Today’s photos are from Christine Petersen on Long Island, east of New York City. Christine says, “My husband, Steve, and I are lucky to live in the village of Asharoken, New York (pop. ~654), which is located on picturesque Northport Harbor. While my husband single-handedly built our home, I started planting our first gardens. That was almost 30 years ago! At the time my parents lived next door (very handy when our son, Jaron wanted to visit). A few years back, we bought their house, giving my husband office space and me more room to garden. The beachfront is 200′ wide, yet the property is over 1500′ in depth (a portion of the property is actually under the bay). Along the driveway, native plants such as prickly pear cactus, beach plum, bayberry, black pine, poison ivy, Eastern red cedar and oaks grow in the sand.
“Closer to the house, the cultivated gardens begin. The soil is sandy and needs constant amending with dehydrated manure (cow and chicken), compost, and mulch. Pesticides are avoided, but I use herbicides sporadically to eliminate tenacious weeds! I leave brush piles, provide fresh water, plant host and nectar foods for insects, hang bird feeders and birdhouses, and grow plants with seeds, nuts, and berries in order to encourage wildlife. In the past few years, deer have been spotted nearby, yikes!
“More than 500 varieties of daylilies share beds with a menagerie of perennials, grasses, bulbs, trees, and shrubs. These plants, including collections of way too many named hosta and lilium, are for the most part marked with plant labels. The markers, my camera and my computer are invaluable when my brain fails me!
Many beds have themes such as the “Hot Red Bed” or “The Birdhouse Garden”. The newest garden is a long hedgerow featuring viburnums, hydrangeas, aucubas, hosta, astilbe, epimedium, primroses, and ligularias. Elsewhere, there’s a small koi pond, a white garden, and a raised daylily bed. Scattered around the garden are containers where I experiment with unusual annuals, tropical plants, tomatoes and herbs.
“The garden is never perfect, as I am getting lazier in my old age. Someday I’ll hire someone to edge! Periodic flooding wreaks havoc on the plantings, but after my initial dismay, I am resigned to doing more shopping! I garden, but nature provides the crowning jewel of the landscape with its expansive view of the harbor, blue skies, sailboats, visiting waterfowl, jingle shells, and hopefully a glorious sea breeze!”
Gorgeous, Christine, but we need many, many more photos!! I think everyone would agree that your garden, from this brief glimpse, could fill up another couple of days. Tell her we want to see more, everyone!
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Comments
Thanks for sharing. Your memorial garden is really beautiful.
beautiful , lush and full. i agree, we need to see more. i had to smile when i read: The garden is never perfect, as I am getting lazier in my old age. a true gardeners statement. great garden and do send more photos, please
Thanks for sharing too! Splendid gardens and photos!
Truly respect those who create memory gardens. My mom also
died of pancreatic cancer. Your featured photo is surely a
wonderful,loving tribute in memory of your mom.
The north shore of "Lung Guyland" is truly spectacular, but living most of my life there I'm naturally biased. An interesting area for gardening as its biome changes foot by foot as it rises from the water's edge. I like that Christine IDs her plants with name tags. Yes, we need more photos, and wider views. Thank you, Christine.
Much more please. This was wonderful. I especially liked your memorial garden.
Thanks for sharing your gardens! We get a small hint of your georgeous view and on a clear day, I may be looking across at you from Ct.! I loved the "Religious Radish" coleus, just the idea of it attracting the eye into your red garden! Yes, we need to see more and thanks also for identifying your plantings!
Wonderful combinations of flowering and foliage plants! The stone paths and stacked stone around the yew are a great accent. I also adapt ideas I've seen in other gardens for use in my own. Show us more!
I am amazed at your artistry. Different photos of different places in the garden reveal completely different styles. Each is done to perfection. You know your plants (thank you for the names) and you know how to put them together. Do send more photos. I'd love to see your June memory garden in its summer colors, and any other dramatic changes you have as the season progresses in the very same space.
Hi, Christine, your garden is gorgeous. I really appreciated reading your reasoning in putting together your "white" garden....you are so right about daylilies marketed as white being more suffused with hints of soft yellow. The cinnamon colored peeling bark of the limbed up yew is gorgeous...you were so brave to embark on that strategic pruning..it totally gave you the effect you wanted!
I,too, would love to see more!
Thanks so much for sharing your photos- and identities- very enjoyable. Particularly, love the white garden- easily one of the best that I've seen.... also, I too, like the effect of your limbed-up yew, the stonework and accompanying plantings. GREAT grouping! Lovely garden in memory of your Mother, as well. A wonderful tribute and especially meaningful as it contains some of her own plants. Would be delighted to see more photos of your fine work.
Totally love your garden. I think your limbed up yew is my favorite picture. Thank you for identifying your pictures - always helpful and very appreciated. Your tribute to your mother is inspiring and shows the love you have for her. Yes - more pictures!!!!!
Gorgeous garden, Christine--thanks! I agree with Meander1 about the pruning of the ancient yew--took courage, but the results are striking, to say the least. I'll add to the chorus of "More, please!"
Loved your gardens, your photos and your attitude towards gardening.
Appreciated having plants identified.
More photos please!!!
I absolutely love your gardens! Your are a very organized gardener keeping track of all your plant names and taking the time to label them outdoor as well!
