Appreciating October: Old Houses & Fall Color

OCTOBER HAS BEEN A MONTH for remembering my love of old houses, which is why I started this blog in the first place, and for being blown away once again by the beauty of Long Island’s South Fork. That includes my own humble half-acre, above and below, whose fall colors are more brilliant than at any time in the decade I’ve been here.

They say it’s because of all the rain we had this season (which continues). Usually, the oak trees that dominate this region turn dull brown in fall, while the red maples and golden hickories are fewer. This year, it seems, the oaks haven’t turned yet and so remain green, while the others have colored up in timely fashion. It’s so blazingly beautiful that for once, I’m not suffering FOMO over not being in New England or the Hudson Valley.

Meanwhile, an article in the East Hampton Star about some local historic preservation awards for two recently restored Colonial-era houses caught my eye, and I trotted over to check them out. One is the early-18th century Hiram Sanford House on Egypt Lane, below, a plain and modest structure behind which new owners are building some kind of modernist bunker out of shipping containers (don’t ask).

Around the corner from it, un-awarded, is an even cuter house of similar vintage, below, which I only noticed because I parked in front of it.

The more outstanding preservation project is the Gardiner Mill Cottage Gallery, in below, a 1750 saltbox with leaded windows. It sits on an open 3-1/2 acre lot that has remained intact in East Hampton Village since 1638, and also contains an 1804 windmill. The building is now a new art museum, open weekends only, with rotating exhibits of historical landscape paintings.

Nearby are two more of the oldest English Colonial houses in the country, Mulford Farm and the so-called “Home Sweet Home” museum, below, plus another fine windmill. I’ve been to these numerous times, and to the lovingly maintained kitchen garden that sits between them.

From there I spotted a house across the main road, below, that appears to have equal historic integrity, with asymmetrical windows and a steeply pitched roof (for shedding snow?) Certainly more than two centuries old, it just sits there with no awards, plaques or fanfare.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t been to Europe in a while so I’m not jaded, or maybe it’s because I’m about to go back to NYC for the winter, but suddenly, the architectural heritage of this pretty town looks especially rich to me.

I can’t say I’m ready to go back to the city, exactly, but it’s been a good long season and things are winding down. The coleus in my window boxes are only a frost away from turning black and falling over.

I’ve planted about 1,000 early bulbs — tarzetta daffodils, crocus, glory of the snow, winter aconite — here and there throughout the property, to welcome me back next spring.

The city has its charms, and I’m determined to rediscover those, too, this winter. But it doesn’t have this:

Far Side of Summer in My Long Island Garden

THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS, I’ve spent the better part of April, May and June, September, October and November at my quirky vintage-modern house on the East End of Long Island, N.Y., and rented it out in high summer.

I love missing the Hamptons’ seasonal frenzy, the crowded beaches and restaurants, the scarce parking. I hate missing my native white rhododendrons in midsummer bloom, and the lilies of July and August.

The summer was hot and dry. I don’t have irrigation, so I had the garden watered by hand once a week. It survived (with a few minor losses), needing just a few days of extra catch-up watering when I returned after Labor Day, before the deluges of September began.

Toward the end of August, I asked my garden helper to put in a few hours of hand weeding before I returned. The result was that I came back to a garden in such good shape, I wandered around with little to do and a strange lack of motivation for new plantings or projects.

That went away, and the month of October has been a busy one here at Dry Shade Half-Acre (still trying to come up with a name for my property; that’s not it).

I made three trips to the dump for wood chips and created a rudimentary meandering path through an unstructured area of tall oaks dotted with a few shrubs I’d stuck in here and there over the years. With this simple, cost-free gesture, I suddenly had planting areas…definition!

I planted 300 bulbs along the path (mostly small ones like muscari and Star of Bethlehem), aiming for an early-spring carpet. Elsewhere, I put in three white azaleas, filled in holes in my perennial beds with colorful heuchera (coral bells) and euphorbia, and moved things that weren’t doing well, like non-blooming Montauk daisies, in hopes of finding happier homes for them.

The most backbreaking task was dividing huge clumps of hakonechloa and epimedium and spreading them around. I ventured into parts of the property that have never been cultivated, where digging turns up roots and rocks, and the soil is just plain dirt. Back to the dump for compost.

The other night, I was in my “winter studio” (i.e. the great room, now with insulation and wood-burning stove), going through a pile of garden notes, clippings and plant labels dating back to 2013, when I bought this property.

I came across a folder from a three-session course I took at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in March 2014, where each student worked on plans for his or her own garden. The instructor, Jim Russell, was big on creative visualization, and he had us write up — in present tense, as if the vision was already realized — descriptions of our gardens five years hence.

It’s only been 4-1/2 years, but here’s what I wrote, and whether it’s been accomplished:

“My garden is serene, organized and thriving.” YES!

“A system of paths, made of loose material, with logs inserted for grade changes, winds through space that still has the feeling of the original oak woods…” YES!

