SO I HAD THREE EVERGREENS planted in the front yard to screen the view of the road. Of course, they don’t screen the whole view of the road, just a bit of it. But as the guy from Whitmore’s, the tree farm, said, “It’s a start.”

I’m glad it’s warm and raining now. Two 8-foot trees (a thuja ‘Green Giant’ and a white pine) and a 4-foot-round holly bush that looks like a boxwood (ilex crennata) — in the photo below, it’s the three in the middle ground — went in December 10. Very late, I thought, but there hadn’t been a freeze. That night it went down to 22 degrees.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the way they put them in. I didn’t get the positioning advice I hoped for from the nursery (the boss showed up late), so I had to decide myself where to put them, while four guys with shovels waited. I’d been weighing the factors for two weeks (the need to obscure the commercial building across the street, relate to plants and trees already in place, get enough sun, have room to grow, etc.). It was a tad nerve-wracking, but I think it turned out OK. There seems to be some kind of balance there. And I feel less exposed already. $500 well spent.

I can’t imagine the roots, still in their burlap sacks (said to degrade) are very happy. The workers didn’t seem to dig holes as wide as “the books” say. It was cold, it was late, the guys were no doubt tired. They wouldn’t have watered at all if I hadn’t had several buckets (pots, wastebaskets) at the ready.

But when Brendan, the boss, showed up, he was all professional and confident about flying in the face of what the books say about planting season, depth of hole, width of hole, and need for water.

Oh, and the soil’s no good. I’ll do something about that in the spring.

Anyway, they’re guaranteed.

View from the road:

YOU HAVE TO SEE IT to believe it. I once drove to Bay Ridge specifically looking for this odd Arts and Crafts-style house I’d heard about, just to prove to myself such a thing could exist in Brooklyn. It does.

Now it’s on the market for the first time since the 1980s. If it brings its asking price of $12 million (highly unlikely), that would set a record for the borough. Designed by James Sarsfield Kennedy in 1917 and built of uncut stone, its most amazing feature is the roof, which looks a lot like a thatched roof on an English cottage out of the Doomsday Book, but is in fact artfully rounded asphalt shingle.

People have taken to calling it the Gingerbread House for some stupid reason. The 5,800-square-foot, 6 BR house, on 1 acre near New York Harbor, is coffered and paneled, with huge fireplaces, a “fountain room,” whatever that is, a chauffeur’s room, a theatre and more. For more info and pictures, see the realtor’s listing.

A New York City landmark, it was originally built for a shipping magnate and has been owned for the past 25 years by Jerry Fishman, who grew up in the neighborhood and wanted to own the house since he was in high school. His mother even claims he tried to crawl out of his stroller at age 2 to get to the house. Really. The whole cockamamie story is here.

I HAVEN’T READ A NOVEL in ages. My reading these past few months has consisted almost solely of gardening books. I pore over them, turn down corners, highlight, post-it. (If they’re from the library, which many are, I xerox.) Most are picture books. Some are practically literature, which I read for the pleasure of the writing as well as for information and inspiration.

The classics of the genre hold up well, even if they’re a few decades old. In this category are Russell Page (1906-1985) and Henry Mitchell (1923-1993), both of whom I discovered only recently.

I’m just a third of the way through Page’s The Education of a Gardener, first published in 1962. Essentially a memoir of his career designing gardens all over the world, I found this bit particularly relevant to my own half-acre, above, whose view into the woods is the best thing about it:

• “In a small garden designed to ‘borrow’ the world beyond its boundaries, a few carefully placed trees or clumps of foliage, an uncluttered groundwork of grass or sand or low green planting can be correctly scaled to the outer scene, while a simple seat or a few carefully set paving stones will be enough to indicate that is a humanised landscape, in fact a garden.”

Page can be quite funny. These sentences, written almost 50 years ago, were prescient, too, since planting in masses or drifts of just one thing has become one of the signatory elements of 21st century landscape design:

• “Nothing is so unsatisfactory as a walk through a garden where the same plants or combination of plants keep recurring in small patches at every turn. I immediately want to dig them up, replant them all together in one place, and let them tell their story fully and just once.”

Talking about the ‘decadent formality’ of 18th century French gardens, Page writes:

• “One glance from the centre of the main axis of their dreary compositions is enough. There seems no point in setting out for a long and monotonous walk during which one will meet with no surprises and nothing of horticultural interest.”

For 23 years, Henry Mitchell wrote a gardening column, “Earthman,” for The Washington Post. In a collection called The Essential Earthman, published in 1981, he applies lessons from his own small city lot to the world at large. Right now I’m taking comfort from his advice for surviving winter, the gardener’s gloomy season:

• Whenever it snows, go out with a broom and swat all conifers likely to be broken.
• Whenever there are ice storms, pull the window shades down.
• Resolve not to try delphiniums, tuberous begonias, or carnations again.
• Start saving money for next fall’s bulbs.
• Make up your mind whether you will give space to a pussy willow bush. Whichever you decide, decide, and stop being of two minds about it.

