Garden Envy in Amagansett

The heavenly tented pool pavilion

I COULD GO IN AND OUT of grand oceanfront estates all day long, then come back to my humble cottage and still be happy with the place. I can wander five hedged, manicured, topiaried, statued, fountained acres and admire them, but not care a whit that they don’t belong to me.

Anthropomorphic boxwoods greet you at the gravel parking court

But Sunday I visited an Amagansett garden newly added to the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program and came away wanting to weep.

Perennial beds on a central axis of brick pathways near the property’s entrance

This one is a mere one-third of an acre, surrounding a cedar-shingled cottage with muted green trim.

Tall, columnar Leyland cypresses are dramatic punctuation marks

Yet it has so many nooks and aspects, separated by specimen evergreens and Japanese maples, and blooming profusely in mid-July with tropical-colored cannas, day lilies, fuchsias, and more, it seems much larger, and decidedly un-boring.

Poolside cannas in bloom

A shady back corner with Solomon’s seal, white hydrangeas

The design works such popular cottage-garden features as rustic arbors and a brick-paved entry patio centered on an iron urn, to magical effect.

Day lilies, a dwarf Japanese maple on the pool patio

Masterminded by Victoria Fensterer, a garden designer based in East Hampton, it is dense with plants, but with such a clear structure that it feels not overstuffed but simply abundant.

There’s a small, irregularly shaped lawn, surrounded by tall evergreens and old cedars, so that the edges of the property are blurred and seemingly non-existent.

Dense shrubbery visually expands the boundaries of the small lot

Steps made of massive slabs of stone lead to a naturalistic pool with river stones in place of the usual coping.

Stone steps lead to a free-form pool

And then there’s that piece de resistance, a pool pavilion in the form of a draped, circus-like tent — a festive bit of exoticism on Long Island’s often terribly-traditional East End.

My Neighbors’ Gardens

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBORS’ GARDENS, but that’s so very hard to do (or not to do)  during the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days. One of the great things about the Open Days program — besides catering to the garden voyeur in all of us — is that you gain access to the yards of people who live nearby and deal with the same climate and soil conditions you do, which can be instructive as well as envy-inducing.

Yesterday I visited two mature, artfully designed gardens here in Springs (East Hampton), N.Y., and came away with an inspiring glimpse of what can be created with time, effort, knowledge, a bit of money, a whole lot of work, and — this is crucial — a deer fence.

The first, around a contemporary house set way back along a dirt road off Old Stone Highway, was the Previti/Gumpel garden, owned by a pair of architects and 18 years in the making.

Conceived as a series of outdoor rooms, with a formal ‘games lawn’ and many different seating and activity areas, there are both shade- and sun-loving plantings, and a woodland walk.

Right now, tall plume poppies, which I’d never heard of, and gooseneck loosestrife are in bloom, along with multi-colored day lilies and the Hamptons’ favorite floral deer candy, hydrangea.

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Then I moved on to the half-acre, 30-year-old Friend/Hellerman garden, designed and owned by Susan Friend, a professional landscape designer, and her husband Hal.

There is not a square inch of grass. Instead, gravel and carefully placed boulders convey the feeling of a Japanese dry garden, with conifers, rhododendron, ferns, bamboo, and a stone lantern and bridge.

The garden is predominantly evergreen, filled with life even in winter. Flowers progress from Korean azaleas in spring through various varieties of andromeda, rhodies, peonies, and Siberian and Japanese iris. The vine-enclosed outdoor shower, below, is a highlight.

Neither property is more than an acre — which, the more I garden, the more I realize is plenty to be getting on with.

Gowanus in Bloom

Have you ever driven up Union Street between Bond and Nevins in the summertime, and been startled by the sight of an exuberant cottage garden blooming out of the sidewalk against a backdrop of graffiti?

Well, I have, and I’ve been moved to take pictures — and once, I saw a young woman watering with a garden hose, and stopped to chat. She told me she grew up in Vermont, and that the black-eyed susans and pink phlox and other cottage-y perennials came from her mom (as did her gardening talent).

I didn’t get her name, or find out how she came to garden on concrete. I didn’t even know you were allowed to grow flowers out of New York City sidewalks.

I just hope she’s still living nearby and will be back wielding her hose this season, because she ought to win an award for single-handedly brightening up the neighborhood.

Here’s what the spot looked like last week:

And here’s the very same scene in mid-summer.  I see white alyssum in abundance, and yellow day lilies. The orange flowers, I think, are also day lilies; the purple spikes, I’m not sure.

In the shot below, I can make out nasturtiums in the foreground and yellow…snapdragons, maybe?  Toward the back, those tall black flowers might be delphinium.  Anything else?  Those large leaves in the left foreground?

In any case, it’s an urban wonder.