“…with an understory of evergreens and flowering shrubs, and medium-small flowering trees like dogwoods and magnolias.” ON ITS WAY. NEED MORE PLANT MATERIAL. STILL LIKE THE CONCEPT.

“Shade-loving perennials line the paths.” YEP.

“The stockade fence is gone or modified beyond recognition — screened with a tapestry of lush plantings.” UM, NO. IT’S STILL THERE, IN ALL ITS GLORY.

“There is a new deck that provides for both sun and shade…” YES, INDEED!

“…an area for vegetable and cut flower gardening…” I DO HAVE FOUR RAISED BEDS IN THE SUNNY CENTER OF THE PROPERTY, BUT SINCE I’M ABSENT IN SUMMER, THIS REMAINS A NOT-YET.

“…a remodeled shed…” NOW KNOWN AS THE GUEST CABIN, IT’S PRESENTLY IN AN ADVANCED STAGE OF FIX-UP (PHOTO BELOW)

“…and a fabulous outdoor shower.” YESSSSSS!

Perhaps it’s time to write my next five-year plan. This stuff really works!

Chasmanthium (Northern sea oats) leaning out of their scallop-shell bed along the front walk.

Mid-autumn view, with morning sun slanting in.

OK, not the most impressive path you ever saw, but it’s a start.

Emperor Japanese maple, one of three planted last fall and nicely settled in.

The guest cabin is being painted white, with a new pine floor, below.

Other home improvements of the past season: a DIY bamboo privacy screen for the outdoor shower deck…

eye-popping Mexican blankets for the guest room…

and a pair of irresistible (to me) S-shaped rope lamps.

Finally, I’d like to take a quick look back to the more floriferous days of late spring, which I neglected to fully document in these pages. (It’s also a look ahead to next spring, which in Nature’s infinite wisdom will be much the same.)

The rhodie show takes place every Memorial Day weekend.

The iris show happens around the same time.

Lychnis (rose campion) are prolific self-seeders, flinging themselves into all the sunniest spots. I’m letting them have their way.

First-ever prickly pear flower, transplanted from the beach a few years back.

New this year: window boxes, with coleus and vinca. ##

Yugen – A Japanese Garden Where You Least Expect It

THE ADDRESS OF YŪGEN is a closely guarded secret. I didn’t even know of its existence in the backwoods of East Hampton, N.Y., until it appeared in the 2017 catalogue of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program, open for just two hours on a Sunday morning at the end of July.

Yūgen is a privately owned garden of 20 acres, heavily inspired by Far Eastern garden tradition. The property’s anonymous owner, who manages global public health crises, has been working on it for a quarter century. He began as a collector of Japanese suiseki –– small, naturally-formed stones that suggest larger landscapes. This, according to the catalogue, led to more stones in the garden, many on a massive scale, and then to a passion for horticulture.

With advance reservations, my sister and I gained two of the limited places and found ourselves wandering nearly alone through expanses of mossy-banked pine woods, an artificial dune scape, a re-created section of primeval forest whimsically called Jurassic Park, rocks and rills and waterfalls, gravel patches and sculpture gardens (all surrounding a rather more conventional house).

The word yūgen means something like “subtle, profound, mysterious beauty.” It suits.

Foggy Morn in Springs

THIS AUGUST I’VE BEEN in and out and roundabout and back and forth. I’ve spent more time on the Long Island Expressway, it sometimes seems, than in my much-loved house in Springs (East Hampton), N.Y. And I’ve fallen down the job of documenting my garden. For that I have a novel excuse besides the fact that I haven’t been here as much as I’d like: the weather’s been too good! Decent garden photography on a sunny day, in the dappled shade of tall oaks, is near impossible. But the other morning, I woke at 6, stepped outside into a misty morning, and ran to get my camera.

    

Evergreen Glory: BBG’s Japanese Garden

I AM INCREASINGLY FOND of Japanese gardens, and quite unreasonably proud (as if I had something to do with it), of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden‘s Japanese garden, constructed 100 years ago and opened to the public in June 1915. It’s a masterpiece of Japanese garden design — the premier work of its creator, Takeo Shiota (1881-1943), who came to the U.S. in 1907.

The garden is a combination of two Japanese garden traditions: hill-and-pond style (self-explanatory), and the ‘stroll’ garden, in which different vistas are gradually revealed as you meander along winding paths.

Japanese gardens are floriferous when cherry trees, azaleas and irises are in springtime bloom. These photos were taken in high summer, when I found the garden green and shapely, its evergreen structure at the fore, conveying the intended sense of permanence.

Compare the century-old historical photos, above, with the much greater lushness of the present day. Seventy years after its creator’s death, the garden’s beauty and integrity remain. It’s nothing short of a national treasure, IMO, and I feel fortunate to live nearby, where I can pop over on a weekday morning and have it practically to myself.