Behold the Lilies

CONSIDER THE LILIES of the field, and let’s not forget the hydrangeas, ladies’ mantel, astilbe, verbena and other things… July here at Green Half-Acre is turning out OK after all.

Lilies — whether fancy ones from a catalogue, yard sale buckets of roadside orange day lilies, hybrids passed on by a friend, bulbs picked up last summer at the Long Island Daylily  Society show and sale in Farmingdale — all seem to do well here, and they’re so EASY. More lilies, I say!

Above: Showstoppers alongside my front walk (Netty’s Pride, and mine too.)

The purple things are verbena bonariensis, said to be a self-seeding annual, and I hope it is in years to come. That backdrop of greenery is sweet-smelling native bayberry, which was here on my arrival three-plus years ago.

Your classic Hamptons blue hydrangea. True, I don’t have many such, but even a few are spectacular.

More rhodies! These a later-blooming native type, of which I have inherited some two major stands. I  missed seeing them last July and the one before (when the house was rented) and am thoroughly enjoying them now.

The long-blooming yellow ladies’ mantel in the foreground is a treat; I’ve tried it before, elsewhere, without success. Here it’s become a standout.

In the wooded part of the property, still largely ‘undeveloped,’ a profusion of white hydrangea blossoms from a bush bought for $5 from a local couple who have a nursery of sorts in their modest backyard.

I am pleased with my scallop shell mulch on one side of the front walk. The shells are available at the local recycling center, i.e. dump, where some commercial fishing operation evidently dumped them for the taking. The grasses are chasmanthium (sea oats) and, if I remember correctly, Prairie Fire grass that isn’t getting enough sun to turn red.

Things to come: Turk’s cap lily buds in abundance.

Raking Leaves is a A Fool’s Errand

THAT PHRASE POPPED INTO MY HEAD TODAY as I raked leaves. It’s an impossible task, because every night’s breezes bring a fresh layer. Yesterday I observed my next-door neighbor raking, raking, raking, making huge piles for the town pick-up. Today, I glanced into his yard and saw that they’d been replenished. But I happen to know he rakes for fun, so it’s OK.

Daffodil bulbs ready to go in the ground at Bridge Gardens

Besides raking, I’ve been busy with other fall landscaping chores, inspired partly by a two-hour workshop I attended on Saturday at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton called “Putting Your Garden to Bed for the Winter.” At least half the discussion was about which hydrangeas bloom on old wood and which on new. I can’t have hydrangeas at all because of my deer friends, so I tuned out.

Below, transplanting clumps of hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ at Bridge Gardens

I was reminded of how important it is to keep watering, especially after such a dry season as we’ve had. I’ve been moving hoses around from individual tree to tree so they get soaked in the root zone (particularly some of the big evergreens that look parched), pulling up spent annuals, planting three new aronia (chokeberries) as part of my ‘tapestry hedge’ in front, and moving other things from places where they’re not thriving to places where I hope they will.

Below, annual Japanese fountain grass, perennial geranium ‘Roxanne,’ and Saturday students at Bridge Gardens

Just as I was coming to the end of today’s to-do list, the UPS truck pulled up with my bulb order from Scheeper’s. It’s not a big order — just 10 ‘Gladiator’ alliums, 10 gorgeous lilies I couldn’t resist, even though they need sun and deer like them (I’m going to plant them by the front deck and keep a spritz bottle of Deer-Off handy), and 100 Spanish bluebells for a wooded area in the backyard middle distance that I haven’t gotten around to doing anything with.

How Bridge Gardens deals with deer, below

I’m feeling a bit of urgency, as I’m moving into my Brooklyn pied-a-terre next Monday. I won’t be around much in November, and I want to leave my East Hampton place in good shape — well-watered, nicely mulched, cozily tucked in for winter.

One of several unusual types of elephant ear at Bridge Gardens, below

LongHouse Redux

ONCE A SEASON at LongHouse Reserve, the 16-acre ornamental and sculpture garden in East Hampton, N.Y., masterminded by textile designer/scholar/collector Jack Lenor Larsen, is not enough. (That’s Larsen’s Shinto temple-inspired house, above).

I visited LongHouse for the first time last May, when azaleas and roses were among the main attractions. I returned a couple of weeks ago, and found it less riotously colorful, perhaps, but still awe-inspiring. Late summer/early fall is the time to appreciate late-blooming hydrangeas, ornamental grasses in their prime, elephant ears and annual vines at maximum size and spread.

Below, how the dry Mediterranean garden looks in late August. I love that LongHouse “allows” some of the lambs-ear-like plants I’ve been thinking of as weeds in these beds; it’s making me reconsider pulling them out where they’ve colonized a sunny section of my lawn.

Here’s one of the monumental sculptures I neglected to photograph back in May. “Summer Bridge,” below, a 1983 work by Claus Bury, was created when the German artist was just 19 years old.

Another of the many takeaways from LongHouse: lots of ideas for paving and paths, including slate pieces set in gravel, below, done so beautifully here.

You have until October 9, when LongHouse closes for the season, to visit and be wowed. Hours are short: Wednesdays and Sundays only from 2-5PM. Admission is $10. So well worth it.

Boho Cottage in Sag Harbor 450K

IF, LIKE ME, YOU’RE A SUCKER FOR THINGS BOHEMIAN, maybe this cottage in the über-charming village of Sag Harbor is for you.

It might well be for me if I hadn’t just bought a place three months ago and am still recovering.

I came upon it Saturday in the course of my yard-saling. The house is practically hidden by hydrangeas and in dire need of loving care (so much the better!) I’m guessing it was built in the 1920s.

The yard was full of the sort of stuff a woman of a certain age who had lived in an old cottage for a long time would have. I happened to overhear her telling someone the place was for sale; there was no sign out front. But it is indeed listed with Corcoran, and for the realistic price of 450K. (Many in this area can remember when you couldn’t get anything less than 700K in Sag Harbor; it wasn’t that long ago.)

The house is petite, c’est vrai, but it’s got a big old garage, above. And will ya look at that fab green stove in the kitchen, below.

Go on, buy it and make me jealous.

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Details: 3 BR, 1 bath, 800 sq. ft., 0.17 acres, woodburning stove, separate barn/studio with sleeping loft

Contact: Anja Breden  631/725-4015, cell 516/445-1082
Anja.Breden@corcoran.com

Cottage Garden, Despite the Deer

IT’S WORKING. After 7 years, the perennial beds at my upstate New York place, where my wasband (thanks to Marggy Kerr for that word) lives and gardens, are finally filled in enough to suppress weeds. Two months without any weeding, and I didn’t find the situation at all dire when I was there this past weekend. An hour’s crawl-around with a bushel basket was all it took.

The island bed, in particular — a peanut-shaped bed about 25 feet long and ten feet at its widest, in the middle of the lawn — looks fantastic now, even though the poppies and irises are done and the rudbeckia yet to come.

There is no deer fencing here, amid 20 acres of woods. All the plants we put in are deer-resistant, yet oddly, this year, all the NON-deer-resistant things planted by previous owners in years past — daylilies, white hydrangeas, and hostas, which we had basically given up on — are all in bloom now with little or no evidence of deer damage.

It’s possible that an early-spring application of milorganite (an organic fertilizer that deer conveniently hate) helped, but my new theory is that three cats roaming the property (that’s Lenox, above) and leaving their droppings may scare off the deer, who don’t realize these felines are the domestic variety and not something larger and fiercer.

Anyway, it’s a theory.