Sneak Peek Behind The Hamptons Hedges: Parrish Art Museum’s Landscape Pleaures Garden Tour

Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Main Street and down a long curving gravel drive a gracious home emerges as if from a dream. The shingle home with the barn-style roof line, a throw-back to the Hamptons past perhaps, is enclosed within, cocooned really, the verdant landscape painstakingly curated by landscape architect Lack deLashmet. Morning dew collected on large, bright green hosta plants while sunlight dappled through the leaves and bright white petals of towering dogwood trees by the front walk as I began my tour of one special garden.

I let my eye wander and followed the gravel drive a bit further clockwise around the house to find fragrant lilacs and budding rhododendrons leading the way to peonies about to burst. Daylilies line a stone walkway and alliums stand tall in all of their bulbous lavender glory amidst the succulent sedum as I gaze ahead. Fieldstones meander like a brook through the property, I followed and took in the fragrance of summer.

To my left and right were mixes of sizes, shapes, textures, the variety of plants almost overwhelming, but not so. I found myself propelled to see what would be around the next gentle bend and was not disappointed. Vibrant violet irises and large terracotta containers overflowing with annuals flank the path to a pergola, the perfect vantage point to the rolling lawn and beyond. Around the house I went, curious to see what I might find.

A copse of towering cedars shade a grouping of ferns and variegated hosta hedged with boxwood that’s been left soft and bushy, not overly trimmed and angular. It’s here that I found the curved Koi pond. Sitting for a moment on the petite stone bench as a school of fish splashed for my attention, I gazed up toward the home to appreciate the clematis atop the pergola as it comes into bloom. After communing with nature in this most beautiful spot I continued to the pool where more clematis scaled the wooden railings and noticed a hammock nestled between shade trees. How lovely it would be to spend a day in that mini arboretum waxing poetic about long summer days.

Ending where I began at the front door it was interesting to take note of the flagstones, many had been pulled apart to allow for various small plantings to grow and fill the voids. Variety is a key element of this relaxed garden and I can only imagine how delightful it would be in the late summer to walk up to the door.

This is one of the five spectacular properties, including designer Tory Burch’s estate, on the Landscape Pleasures garden tour. The symposium featuring Arne Maynard and Martin Filler is Saturday, June 7, 2014, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The garden tour is on Sunday, June 8, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. For tickets visit www.parrishart.org.