2013 ARF Garden Tour
After days of rain and clouds, last Saturday was finally a beautiful sunny day. Perfect day for the annual Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons (ARF) garden tour in East Hampton.
While on these tours, I always look for specific ideas to bring back home to my own Hamptons garden. Sometimes a garden on tour is quite grand, but I still usually find an idea or two that may enhance my humble landscape. Here are few of the things that caught my eye on this tour.
This garden designed by Michael Derrig isn't large put packs a lot of ideas into the landscape. For me, the entrance was my favorite part. It has such curb appeal. Glossy black painted gates, planters and doors provide quiet but glamorous accents. The large pavers in the entrance courtyard are widely spaced so that grass can grow between. This look is softer and more dramatic than a fully paved surface.
Perfectly chiseled stone walls create nice boundaries. I especially like the planters built into these walls as they help break up long expanses of stone.
Great curb appeal
Black accents are a great complement to green foliage
Planters built into the stone walls
The beach front house of Alexandra Munroe and Robert Rosenkranz utilizes several gardening styles on their expansive property. You enter through a naturalistic meadow of grasses and wildflowers. While this natural style looks like it's created from neglect, it actually takes quite a bit or management to look this good. Up on the next part of the property is a croquet court. How fun would this be? A guest house is surrounded by a colorful cottage garden. At the rear of the house, the plantings are rustic and simple like those you would normally find among dunes. No need for dramatic plantings there as the ocean is the key focal point.
Beautiful Baptisia australis blooming in the wildflower field
Cottage garden surrounds the guest house
Croquet, anyone?
The garden of landscaper Craig Socia is filled with outdoor rooms with each providing visitors a new visual treat. It is definitely a garden that is well-crafted and cared for. Shrubbery is neatly shaped. Planters are filled with dramatic plantings. Pocketed throughout the property are works of craftsmen in the form of gates, stone walls, and wooden benches. Not a corner of this garden is neglected. You could find beautiful flowers blooming even in the work areas.
Stone entrance to a guest house
Dramatically painted shed doorway
One of several custom benches made from tree branches
Craig Socia, whose garden was described above, also designed this three-acre garden of Peter Wilson and Scott Sanders. Shrubbery is the primary theme here, creating an Asian-style garden. Red Japanese maples add color among the mostly evergreen borders. Nepeta add some fresh purple accents. A rustic bridge to the tennis court has railings made in the same manner as the rustic style benches in Socia's own garden. A sunken hot tub surrounded by well-chosen plantings proves that outdoor whirlpools needn't be eye sores.
Asian-style shrub borders surround the pool house
Rustic bridge leads to tennis courts
A properly placed and landscaped hot tub
I'll post soon some more pictures from this tour in my photo gallery of Garden Tours (tab at top of blog). Enough tours this month, now it's time for me to spend a little more time in my own garden.