Visit Two Native Plant Gardens
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
6:00 PM Summers Garden, 63 Ferndale Drive,
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
7:00 PM Montgomery Garden, 31 Sheldon Place,
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
Free Admission for West Fair Hort Members, $10 for
Non-members
Bring Horticultural Displays for Judging
Download PDF
file of meeting announcement
Summers Garden
Carolyn Summers has been gardening on her Hastings property just a
little over 14 years. At that time it was overgrown, but had many fine
specimens. Along with the beauties came nuisance plants. The original
landscape was laid out in the picturesque Japanese style, with weeping
trees and other trees set into rocks. The existing style lent itself
readily to adaptation for a naturalistic woodland garden.
The garden is used for experimenting with native plants and as a
demonstration of the beauty, variety and versatility of native
wildflowers, trees and shrubs. She has added many spring “ephemerals.”
To combat deer, she installed the cedar deer fence, with arbors, and
then planted many vines to “soften” the fence.
A large oak tree crashed down, creating an opening in the curb and
allowing the creation of a swale. The site was opened to light, making
possible a mini-meadow along the edge of the stream and the fence. With
the swale as an added water source, the lower back of the garden has
become moist woodland, supporting native herbaceous and woody plants. A
recirculating waterfall and pool, with water lilies and other aquatic
plants, is under the big oak. Golden ragwort, Jacob’s ladder and a
yellow-flowered sessile trillium bloom near the water. Three wetland
trees planted next to the pond are Atlantic white cedar, black spruce ‘Fastigiata’
and a dwarf river birch. Nearby is a weeping redbud tree. The area above
the pond is dry and shaded by the oak and much of the plantings under it
are “volunteers”, including many eastern red cedars.
Montgomery Garden
The Montgomery’s “New World Garden” gets its name from its reliance
on plants that are native to the Americas, the New World: in our case
North America, with accent on the North East.
The garden was designed by Larry Weaner of Larry Weaner Landscape
Design Associates. He was asked to design a “demonstration garden” for
Native Plants. The owners hoped to show how successfully native plants
could be used in a small suburban setting. The result has been a most
rewarding “wild” garden which captures the changing seasons day by day,
and is home to a widely varied bird population.
Starting from the open, more traditional setting of the front of the
house (with remnant lawn, sedge bank and mossy sward), the ambling path
passes through a “remnant meadow” (dotted with old fashioned garden
plants), down to the “wild meadow” section below, with its small rustic
pool as a destination point. This little pond, with its native minnows,
is in turn overlooked by a stone “council ring” in a woodland setting,
and by the covered porch of the studio above.
The attractive easy-care native plants in this garden show how
homeowners with small, easily manageable suburban properties could be
the key to the overall revitalization of our natural ecology - if even
just a few Natives were included in their borders and gardens.
Directions to the Summers Garden
From the Saw Mill River Parkway:
Exit 12, Farragut Parkway. Continue on Farragut until you come to a
wide intersection with a traffic light. At that point Farragut merges
into Broadway. Continue straight on Broadway to the next traffic light.
Make a RIGHT at light onto Villard Avenue. Continue on Villard to Circle
Drive, make RIGHT onto Circle. Circle Drive splits into a “Y.” Bear
LEFT, you are now on Ferndale Drive. Continue until you reach Chestnut
Drive. Number 63 is on the RIGHT at the corner of Ferndale and Chestnut.
Enter the garden through one of two arbors at the corner of Ferndale and
Chestnut.
Directions to the Montgomery Garden
From 63 Ferndale Drive, Hastings-On-Hudson:
Head back down Ferndale Drive, then Circle Drive, to Villard Avenue.
Turn left onto Villard. Take Villard back to Broadway (Rte. 9). Turn
right onto Broadway and take the second right onto Minturn Street, then
first left onto Sheldon Place. #31 is on the left.
CARPOOL: Cars will leave at 5:00 PM from Sam Bridge Nursery, 437
North Street, Greenwich. Please visit
www.sambridge.com for directions. Contact Mary Jo Palmer,
203-661-8626 (evenings) with your names.
