Southold Historical Society Garden Tour: July 9, 2005

My husband Jack and I were so pleased that our gardens were chosen, again, for the second Southold Historical Society Garden Tour. Although thunderstorms were predicted we had beautiful sunny and breezy weather. Some of these photos had to be taken again because the originals were too blurry due to the winds. My thanks to the many DG'ers for their ideas and inspirations, but especially Carmen Perotta (pins), who was of so much help to me with writing up the two page flyer for the guests.

This will be a tour from the start of the property all the way around the house and gardens, with some guests included.

There will be a Part II for the "Visual Scavenger Hunt" (thanks for the wording, Carmen!).

We'll start with the banner in town announcing the tour:

This is the write up that Carmen helped me with and that was given by the two docents to the guests:


WELCOME TO OUR GARDEN
Arlene and Jack Ryan

“Come into our garden. We have some flowers that would love to meet you”.

You are as welcome as the flowers in spring! We offer lemonade, iced tea and water on the rear terrace, either before or after your stroll. Please sign the guest book after you view our gardens and let us know your favorite flower in our garden, or your favorite feature, (or both) when you make your entry.

We’ve designed and installed all the gardens, except for what is now the Rose Garden, with it’s 16 varieties, on the right side of the courtyard and the Spring Garden on the left. When we bought this house, in May of 1991, the former owner only had the following flowering plants: one peony, one Shasta daisy, two clumps of hosta, one nameless peach daylily, and the bulb garden consisted of one lonely yellow tulip which still thrives. We now have many hosta gardens with over 20 varieties, 1364 of our own hybridized daylilies and many more purchased and named varieties.

To insure that you don’t miss anything, we’ve composed a visual scavenger hunt that we hope you will like. Be the first one to locate the ten features and tell us the answers, and win your choice of:

A bag of our fresh homegrown lettuces
The weed of your choice
Hosta Plantaginea or Frances Williams
A visit to the “rest room”

Visual scavenger hunt features to find:

A row of tiny birdhouses atop a copper bottomed trellis
The 9’9” tall copper trellis, covered with two purple clematis vines, made by Jack
A child’s tiny teacup in a “birdbath”
The Gnome’s home
A single Victorian birdhouse “finial” atop a piece of lavender trellis
A pretty statue of a little girl, Petals, sitting on a bench
The location of the rocks naming the Japanese irises
The statue from the book, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”
The white Obelisk Jack made for me
An aqua “stained glass” grasshopper

* * * * * *



People often ask us where we buy our plants. Jack grows many from seed but we buy plants, bulbs, etc. from:

Ornamental Plantings, North Road (Route 48), Southold (west of Horton’s Road)
JACK WEISKOTT 631-765-2614


Dutch Gardens (call for free catalog: full page color photos) 1-888-821-0448 [HYPERLINK@www.dutchgardens.com]


Coleus from Glassworks Greenhouse: [HYPERLINK@www.StainedglassWorks.com]


GNOME DOORS CUSTOM MADE BY TOM DAVIS: [e-mail:toga@telus.net]
(Canada: 604-888-8030)
On ebay Tom Davis’s “gnome doors” are easy to spot: look for Langley, British Columbia for his business. We have several of his business cards here for the asking.


Thanks to our indispensable friend, Lynn C. Paterson, for her constant encouragement and support in our mutual insanity as well as the wonderful people filled with inspiration for us, and the good traders at Dave’s Garden. [HYPERLINK@www.davesgarden.com] - Carmen Perotta, Jeanette Smith, Michele Rhodes, Pheadra Gleaton, NancyAnn Gandy, Dorothie Hellman, Mary O’Connor, and my maray dost (“dear friend” in Urdu), Kaleem Muhammed of Pakistan.

House number at entrance to courtyard:

Entrance view:

Some of the annual containers in the courtyard:

My favorite, the purple container:

Undine, daughter of Neptune, with impatiens:

The Rose Garden is to the right side of the courtyard.
This is rose 'Queen Elizabeth' and Clematis 'Royalty':

On the left side of the courtyard is the springtime Master Bedroom Garden. When we open the blinds we see lupine, foxglove, Japanese irises, daylilies, sedum 'Autumn Joy', azaleas, daffodils, rhododendrons and a wandering river of muscari, along with lily of the valley, tall German bearded irises and this 'Love Pat' hosta:

This is the primary daylily garden. All varieties are named. It is to the left of the Master Bedroom Garden:

Pandora's Box is the most prolific of all the daylilies:

View of the vegetable garden with scarecrow:

Close up of the tomatoes on copper "tables" (made by Jack), the cucumber vine trellis, the bean trellis - you can tell Jack loves to work with copper!

We have most of our own 1364 hybridized daylilies on this, the northwest side of the house, including 'Becky Lynn' x 'Femme Fatale':

A terrible photo of Jack and I in the Obelisk Garden (yes, he made it) and you can spot the clematis 'Blue Moon' near the bottom of the clematis by the 'Blue Moon' hosta's flowers. We were married under a real blue moon on January 1, 1991:

Some of the Easter Lilies in the Obelisk Garden:

Hydrangea by the fireplace Oriental Garden:

A guest walking through one of the terrace gardens:

Guests in the rear of the terrace gardens:

Serving home made cookies and raspberry iced tea along with lemonade to a few guests:

A long view, from our neighbor's side, of our garden:

Two guests just found the gnome village:

Guests passing the Asiatic lilies going toward the Japanese iris garden and then the Obelisk garden on their right, ahead:

Jack explaining lupine seeds to a guest:

Guests and Jack on the northwest side:

The Harper Road side of the dogs pen:

The back of the dogs pen:

Blue Hydrangea at the rear, under the old Colorado Spruces:

Golden Marguerite with one of our hybrid daylilies:

Oriental lily 'Mona Lisa':

Long view of the gardens in the back:

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful! I know your not done, but I had to sneak in to say it!

The post lantern covered with clematis and zinnia with mums at the front by the rock:

The welcome mat is always out for you!

Hope you enjoyed our garden tour and look for part II, the "Visual Scavenger Hunt", after I take a break.

Thanks for joining us,
Arlene and Jack Ryan

Oh, Arlene, the tour is fantastic!! I wish I could be there in person. The color and arrangement of everything is just breathtaking! WOW!!!

And I love your beautiful creation nestled in with the golden marguerite. As we say down here in the South, "OOOOOH, girl, you done GOOD!" LOL

Thank you for the tour. I think I'll go back around again and see what I might have missed the first time.

NancyAnn

How sweet of Sue and you, BC! It's always nice to hear a compliment.

Arlene

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, !! Just amazing!! I knew your garden would be gorgeous, but I never dreamed just how beautiful it is in "real life." Your pictures are just wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing with us. It really made my day, just seeing all the combinations of plants, and your great guests that you had.

Carmen

This message was edited Jul 13, 2005 8:03 AM

Arlene, remember the other day I said when my gardens grow up, I want them to be like yours?? Well, I really really want them to now. That is absolutely astounding :)

Thanks so very much for sharing

Hugs,
Janis

Unbelievably gorgeous!! What a jaw-dropper...wow!

Wow..so beautiful....unbelievably..Thanks for the tour and made me felt like I was there. On each photos.. I keep saying wow, wow... I wish my yard would look like this.. maybe one day.. :o)

Thanks for sharing with us...

Tricia