Mitchell often makes me laugh. In a riff on garden envy, he writes of a man he once knew: “If there was some plant you had mentally been saving up to buy next year, you could be sure he had at least a dozen mature specimens of it in his woodland.” He reminds gardeners not to feel sorry for themselves, because “Even the great gardens lack many things,” and winds up with “I was sorry because I had no lorapetalum, and then I met a man who had no snowdrop.”

I’m glad the supply of great garden books is almost inexhaustible.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, Philadelphia architect David S. Traub had a letter published in The New York Times. He was responding to a column by Christopher Gray on ‘vanishing guideposts’ (in that case, the old NYC bookshop E. Weyhe) and mentioned his founding, with John Dowlin, of a new Philadelphia preservation organization called SOS, for “Save Our Sites.”

Wanting to know more, I called him.

Save Our Sites, Traub told me, seeks to promote the preservation of elements of the Philadelphia cityscape that might escape the attention of mainstream organizations like the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. Their interest is not in pedigreed historic structures or important architectural monuments, but what Traub calls “the mongrels and mutts” — overlooked buildings, or groups of buildings, and streetscapes that are “little-known, uncelebrated, neglected, and/or poorly maintained” but that nevertheless add value to the city’s fabric. “We’re not a historic preservation organization per se,” Traub said. “Urban preservation” is more accurate.

The loosely structured non-profit group, led by a steering committee of 12 drawn from the general membership, is poised to respond to preservation crises. Sadly, a couple of key sites have already been lost: the 19th century Garrett-Dunn mansion on the outskirts of the city, vulnerable and unprotected, was destroyed by fire just last summer, and Rindelaub’s Row, below, a group of four 1850s commercial structures on Sansom Street in Center City, fell to the wrecker’s ball to be replaced by a high-rise tower.

Sansom Street, which SOS regards as having “immense potential as a charming, narrow pathway threading through Philadelphia’s downtown,” may be the focus of a walking tour next spring.

At its last semi-annual meeting, in spring 2009, attendees came up with a list of sites in some kind of danger. Among them:

• The Grand Lobby of the Old Main Post Office, 2930 Market Street; closed to the public.

• Old Farm House, 1817 S. Vodges Street; Built circa 1764; Architect unknown; neglected and deteriorating.

• Shawmont Station, 7938 Nixon Street; Built 1834; possible architect: William Strickland; in need of restoration.

• Royal Theater, 1524 South Street; Built 1920; Architect Frank E. Hahn; abandoned and in need of restoration.

• The Wood Street Steps, 300 Block Front Street; Built late 18^th century.  These steps are the last remaining such steps that lead down toward the docks on the Delaware River from high ground to the West.  They are relatively unknown, uncelebrated and in need of restoration.

• Headhouse at Wayne Junction, 4481 Wayne Avenue; Built circa 1900; Architect Frank Furness.

• McIllhenny Townhouse, Southwest corner of Rittenhouse Square; 1916 Rittenhouse Street; vacant and in need of restoration.

• Bauhaus-style House, 515 W. Godfrey Avenue, in the East Oak Lane Neighborhood; Built circa 1939; Architect Israel Demchick; in deteriorating condition.

• Sellers Hall, Christian & St. Anne, Upper Darby, Built 1682, 17^th century; Builder, Samuel Sellers; unused and in need of repair and maintenance.

It’s an intriguing list. I know Philly pretty well, but I’ve never heard of most of those buildings. It makes me want to head down there with map and camera in hand.

Sketches from the SOS website show the northern Philly neighborhood of Fishtown, top, and the Italian Market on 9th Street, bottom.

C.1920s glass door bookcase, found on Clinton Street, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

SULLA STRADA: that’s the title, in Italy, of Jack Kerouac’s best-known book, On the Road.

To Adrienne Grande, a reader of this blog who recently bought a fab 1810 Greek Revival house in Greenport, Long Island, it means something other than a drug-fueled cross-country road trip. Adrienne e-mailed that she has been furnishing with pieces “collected here and there or found sulla strada, i.e. on the street.”

“Sulla strada sounds so much more refined,” she wrote, “than ‘Someone threw it out and I took it!’”

I love the phrase and I’m stealing it. Some of my favorite things have been found, over the years, sulla strada. See these pictures for proof.

One must never be too proud to go dumpster-diving. People throw out the most amazing things.

Four-piece rattan sectional sofa, marked Ficks Reed, plus matching armchair (not shown), found on Dean Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

Antique Caucasian kilim, found among the trash cans on Henry Street, Brooklyn Heights

1930s enamel top kitchen table with carved base, found on Henry Street, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

New York City sidewalks are famous for great trash. What about you? Ever found anything sulla strada?

