Designing a garden that provides beauty and interest throughout all four seasons is a gardener’s dream. It often takes years of trial and error (not to mention weeding, watering and soil preparation) and experimenting with different plants and conditions to achieve this often elusive goal.
Master Gardener Alice Levien of Cutchogue has met the challenge and created a garden full of pleasing plant combinations, providing year-round visual enjoyment.
From trees and shrubs to ground covers and flowering perennials, combined in a multitude of ways, Alice’s garden is an inspiration. She has documented her garden in monthly photographs. One particular view was chosen to demonstrate how a garden can hold appeal and draw you in, even in January and February.
The ongoing focal point of this particular view is the crab apple tree, whose twisting branches add visual interest even in the coldest months.
In January you see a bird’s-eye view of the garden with meandering paths and the crab apple at the center. With a backdrop of snow, green shrubbery adds a welcome bit of color.
In February, the red bark of the coral bark maple tree is striking against the blanket of snow.
In March, snowdrops and crocus begin their ascent, announcing that spring is on its way.
The colorful azaleas, yellow corydalis, wood peony and golden grasses of April are sure to make you believe winter is a thing of the past.
As the azaleas fade in May, rhododendron, coral bells and perennial geraniums add their color to the garden, which also sprouts the greenery of plants yet to bloom.
June welcomes astilbe and hydrangea and July celebrates the emergence of daylilies.
Phlox adds color to the garden in August; anemone and crape myrtle emerge in September and continue blooming into October.
The beauty of November and December are brought on by fading leaves and the colors of autumn, with the flaxen reeds of grasses adding their year-round textural interest.
Thus, as one plant’s colorful display ends another’s emerges to take its place, with green shrubbery as a constant background.
Reflections from a Master Gardener
Alice Levien says, “I started the garden around 1975, when it was a weekend and summer home. When we moved here full time around 1991, I became a Master Gardener and was even more involved in the garden. For the past 25 years the garden became, by choice, more high maintenance and diversified.”
Alice says that from 1997 until this year the garden was opened for the Garden Conservancy, the Cornell Master Gardeners and various charities. She says she often spent 5-7 hours a day early season and before shows to refine the garden.
This year she began simplifying the garden by moving larger shrubs to fill beds and using fewer pot arrangements, which used to take her over an hour a day to water.
Alice says, “A garden is not static, but evolves because of changing taste, changing conditions as plant size grow, trees casting more shade, and losses due to storms, snow and flood. You develop ideas from pictures, new plants in catalogues and seeing other gardens.”
Suggestions for growing a mixed garden
On growing a mixed border garden such as Alice’s, these are her suggestions:
Choose plants for winter first. The other seasons are easy to fill spaces. There is a great pleasure seeing things alive during drab months.
When are you at your residence? Concentrate on the months you will be seeing the garden.
What areas do you see from your windows in winter, or other main times? What do you see driving in and which paths do you frequently walk along (parking the car, walking from car to door, going to the utilities, etc.) A few small bulbs, like snowdrops, can give pleasure when seen early in March!
Layer, there are bulbs for different months that can be tucked under other plants to poke through to give extra bloom.
Using lighting is great. One of my greatest pleasures is walking in or looking out at a coral backed maple, especially in winter, and seeing depth in the garden instead of a dark black void.
Suffolk County Master Gardener Volunteer Program
Master Gardener programs equip volunteer participants to advise and educate the public on gardening and horticulture. Anyone who enjoys gardening and has a desire to share knowledge and skills in their community can be a Master Gardener. Locally, the program is run through the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County (CCE) in Riverhead.
Master Gardener volunteers each receive 125 hours of research-based instruction from CCE and are kept up-to-date through continued exposure to the latest developments in environmental horticulture. In return, they agree to share their expertise with the community by volunteering an equivalent number of hours in community service.
For more information on the program go to ccesuffolk.org/gardening.
