Garden Tips and Ticks

NOW THAT THINGS ARE BEGINNING TO LOOK LESS JUNGLE-LIKE around here, I’m turning my thoughts to what comes next.

You can almost see the beginnings of a landscape...

That consists mainly of keeping my eyes open as I go about my rounds, observing what others in the area are growing, and visiting nurseries (though many of the things I like best, like climbing roses and lavender, won’t work at all in my shady conditions).

Very Hamptons: climbing roses on a picket or split-rail fence

Lavender at the Amagansett Farmers Market

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I’m inspired by Dianne Benson‘s exuberant, idiosyncratic early ’90s gardening book, Dirt. She’s a onetime fashion designer/entrepreneur (I still have one of her fabulous dresses) and local gardening legend. I must admit I looked up her address and drove by the place today to see what I could see. (I felt too much like a stalker to take any pictures.)

Her house, surprisingly modest but beautifully and unconventionally landscaped, with unusual color combos (lots of purple) and dramatic, huge-leaved astilboides rimming the picket fence, is on David’s Lane in the center of the Village of East Hampton. Her previous property, about which she wrote extensively in Dirt, was on a wooded site like mine, and the book is full of plant suggestions and, more importantly, infectious enthusiasm for gardening.

Dig that crazy conifer

At the moment, though, I could use a little less of the infectious. I’ve just returned from the walk-in medical clinic in Amagansett after finding two engorged deer ticks on my body in the past couple of days. They gave me two doxycycline pills and sent me on my way.

I’ve decided not to hate deer. They’re beautiful, and it’s not their fault. It’s annoying to have to suit up in bio-hazard gear to work in my own backyard, but shorts and flip-flops just won’t cut it.