Welcome to Chris' Hidden Harbor
  • Hidden Harbor
  • Snail Seeding Method
  • Caring for Seasonal Cacti
  • Winterizing the Garden
  • Fall Bulb Planting
  • Bulb Planting Made Easy!
  • Grow Native!
  • inspiring Garden Ideas
  • The Art of Container Gardening
  • Strategies for Exisiting with Deer
  • Garden Maintenance in Spring
  • Hellebores: Winter Jewels
  • Indoor Gems Fall 2021
  • Winter Houseplant Care
  • Forcing Amaryllis Bulbs
  • Weeds! Weeds! Weeds!
  • Ranunculus Experiment
  • Summer 2022
  • The Dreaded Red Lady Beetle
  • The Perfect Houseplant: Phalaenopsis Orchids
  • Almost Time to Start Seeds Indoors!
  • Winter Sowing Outdoors in February!
  • Gardens Before and After
  • Tableside Arrangements
  • Fall Favorites 2021
  • Spring 2021
  • Bringing the Jungle Indoors
  • A 2020 Garden
  • What the Deer Don't Eat!
  • The Elusive Pruners
  • Spring 2020
  • What's your tree sign?
  • My Favorite Tips
  • Spring 2019
  • Whites Revisited
  • Oh, Deer!
  • Winter 2016/ 17 ~ Outdoors
  • Winter 2016 / 17 ~ Indoors
  • Summer of 2016
  • Spring Is Here (2016)
  • Some Lesser Known Gems
  • Summer of 2015
  • Blizzard of 2015
  • Winter 2015 Begins!
  • August 2014
  • Looking Backward and Forward (November 2013)
  • Daylily Season Begins!
  • Need Some Architectural Interest?
  • Summer at Last!
  • Old Man Winter 2014
  • Blooms and Berries
  • Behind the Scenes
  • Sedums for a burst of color
  • September Container Gardens!
  • July 2013
  • February Blizzard 2013
  • Winter Has Arrived (December 2012)
  • Favorite Long Island Gardens
  • Fall Doldrums & Debacles - Hurricane Sandy 10/12
  • Wonderful Whites
  • A Day In The Dirt
  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!
  • Hostas Never Let You Down...
  • Luscious Liliums
  • What's Blooming (July 2012)!
  • Spring is on its way!
  • Comments
  • About Me

Seagulls on Northport Bay

Picture
(Click on photo to see a larger image)
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 40 years ago! At the time my parents lived next door (very handy when our son, Jaron wanted to visit). Eventually, we bought that 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. This past fall, deer have been spotted in the garden, yikes!

More than 600 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 pond, a white garden, and a raised Spider/Unusual Forms 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 find someone to help on a regular basis! 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!

More photos of “Hidden Harbor” (AHS Display Garden) can be seen at:

https://www.facebook.com/chrispnpt


The more one gardens, the more one learns; and the more one learns,

the more one realizes how little one knows.

I suppose the whole of life is like that.

                                                                           V. Sackville-West

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