pastures, stone walls, deeded rights to 3-acre pond, and a 19th century dairy barn.
Don’t want to renovate? You don’t have to. The 4BR, 2 bath farmhouse is fully restored with all new mechanicals, high-end kitchen (Wolf range, etc.), original cabinetry, hardware and floors.
The whole set-up (including the barn) is “triple mint.”
Go here for details and lots more pics.
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OLD FLORIDA LIVES: MAGIC CITY FARM
South Beach not your style? Stay at Magic City Farm in Miami’s Little Haiti section, where a cluster of 1918 cottages and a boathouse along the Little River is available for rentals, as it has been for decades.
A onetime citrus farm, now owned by former New Yorker Tamara Hendershot, it’s also an animal rescue farm, quirky sculpture garden, popular spot for photo shoots, and celebrity draw (David Byrne and photographer Cindy Sherman have spent the day).
For more info, click here.
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HUDSON VALLEY GARDEN TALK
The Beatrix Farrand Garden Association sponsors a series of garden lectures at the home of FDR in Hyde Park, N.Y., made more delightful by wine and hors d’oeuvres, or tea and cake, served in the garden afterwards. Upcoming this spring:
Tulipomania: Banking with Bulbs During the Golden Age of Dutch Culture, April 26 at 2pm
Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement, June 7 at 2pm
For complete info, go here.
I LOVE PLAYING TOURIST in my own neighborhood. Last Sunday, the first of true spring, my friend Nancy and I strolled down to the farthest reaches of Carroll Gardens, into what was, until recently, a sketchy wasteland of mostly marginal storefronts, perilously close to the BQE.
It was always obvious that the area would one day turn. There have been inroads, like the overdone but endearing Le Petit Cafe. But in the last few months, downturn or no, the area seems to have reached some new critical mass of chic.
Prime Meats, quiet on a Sunday afternoon
Why, it’s almost a neighborhood unto itself, in need of a name, bounded roughly by Clinton and Smith, 4th Place and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. SoCaGa (South Carroll Gardens) has no ring to it. NoReHo (North Red Hook)? DUBQE (Down Under the BQE)?
We were headed to Buttermilk Channel for brunch, or so we thought. We walked south from Dean Street on Smith, which has been pretty much over for me since Uncle Pho closed in 2002 (French-Vietnamese restaurant owned by Alan Harding, with the BEST vintage wallpaper and watermelon martinis).
I had my first look at the new Transit Garden at the corner of 2nd and Smith. Initially, my eye objected to the massive cobblestone planters, which seemed crowded and disproportionate, but then I read the sign and realized it’s a community garden, with individuals tending each planter. Then it made more sense.
Next, I noticed something I’d passed a thousand times and never saw: an auto body shop on the corner of Smith and 3rd, which has a 1920s upper story with a Mediterranean tile awning, disguised behind a coat of battleship gray.
We headed up to Court and found Buttermilk Channel a madhouse of families eating Easter lunch. We put our names on the list, then checked out Store 518, a vintage-style general store full of penny candy in old showcases, on the one hand, and an outpost for fashion designer Nadia Tarr of Butter on the other.
Decided to blow off the crowd scene and happened into Prime Meats, whose glossy new storefront beckoned from the corner of Court Street and 4th Place.
To sit in a wooden booth under a tin ceiling, with sunlight streaming in and a glass of dry sparkling German wine, is a delightful way to pass part of a Sunday afternoon. But we decided against eating there because they don’t have eggs on the menu and we wanted eggs.
So we headed to the old standby, Cafe Luluc, where I had my usual eggs Florentine.
On the way, I spotted two adjoining buildings on Carroll, with floral motifs etched into the brownstone (rare in these parts), and a pair of unusual cornices that totally say Eastlake.
Back on Smith, I pondered the nagging question: Why aren’t there any trees? Why must Smith Street be so barren, so willfully UGLY? Why doesn’t someone DO something (merchants’ association, e.g.)? Court is by far the more attractive, mainly because of the trees.
The final, serendipitous stop of the afternoon was the Invisible Dog gallery/thrift/design shop. We were lured in to the Bergen Street storefront by a wooden sign against a building that, once again, despite 30 years of residence nearby, I never noticed. Turns out it’s a former factory, where a popular novelty item — the ‘Invisible Dog’ leash (you remember those) — was made. Now it’s an art gallery as well as the future location of artists’ studios and a rooftop garden, and a temporary, weekend-only store selling utilitarian items like desks, clocks, and metal objects found in this very building — all masterminded by Lucien Zayan, recently arrived from Paris, and Muriel Guepin, a former financial analyst.
What an adventure! You could do worse than follow our itinerary this coming weekend. But make a reservation at Buttermilk Channel (parties of 5 or more).
Brownstone Voyeur is a joint project of casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. Look for it every Thursday on both sites.
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THE FIRST THING Amy Samelson did when she bought this Pacific Street co-op seven years ago was “strip everything as bare as possible.”
Amy, an interior designer whose work includes both commercial and residential projects, immediately did away with “every annoying piece of door hardware, bad lighting fixture, and switch plate.” She also pulled off cheap parquet flooring in the living room and ugly ceramic tiles in the kitchen and bath.
‘Annoying’ was probably the least of it. All the different materials had the effect of visually chopping up the diminutive 500 square feet on the third floor of a brownstone where Amy lived and worked until recently (she has since relocated in the neighborhood).
“It was small space broken down further,” she recalls. “I made every effort to create one unified space, without a lot of finicky detailing.” To that end, she painted all the walls off-white, including the handsomely textured brick wall in the living room. She did the same to existing baseboards and moldings so they would, as she puts it, “visually fall away.”
To further make the apartment all of a piece, Amy installed sea grass carpeting, a natural water-repellent material, throughout the apartment, even in the kitchen area and bath.
The effect is pared down and serene, neither particularly minimal nor coldly modern, with warmth and variation from differently textured surfaces, like the white-painted brick wall, sisal carpet, and stainless steel table used as a desk.
Furnishings are few but iconic, including an Alvar Aalto chair, George Nelson side table and sculptural African wood stool.
In the living room, a simple box spring and mattress with a canvas slipcover from IKEA doubled as a sofa and guest bed. Even mundane objects like CDs and media components have “color and size relationships and form,” Amy says, and are candidates for open display.
Orderly open shelves reflect Amy’s belief that objects like books and file boxes “can be an artful expression, if arranged beautifully. It’s an upfront organization effort,” she says, “but once you’ve done it, it functions day by day.
A stainless steel table from a restaurant supply store served as both desk and dining table. Standing lamps create intimacy. “You don’t want light from the ceiling coming down on people’s heads.”
In the bedroom, below, translucent door panels, with hardware of brushed stainless steel, enhance the illusion of spaciousness. The bedroom closet wall was painted dark khaki; linen drapes in lieu of closet doors add texture and save space.
On the rear deck, below, Amy upholstered a wide platform with tailored cushions and affixed a pivoting market umbrella. Pots of ornamental grasses can winter outdoors.
Large photos courtesy Amy Samelson
Small photos by John Bessler for Better Homes & Gardens magazine
See how designer Amy Samelson made the most of 500 square feet!
Brownstone Voyeur is a joint project of casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.
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