ANYTHING THAT CAN BE bedecked with lights here on the East End of Long Island has been.

The Big Duck in Flanders, above, a roadside attraction dating back to 1931, is garlanded for the season.

The blades of the Hook windmill in East Hampton, below, have been festively outlined.

And the 2nd annual lighting of the Montauk lighthouse, below, built in 1799, attracted thousands.

Love it! Bring those lights on!

HAD DINNER LAST NIGHT with a friend who is a real estate agent on Shelter Island, tucked between Long Island’s two forks and reachable only by ferry. I asked her to tip me off to the best older house on the market right now under 500K.

She likes this 1930s shingled cottage on half an acre that was once part of a lima bean farm. It’s 2BR, 1 bath, with a sun porch enclosed by jalousie windows, plus a huge unfinished attic, below, with great potential for additional living space. The house is near the historic, Victorian-gingerbread-laden community of Shelter Island Heights.

Asking price is 495K.

For more info: debredemers@gmail.com

Cotoneaster dammeri 'Coral Beauty'

HERE IT IS DECEMBER, and I thought I was done planting weeks ago. In mid-November, I put in two cotoneasters and four inkberries, in keeping with my new philosophy: skip the expensive, unsightly deer fence and plant only that which the deer won’t eat.

I always thought Thanksgiving was the very last possible date for planting, but apparently that’s not true here on the East End of Long Island, in balmy Zone 7.

It’s been mild, with no sign of frost, and the nurseries are still selling shrubs and trees at 50% off and guaranteeing them for a year — if they put them in, which I’m only too glad to have them do (my lower back is important to me).

Ilex glabra 'Shamrock'

So I’m not done yet.

Next week, I’m having three more shrubs/trees planted by Whitmores tree farm:

• A Thuja ‘Green Giant,’ 8′ tall as we speak

• A white pine, 6′ tall

• My favorite, an Ilex crenata ‘Suspensum’ – a 4′ wide, perfectly round shrub resembling boxwood

I had to choose from what was left at this late date, so they’re all rather common and likely to get too big eventually (and they’re not entirely deer-resistant, either). But right now I’m anxious to get some evergreens in as a buffer between my house and the road. However quiet it is now compared to summer traffic levels, I still don’t want to see or hear motor vehicles of any sort if I can help it.

IN ANOTHER LIFE, I might have been having lunch at Balthazar. In this life, I am sculpting with leaves.

Using a hose or rope to lay out the curve of a path hasn’t worked for me. They just didn’t stay put, or make the kind of curve I wanted. I tried neon paint; that was a disaster. The line I managed to draw bore no relationship to the sweeping, natural curve I had in mind.

So I’ve been working a kind of negative space thing, building up future planting beds on either side of a projected flagstone path — which will run from my future parking court to the front door, then onward to the back, a distance of about sixty feet — with piles of scavenged oak leaves, leaving bare what will be the path. (The leaves, I hope, will be the basis for soil by next spring. I know I’ll have to add loads of amendments.)

Not having many leaves left on my own property, I’ve been dragging a tarp and stealing from my neighbors’ roadside piles, left out for the town to pick up (luckily, not for another 10 days). I dump them roughly where I want them, then fine-tune the line with a rake, contemplatively, like a Zen monk.

Amazingly, the leaves stay more or less where I put them, through wind and rain.

TODAY I BROUGHT in from outside a few tender garden plants I think might survive the winter in a corner of my unheated porch, above. I have an old storm window and plastic sheeting at the ready if the temperature really drops.

That variegated vinca vine has been known to survive in Brooklyn window boxes, and I got so much pleasure out of that annual grass I bought at the Amagansett Farmer Market, below in August, I might as well give it a try.

HERE I GO, MILKING THE NEW YORK TIMES Real Estate section again…

Last Sunday’s “What You Get for…” column (in this case, $300,000) featured this nicely renovated Greek Revival in northern Columbia County, with Hudson River views.

It’s in the town of Stuyvesant, which, unlike nearby Hudson, is woefully short on cachet.

Hence, you can get a charmer like this 2,000 square foot, 3 BR, 2-1/2 bath house on 1/3 acre for what would amount to a $1,500/month mortgage payment (assuming you’d have to borrow every penny). Add $500/month for taxes.

It definitely bears a look.

To read the Times piece, which includes a slideshow, go here.

For still more info and a PDF brochure about the house (with a price of 349K), go to the website of Gary DiMauro, a real estate agent who specializes in antique houses. Lots to look at there, including historic-with-a-capital-H Dutch Colonial stone houses at prices that, from my Hamptons vantage point, look laughably cheap (I’m crying, rather, that I can’t buy them all).