Each garden has a different style and feel. I too have shade, part shade and sun gardens that look and feel different. Please provide us with more pictures! I would like to see early season and late season pictures of your beds. What kind of epimedium and ligularia plants do you grow?
Yes, please more photos. I love the way you have edged your stone path in the white garden. I am in the process of planning a new frog pond/pool to add to my garden and the way you have used your rocks will be inspiration. I also love the way you limbed up that yew. Beautiful!
all these beautiful gardens and the stories of their creation. Michelle, you should publish a book, call it Fifty Shades of Green
Beautiful. I would love to see more pictures.
Michelle, couldn't we just once in awhile have a mediocre garden? Just to keep gardeners like me from feeling like such a failure.
What a wonderful tribute to your Mom. I bet this garden is very special to you. You are a very amazing gardener. Thanks for sharing.
wittyone, nobody who grows stuff is a failure. everybody deals with time/space constraints and then there is the weather (hostas are coleslaw after a hailstorm), birds diligently cutting off seedlings or pulling them up, rabbits pruning lower branches or entire plants with no regard the list goes on and on. i'm betting your garden stands up and shines. send in your photos,,,,,,i double dawg dare ya! :)
Oh my gosh... Christine, if your gardens could talk they would tell such beautiful stories of love and caring. The fact is, we don't even have imagine what they would tell us, all we have to do is look at your photos. Please send us more!
GPOD friends, I have missed you over the last few weeks. I've been out of town and am heading out once again. Hopefully, I'll have a few photos to share if I learn to use my new camera, that is!
Your pictures are very clear and colorful. Thanks for sharing some names of plants. I would enjoy more pictures of your garden. Thanks.
Oh....to sit there in the summer and have a glass (or two )of Chardonnay what be a bit of heaven.
I am WOWed! Your garden is so beautiful!!! Please send more pictures!!!
Oh, and thank you SO MUCH! for identifying the plants in the picture...and I have a questions for you...the Cryptotaenia japonica 'Atropurpurea', I read that it self sows and "can" be invasive. I'm looking for about 3 plants in this color for partial shade (mostly shade)and the size and shape of the plants are perfect. But was wondering what your experience with them was.....thanks!
i agree with Wittyone(tongue-in-cheek), tho, we do need to see more of this garden. obviously, more to see, please !
tntreeman has a great idea, a book based on all our(oops, your) gardens !! real life garden pics ! a best seller furshur !!
tntreeman-I've been pushing the idea of a special FG issue featuring the best of GPOD--I'll keep trying! I think everyone would love the personal stories and mountain of eye candy.
Wittyone-I wish! Every garden you guys send me is awesome! Every effort at gardening is worthwhile and beautiful. Send in the pics!
News Flash! Christine sent in more pics today--stay tuned to see them tomorrow!
Michelle, have them call me, i talk so much many times people agree to my ideas just to shut me up
First of all, Christine your gardens are stunning (LOVE that yew!) and thank you for the plant IDs...can't wait for tomorrow's continuation!
Second, Michelle I love your idea for a special FG edition. Don't know that I have tntreeman's powers of persuasion but would be happy to chime in if you just say the word! That would be one 'keeper' issue!
Christine, beautiful gardens - looking forward to tomorrows photos. You have very lush gardens for sandy soil; your amending has really paid off. I am thinking of a white garden and it was interesting to hear your thoughts on ivory with golds & chartreuse. I also garden for the birds, butterflies, and bugs they are just as beautiful as the flowers. And now I'm going to do a little venting - the snow banks are so high the rabbits can reach over the chicken wire cages aroung my clematis. They have decided to give them rejuvenation pruning, needed or NOT!
Hello everyone! I'm new to this site, so you'll have to bear with me as I try to reply to your questions! The Cryptotaenia japonica 'Atropurpurea' is indeed a self-seeder. I like trying new things when I see them for sale and no one knew much about Japanese Honeywort when I found it years ago. I let a few plants get full grown and try to cut off the seed-heads before they drop. I do have a few places where they are growing in thick patches. I pull as much as I can a few times a season. It’s just an unusual plant and that appeals to me.
Limbing up the yew wasn't an original idea of mine, but when you have a couple of 20'- 30'diameter blobs of green in the middle of a lawn you need drastic measures. I do most of the garden myself, but for this job I had the help of a man that was cutting down some storm damaged trees on my property. I directed where I wanted the cuts and he manned the chainsaw. It was a “leap of faith” experience!
I have a few varieties of ligularia and/orFarfugium; F.japonicum 'Cristata', Farfugium japonicum 'Aureomaculata'(Spotted Leopard Plant), Farfugium japonicum 'Jitsuko's Star', Farfugium japonicum 'Gigantea'(Giant Leopard Plant), Ligularia stenocephala 'The Rocket', Ligularia dentata ‘Britt-Marie Crawford’, and Ligularia japonica. Can anyone clarify the confusion in the botanical name?
christine,
i am in awe of what you have created and i'm glad you put a face on this garden. i have just finished reading every word on your website and examined each photo there. all beautiful and i fully appreciate all the work and thought you have invested in your garden but,,,,,,,,,,how in the world do you make the time ?!?!? can't wait to see the next chapter in the morning. thanks for sharing your hidden harbor
I am checking in late, but you have a wonderful garden. I am looking forward to those extra pics you sent in.
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